Diary Of Colonel Bayly

Excerpt from Diary of Colonel Bayly, 12th Regiment: 1796-1830 Come, come, Robert, this is carrying the joke too far you will make me melancholy if you talk in this manner; I may also lose a leg, and then she will like me the better for the dangers I have been through. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Bayly was commissioned in the 12th Foot (later The Suffolk Regiment) in 1796 at the age of 16 and served with the regiment for the next 34 years. As a young subaltern he obviously had an eye for the girls, in fact his descriptions could suggest he was the original wolf-whistler. He got the wrong girl when stationed on the Isle of Wight; her two hefty brothers gave him a hammering and kicking and threw him into the street where two passing soldiers picked him up. No doubt they dined out on that story. Duelling was another feature of his time and in one Bayly he fought over some trifling incident, he fired wide but his opponent, only eight feet away, took careful aim but his pistol misfired, whereupon our hero called out: Captain Crawford, that cannot be considered as a shot, therefore fire again! What a splendid sportsman! What a complete idiot! Fortunately Crawford declined the offer, otherwise there may have been no memoirs for us to read. Much of Bayly s service was in India and in one passage he describes his baggage for six months field service: two bullocks laden with biscuits, two with wine and brandy, two with his trunks, four for the marquee and in addition two personal servants and six coolies to carry his furniture, in all ten bullocks and eight servants most of whom were accompanied by their entire families - grandparents, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and whole generations of children; and Bayly was just one young subaltern in an expedition 20,000 strong. His descriptions of active service in India are very vivid, none more so than the campaign against Tippoo Sahib and the bloody fighting for Seringapatam. Of particular interest in this battle is Bayly s account of the behaviour of Colonel Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) commanding the 33rd Foot whose attack on a wood was repulsed with great slaughter. Apparently Wellesley took to flight, abandoning his command leaving it to his 2IC, Major Shea, who didn t know what had happened to his CO. The general opinion was that Wellesley should have been court-martialled but his brother was Governor General of India and that, according to Bayly, saved his skin. Bayly s final posting was to Gibraltar in September 1828 where he assumed command of the regiment. He arrived just in time for the outbreak of yellow fever, a plague that took 4,000 lives in the first six weeks and ran on for three months. Bayly finally retired in 1830 and leaving Gibraltar he gave it a real soldier s farewell, bidding adieu to that hot-bed of vice, filth and disease, the barren rock of Gibraltar. This is a highly entertaining memoir.

This “superb account of the British Army under Wellington in India reads like one of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels, or, better still, a Flashman novel” (Books Monthly). The Peninsular War and the Napoleonic Wars across Europe are subjects of such enduring interest that they have prompted extensive research and writing. Yet other campaigns, in what was a global war, have been largely ignored. Such is the case for the war in India which persisted for much of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods and peaked in the years 1798-1805 with the campaigns of Arthur Wellesley—later the Duke of Wellington—and General Lake in the Deccan and Hindustan. That is why this new study by Martin Howard is so timely and important. While it fully acknowledges Wellington’s vital role, it also addresses the nature of the warring armies, the significance of the campaigns of Lake in North India, and leaves the reader with an understanding of the human experience of war in the region. For this was a brutal conflict in which British armies clashed with the formidable forces of the Sultan of Mysore and the Maratha princes. There were dramatic pitched battles at Assaye, Argaum, Delhi and Laswari, and epic sieges at Seringapatam, Gawilghur and Bhurtpore. The British success was not universal. “An absorbing account of Wellesley/Lord Wellington which shows how his actions in India had a significant effect on the development of the British Empire and events through to the modern era.—Highly Recommended.” —Firetrench “An eye opener on the power and influence of the East India Company at this time. A jolly good read.” —Clash of Steel