Bengal Army


The Bengal Army was the army of the Bengal Presidency, one of the three presidencies of British India within the British Empire.
It was formed in 1756 and underwent various re-organisations, including the creation of irregular infantry and cavalry regiments during the 1840s. It was originally recruited from high-caste Hindus but more diversity was introduced after 1857.
The presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the East India Company until the Government of India Act 1858, passed in the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, transferred all three presidencies to the direct authority of the British Crown. In 1895 the three presidency armies were merged into the British Indian Army.

History

Origins

The Bengal Army originated with the establishment of a European Regiment in 1756. While the East India Company had previously maintained a small force of Dutch and Eurasian mercenaries in Bengal, this was destroyed when Calcutta was captured by the Nawab of Bengal on 30 June that year.

East India Company

In 1757, the first locally recruited unit of Bengal sepoys was created in the form of the Lal Paltan battalion. It was recruited from soldiers that had served in the Nawab's Army from Bihar and the Awadh who were collectively called Purbiyas. Drilled and armed along British army lines this force served well at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and 20 more Indian battalions were raised by 1764. In 1766, the Monghyr Mutiny, quelled by Robert Clive, affected many of the white officers of the Bengal Army.
In his deposition, Lieutenant General Jasper Nicolls, who was an army commander stationed in India, stated of the Bengal Army's recruitment that:
The East India Company steadily expanded its Bengal Army and by 1796 the establishment was set at three battalions of European artillery, three regiments of European infantry, ten regiments of Indian cavalry and twelve regiments of Indian infantry.
In 1824 the Bengal Army underwent reorganisation, with the regular infantry being grouped into 68 single battalion regiments numbered according to their date of establishment. Nine additional infantry regiments were subsequently raised, though several existing units were disbanded between 1826 and 1843. On the eve of the First Afghan War the Bengal Army had achieved a dominant role in the forces of the HEIC. There were 74 battalions of Bengal regular infantry against only 52 from Madras, 26 from Bombay and 24 British. On average an inch and a half taller and a stone heavier than the southern Indian troops, the Bengal sepoy was highly regarded by a military establishment that tended to evaluate its soldiers by physical appearance.
A new feature in the Bengal Army was the creation of irregular infantry and cavalry regiments during the 1840s. Originally designated as "Local Infantry" these were permanently established units but with less formal drill and fewer British officers than the regular Bengal line regiments.
The main source of recruitment continued to be high caste Brahmins, Bhumihars and Rajputs from Bihar and Oudh, although the eight regular cavalry regiments consisted mainly of Muslim sowars from the Indian Muslim biradaris such as the Ranghar, Sheikhs, Sayyids, Mughals, and Hindustani Pathans.
Another innovation introduced prior to 1845 was to designate specific regiments as "Volunteers" – that is recruited for general service, with sepoys who had accepted a commitment for possible overseas duty. Recruits for the Bengal Army who were prepared to travel by ship if required, received a special allowance or batta. Two of these BNI regiments were serving in China in 1857 and so escaped any involvement in the great rebellion of that year. The East India Company's Bengal Army in 1857 consisted of 151,361 men of all ranks, of whom the great majority - 128,663 - were Indians.

Indian Rebellion 1857

A total of 64 Bengal Army regular infantry and cavalry regiments rebelled during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, or were disbanded after their continued loyalty was considered doubtful. From 1858 onwards the Chamars and the actual high-caste Awadhi and Bihari Hindu presence in the Bengal Army was reduced because of their perceived primary role as "mutineers" in the 1857 rebellion. The new and less homogeneous Bengal Army was essentially drawn from Punjabi Muslims, Sikhs, Gurkhas, Baluchis and Pathans, although twelve of the pre-mutiny Bengal line infantry regiments continued in service with the same basis of recruitment, traditions and uniform colours as before.
A largely unspoken rationale was that an army of diverse origins was unlikely to unite in rebellion.

Demise

In 1895 the three separate Presidency Armies began a process of unification which was not to be concluded until the Kitchener reforms of eight years later.
As an initial step the Army of India was divided into four commands, each commanded by a lieutenant-general. These comprised Bengal, Bombay, Madras and Punjab. In 1903 the separately numbered regiments of the Bombay, Madras and Bengal Armies were unified in a single organisational sequence and the presidency affiliations disappeared.
The Bengal infantry units in existence at the end of the Presidency era continued as the senior regiments of the newly unified Indian Army.

