In giving an assessment of the total force of Daulat Rao Sindia in the north, it is necessary to recall that he had the capacity, which he did not use well, to reinforce the north from the Deccan. Of the formed infantry brigades all under the overall command of Perron, some 22 battalions, in all about 17,000 men, in the area Aligarh–Delhi–Agra. There would have been a considerable force of both regular and irregular cavalry in addition, certainly numbering at least 20,000. It should be emphasized that after 1818 the Sindias still had large regular contingents, which were now no longer engaged in campaigns for territorial expansion. Large bodies of troops were concentrated in the main cantonments such as Gwalior. These troops increasingly became a powerful factor in Sindia politics. Even as late as the early 1840s the total number of troops in the army stood at over 40,000. The outward form of Mahadji’s army had survived more or less intact. There were thirty infantry regiments (paltan) in all, to which were attached six contingents (ghol) of irregulars (najib) and six contingents (risala) of cavalry. These were grouped into brigades (campoos), of which the most important were Colonel Jacob’s campoo (ten paltans), the Maharaj campoo (seven paltans) and Sikandar’s (Major Alexander’s) campoo (four paltans). The total strength of the infantry was 30,670 (including the ghols).20 The strength of the cavalry, now mainly for ‘parade and pomp’, was 10,056.21 Another element of continuity was the presence of officers of European descent, who still led some of the largest infantry contingents. The three most prominent officers were the veteran Jean Baptiste Filose of Neapolitan descent, Colonel Jacob of Armenian descent and Major Alexander of Portuguese descent. More than half the revenues of the state were spent on maintaining the troops.22 Page-54, Narcotrafficking, princely ingenuity and the Raj The subjugation of the Sindia state, c.1843–44 by Amar Farooqui in India’s Princely States by Waltraund Ernst and Biswamoy Pati.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 11:28:56 +0000
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