Towards the end of 18th century, the Honourable East India Company held sway over most parts of the country with only two major Indian power centres remaining— the Marathas and Mysore. In the east, Bengal was firmly in British hands and Company Bahadur wasn’t interested in expanding eastwards. But trouble in the Ahom kingdom (Assam) presented the Company an opportunity to study the region: a critical move that decided the course of history for the next 150 years. 

The Moamariya Rebellion had broken out and the much-hated king Gaurinath Singha had lost his capital to the rebels. In that hour of panic, he was counselled by his ministers to seek help from the most dominant power in India, the Company Bahadur. The king approached Governor General Lord Cornwallis. The Company vacillated initially, as it was fighting a taxing war with Tipu Sultan in Mysore. But after the Siege of Srirangapatnam and the eventual signing of a treaty in 1792, the Company was once again in a position to concentrate on other affairs. That same year, Captain Thomas Welsh of the Bengal Army was sent to help the king with six companies of sepoys (each company having 60 fighting men). The whole unit didn’t exceed 550 men and included a small medical corps under Dr John Peter Wade.

The Bengal Army’s first military encounter with the local population happened towards the end of November, 1792. Darrang king Krishnanarayan had occupied northern Kamrup, including north Guwahati, and several requests by the English to disband his barkandaz (Hindustani mercenaries) army were ignored. So the Company forces gave battle. After two engagements, the king accepted defeat, expelled barkandazes from his army, and accepted vassalage of the Ahom king.

By early 1794, Captain Welsh began negotiations with the Moamariyas in upper Assam. Those fell through and once again, an armed encounter became imminent. The English crushed the militia and reinstated Gaurinath Singha as king. 

Considering the fact that this small detachment had just about 360 fighting men and opposed an enemy several times bigger, it’s really amazing how it could post defeat after defeat on the rebels. This hasn’t been studied in depth by scholars; at least the military importance of it has been ignored by many.

Firm believers in teamwork

The Company armies fought in true European fashion when it came to infantry. The Honourable East India Company, for a long time, didn’t have proper cavalry units, unlike their counterparts in the British Army. This was in stark contrast to the Indian armies, which relied totally on cavalry and gave minimum importance to infantry. Ahom army was an exception in this regard: it was probably the only army in the country that had no cavalry arm at all. Assamese had always been foot soldiers and brilliant in guerrilla warfare. Despite that, why couldn’t the Moamariyas fight at all with such a small infantry detachment? 

It goes without saying that the Company’s sepoys were better trained and led. They had better arms as well. The troops were well drilled and infused with the doggedness that English armies throughout the world at different theatres of war have displayed. Whatever be the circumstances, a British army would never break up and flee; they would hold their ground, no matter what. It was this superior will to prevail that probably made all the difference.

The English believed in fighting as a unit, more or less like the Roman centurions. And they also knew how to use their guns effectively in battle.

In a typical English line formation, troops would fire their muskets one after the other. So, if it the line had 60 men, then 60 shots would ring out in a minute, sometimes in less than a minute. When the last man on one side had fired his weapon, the first man on the other end was ready for his next shot. This way, constant fire could be maintained. And no man, either on foot or on horse, would find it easy to advance in face of constant gunfire.

In the row formation, troops would form two rows, and the front row would kneel. All guns would open up at the same time. This tactic was called volley fire. Against a superior force, the English deployed a third tactic by keeping four rows of infantry. After the first two rows had discharged their guns, they would fall back and two fresh rows would take their place.

This type of formation had another advantage: it could be easily converted into a phalanx formation, four-men deep. In case the enemy broke past defences and reached the line, the troops would fix bayonets and hold the advance. This was particularly effective against cavalry charges.

A fourth tactic, the square style of infantry fighting, was usually adopted to counter cavalry charges. At a critical juncture during the Battle of Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington moved his troops back in order to protect them from cannonade. Marshall Ney thought the English were retreating. At once, the French cavalry charged; but upon reaching the English line, they found that the enemy hadn’t retreated, but formed fighting squares. Napoleon’s elite cavalry was massacred as the English resorted to volley fire (the English weren’t any lucky with their cavalry either: earlier in the day, the British had made a cavalry charge, too, with the Royal Scots Greys at the helm. This charge broke up as Napoleon matched them with his Polish lancers).

During the climax of the Battle of Blenheim in 1704, which was fought during the Spanish War of Succession, nine battalions of French infantry tried to hold their line by making an abortive bid of forming infantry squares after General Tallard’s cavalry broke up. However, Colonel Blood’s close artillery fire combined with platoon volley fire cut them down.

Even before the advent of firearms, military strategists had found out that horses couldn’t jump over pike formations. At the battles of Falkirk (1298) and Bannockburn (1314), the Scottish pike formations or schiltrons had frustrated English heavy cavalry charges. This evolved into infantry squares in the gunpowder age.

A beauty without a match

By the 1790s, the Company’s troops were provided the Short-land Pattern .75 calibre flintlock musket and the India pattern (highly accurate) of the same musket. This weapon, popularly known as the Brown Bess, was used in the Napoleonic Wars, too, with great success. Troops in Captain Welsh’s detachment had any of these two muskets or both. This was a high-performance musket, which was easier to load. A sepoy carried about 60 rounds of ammunition with him in the form of paper cartridges that contained both the powder and the musket ball. It took about a minute (average 43 seconds for three shots) for an expert soldier to fire four rounds. 

In contrast, the Moamariyas were poorly armed and poorly led. They were completely alien to European fighting style. Besides, they didn’t have any firearms worth the name, barring a few matchlocks, which were obsolete and stood no chance against the Brown Bess. The Ahoms themselves didn’t have any muskets. Purnananda Burhagohain, the Ahom prime minister and commander-in-chief, was particularly impressed by the British weapons and their drilled infantry. Most Moamariyas fought with whatever weapon they could find: swords, pikes, pick-axes, spears, and even bamboo sticks. The battles were over even before they began.

In 1794, when Sir John Shore replaced Lord Cornwallis, he recalled the expedition of Captain Welsh; but the English would bank heavily on the accounts of Capt Welsh and Dr Wade later and successfully annex the kingdom in 1826.