Ethnic composition

The Bengal Army of the East India Company was mainly recruited from high castes living in Bihar and the Awadh.
Prior to 1857, company military service was most popular in the zamindaris of North and South Bihar with the East India Company signing contracts to raise levies of troops from them. Recruits from the Rajput and Brahman caste were common and they would use service in the Bengal Army as an opportunity to raise their wealth and status and for this reason, the Bhumihar zamindaris of Bihar became "prime recruiting grounds" for the Army.
In the 1780s, the Company maintained a major recruiting station in Buxar with six companies under a Captain Eaton. These recruiting stations in Bihar were kept as "nurseries" which supplied battalions when drafts were made. Other recruiting centres were located in Bhagalpur, Shahabad, Monghyr, Saran and Hajipur.
Brigadier Troup, who served as the commander of Bareilly, stated of recruitment that the ‘Bengal native Infantry came chiefly from the province of Awadh, Buxar, Bhojpur and Arrah.’
In 1810, Francis Buchanan-Hamilton noted in his account of the districts of Bihar, that the number of men absent from Shahabad to serve in the Army was 4680. The Ujjainiya zamindar of Bhojpur also informed him that 12000 recruits from his district had joined the Bengal Army.
Writing in The Indian Army, Sir John Malcolm, who had a lifetime's experience of Indian soldiering, wrote: "They consist largely of Rajpoots, who are a distinguished race. We may judge the size of these men when we are told that the height below which no recruit is taken is five feet six inches. The great proportion of the Grenadiers are six feet and upwards."
Both prior to and following 1857, the Bengal Army included what were to become some of the most famous units in India: Skinner's Horse, the Gurkhas from the Himalayas and the Corps of Guides on the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Composition in 1856

Cavalry

Bengal Regular Cavalry

These were:
  • 1st Regiment of Light Cavalry
  • 2nd Regiment of Light Cavalry
  • 3rd Regiment of Light Cavalry
  • 4th Regiment of Light Cavalry
  • 5th Regiment of Light Cavalry
  • 6th Regiment of Light Cavalry
  • 7th Regiment of Light Cavalry
  • 8th Regiment of Light Cavalry
  • 9th Regiment of Light Cavalry
  • 10th Regiment of Light Cavalry

    Bengal Irregular Cavalry

These were:
  • 1st Irregular Cavalry
  • 2nd Irregular Cavalry
  • 3rd Irregular Cavalry
  • 4th Irregular Cavalry
  • 5th Irregular Cavalry
  • 6th Irregular Cavalry
  • 7th Irregular Cavalry
  • 8th Irregular Cavalry
  • 9th Irregular Cavalry
  • 10th Irregular Cavalry
  • 11th Irregular Cavalry
  • 12th Irregular Cavalry
  • 13th Irregular Cavalry
  • 14th Irregular Cavalry
  • 15th Irregular Cavalry
  • 16th Irregular Cavalry
  • 17th Irregular Cavalry
  • 18th Irregular Cavalry

    Artillery

Bengal Horse Artillery

These were:
  • 1st Brigade
  • * 3 European Troops
  • * 2 Native Troops
  • 2nd Brigade
  • * 3 European Troops
  • * Native Troop
  • 3rd Brigade
  • * 3 European Troops
  • * Native Troop

    Bengal European Foot Artillery (4 companies per battalion)

These were:
  • 1st Battalion
  • 2nd Battalion
  • 3rd Battalion
  • 4th Battalion
  • 5th Battalion
  • 6th Battalion

    Bengal Native Foot Artillery (6 companies per battalion)

These were:
  • 1st Battalion
  • 2nd Battalion
  • 3rd Battalion

    Engineers

Corps of Engineers

These were:

Corps of [Bengal Sappers and Miners]

These were:

Infantry

Bengal European Infantry

These were:
These were:
File:Hindu priest garlanding the flags of the 35th Bengal Light Infantry - BL Add.Or.741.jpg|thumb|Hindu priests garlanding the colours of the 35th Bengal Light Infantry at a Presentation of Colours ceremony,
  • 1st Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 2nd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 3rd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 4th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 5th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 6th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 7th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 8th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 9th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 10th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 11th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 12th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 13th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 14th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 15th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 16th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 17th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 18th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 19th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 20th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 21st Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 22nd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 23rd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 24th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 25th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 26th Regiment of Bengal Light Infantry
  • 27th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 28th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 29th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 30th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 31st Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 32nd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 33rd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 34th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 35th Regiment of Bengal Light Infantry
  • 36th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 37th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 38th Regiment of Bengal Light Infantry
  • 39th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 40th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 41st Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 42nd Regiment of Bengal Light Infantry
  • 43rd Regiment of Bengal Light Infantry
  • 44th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 45th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 46th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 47th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 48th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 49th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 50th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 51st Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 52nd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 53rd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 54th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 55th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 56th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 57th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 58th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 59th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 60th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 61st Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 62nd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 63rd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 64th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 65th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 66th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 67th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 68th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 69th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 70th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 71st Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 72nd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 73rd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry
  • 74th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry