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LARD
By Bill Fawcett
Not being socially aware can make a difference.
This is one time when sensitivity training would have paid off. The mistake that changed the Indian subcontinent was not made by a general or a rajah; it was made by a clerk and bureaucrat somewhere in England. The British Empire spanned the world, and the boast that the sun never set on the empire was true. At any time, the sun shone on Britain or one of her colonies. The largest, the richest, and the most important of these colonies was India.
The British ruled India through the East India Company. Having conquered or bought off almost all of the local rulers, the company controlled the entire subcontinent. The backbone of their rule was the Company Army. This consisted of a limited number of actual British units on loan to the company and a much larger number of “sepoy” units. These were composed of native soldiers who served under European officers. The sepoy divisions were armed as well as the British troops with modern weapons. They were trained in the same tactics as the Royal Army and many were known for their skill and courage. For many years, there was a strong bond between the Indian soldiers and their British officers. A mistake by the supply office back in England managed to destroy this bond in a matter of weeks.
It was decided to equip all of the units in India with the Pattern 1853 Enfield, which was the most modern weapon of its day. The Enfield rifle had a ladder rear sight that allowed for dramatically more accurate fire at longer ranges. Until a short time before, to load a weapon you put a pinch of powder on the firing mechanism, then poured a quantity of powder down the muzzle and covered the loose powder by inserting a piece of cloth or paper (a wad) with your ramrod to hold it in place. The next step was to drop in a musket ball, which you then tamped down on top of the paper with your ramrod. An elite rifleman could load and fire three, occasionally four times a minute. One of the innovations of the Enfield design was that it used a cartridge. This put all the elements in one piece and greatly simplified loading. The cartridge was a paper container with powder in one end and the bullet in the other. To load a rifle using the Enfield’s cartridge, you simply bit off and spat out the end of the cartridge and then poured the powder down the barrel. Since the ball was wrapped in the paper, its wad was built in. You inserted both the wad and the ball at the same time, saving one complete step in the process. This cartridge could almost double the rate of fire and guaranteed that each shot used the same amount of powder.
The only real drawback to the new cartridge was that it was harder to push down into the barrel. This problem was solved by covering the cartridge in lard. Lard lubricated the barrel as the cartridge was pushed down and simplified loading. The heat of the weapon’s firing burned away any remnants of the lard, keeping the barrel clean. The lard coating had the added advantage of weatherproofing the cartridges by keeping the powder dry. Issuing the new Enfield rifled muskets to the Indian troops would allow them to fire more quickly and more accurately.
The new rifles were issued in March of 1857. There was only one problem with this great improvement. Lard is composed of a mixture of cow and pig fat. The population of India was either Hindu or Muslim. In the Hindu religion, cows are sacred beasts. To slaughter one is a serious sin. To use the fat that came from a slaughtered cow was sacrilege. Even today, in India the meat patties in a McDonald’s burger are mutton, not beef. To make matters worse, the Koran says, “Forbidden to you [for food] are: dead meat, blood, the flesh of swine, and that on which hath been invoked the name of other than Allah.” Any Muslim sepoy who bit off the end of an Enfield cartridge was putting his soul in danger. No one in England had thought of this.
Discipline in any British army unit was harsh in 1857. With just a few officers controlling hundreds of sepoys, the British felt that any disobedience had to be severely punished. So when the soldiers were unwilling to even touch the new cartridges, much less bite the ends off of them, they were punished. This often involved flogging or worse. Rather than use the new cartridges, entire units revolted. The sepoy mutiny spread quickly. Those who were not soldiers, but resented company rule, joined in. Atrocities followed on both sides as rebelling sepoys killed any Europeans they encountered, even women and children. In response, the revolt was put down by the English units and others who remained loyal (yes, using the new Enfield rifles to great effect). Those considered to have led or commanded rebels, when captured, were often tied across the front of a cannon and the gun fired. The mutineers even captured Delhi. Desperate battles in which each side knew the other would offer no mercy occurred at Delhi, Lucknow, and Kanpur. By the time peace was officially declared in July of 1858, tens of thousands had died.
The Indian people never forgot the ferocity with which the mutiny was suppressed. Nor could they forget that the sepoys were forced to revolt by a demand that they perform an act of sacrilege. Muslim and Hindu shared a great sense of betrayal and bitterness.
If the Enfield cartridge had not been coated with something anathema to virtually every person in India, the introduction of the rifle would have gone smoothly. The independence movement that culminated with Gandhi was rooted in the injustice of the mutiny and its suppression. If the men most loyal to the company and Britain had not been forced to mutiny, the next century would likely have seen a closer bond between England and India, and greater Indian participation in WWI and WWII.