The Indian Mutiny

Julian Spilsbury reconstructs the Indian Rebellion of 1857 from the outbreak among East India Company troops to the fighting that engulfed Delhi, Cawnpore, Lucknow and other centres across northern India. He sets military events against the grievances created by annexation, army service, political change and fears of religious interference, while following the collapse of Company authority and the emergence of very different local rebel leaderships.

Using eyewitness accounts from soldiers and civilians on both sides, the book describes sieges, massacres, relief columns and the increasingly brutal reprisals that accompanied the British reconquest. It also follows the rebellion’s political consequences: the end of East India Company government, the transfer of India to the Crown and the reorganisation of an army whose loyalties had become one of the central questions of empire.