Talk:Siege of Delhi

British / East India Company strength

There has been an ongoing edit war regarding this. Specifically, references to Field Marshal Roberts's memoirs are repeatedly being removed and replaced with figures from Britannica and Dalrymple. My objections are:

• When the Deputy Assistant Quarter-master General for an army (Roberts), responsible for collating troop numbers, and feeding them and supplying them with ammunition, takes the trouble to note the precise strengths of the troops he is reponsible for, this number should be regarded as authoritative.
• Britannica's figures are in the right ball park, but not 100% accurate and omit several contingents (Baluchis; Kashmiris; Jhind). Also, in classing British troops as "regulars" and by implication dismissing the Gurkhas, Sikhs and Pathans as "irregulars", it creates an artificial distinction. Although these contingents belonged to "irregular" units of the Company's Bengal Army or the "Punjab Irregular Force", this does NOT mean that they were disorderly crowds of freebooters. It meant that their terms of enlistment were peculiar to the region(s) in which they were raised. They also had only seven British officers per battalion instead of twenty-six in the "regular" Bengal Army units. This was not a weakness; native personnel of merit could naturally occupy positions of responsibility and initiative, rather than all native personnel being promoted purely on seniority and all responsibility being stifled by the hordes of British officers, so that even the most senior native officers of the rebellious Bengal Native Infantry were mainly superannuated lance-naiks (lance-corporals). The two Gurkha units present in the besieging army were raised in 1815 following the Anglo-Nepali war; the Sikh and Pathan ("Punjabi") units were raised in 1846 - 1849, in the aftermath of the Anglo-Sikh wars. These units later formed the backbone of the Indian Army. There were some hastily organised corps of volunteers present e.g. Hodson's Horse, but between them they would be unlikely to number more than a few hundred, and their numbers were not recorded.
• If Dalrymple (who was writing largely from the rebel perspective) does not specifically note the presence of a Kashmiri contingent in the besiegers, this does NOT mean that they were not there. Roberts is again authoritative on this point. (Note that the Kashmiri contingent's contribution is also referenced in Hibbert, Edwardes etc.)
• Likewise, if the state of Patiala is to be included in the info. box as being part of the British force, then some description of their contribution should be included.
• The "PintreeWeb" site is a Scouting Jamboree site, and does not contain (or no longer contains) any part of Roberts's memoirs. I have restored the Project Gutenberg page for these.

In short, please do not replace Roberts's figures with some figure plucked from an unauthoritative or tangential tertiary website, or remove any contingent because some other site fails to mention them. HLGallon (talk) 15:32, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Edit War: Jihad/Mujahideen

This edit war may well be in slow motion, but it is just the same ridiculous that the same small mention - relating to irregular forces - is being deleted and reinstated quite so often. Could those responsible please discuss the contentious issue HERE before yet again changing the text? For myself I have no idea what the deleters find objectionable, nor what the re-instaters wish to establish. Thomas Peardew (talk) 14:32, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

The reason for the deletion was stated to be because the mention was "unsourced". So it was, but plenty of sources exist. The cite I have belatedly added (Hibbery (1980), p.279) relies on the first-hand account of Syed Mubarak Shah, a police official in Delhi, who stated:

Fully five thousand men from various quarters poured into Delhi as Ghazis ... dressed in blue and green turbans. All these Ghazis received two annas a day from the King. They usually joined in the attacks on the British lines... Several of the fanatics engaged in hand to hand combat and great numbers were killed by the Europeans ... and some Europeans were killed by them.

Hibbert also quotes an unnamed source which states that on one occasion, the King announced that he would sally from the city in person, and "...upwards of 10,000 Mohammmedans [sic] congregated near the Kashmir Gate and waited till midnight for the arrival of the King." HLGallon (talk) 22:53, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

POV pushing

If IP's keep on adding material that is not backed up by sources I will ask for PP, make a case at talk. Slatersteven (talk) 13:00, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

PP now asked for. Slatersteven (talk) 13:17, 21 May 2022 (UTC)