First Anglo-Sikh War

Between December 1845 and March 1846 the British East India Company fought and defeated the Sikh Empire of the Punjab in a short but very bloody campaign along the Sutlej river, which is why the conflict is also called the Sutlej War. The Treaty of Lahore that ended it stripped the kingdom of valuable territory, detached Kashmir, and placed the Lahore government under effective British supervision.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh had built the Sikh Empire into a strong state in the early nineteenth century, keeping a cautious friendship with the British while modernising his army on the French model. After his death in 1839 the court at Lahore fell into a cycle of intrigue and killing. His son Kharak Singh was removed and died in prison; his grandson Nau Nihal Singh died within months after an archway fell on him; Sher Singh was murdered in 1843; and the vizier Jawahar Singh was killed by the army in September 1845. Real power passed to the regent Jind Kaur, mother of the child Maharaja Duleep Singh, and to the army itself, whose regimental committees claimed to speak for the whole Sikh nation.

The army grew rapidly in these years, by one estimate from 29,000 men in 1839 to over 80,000 by 1845, with a large and capable artillery. The new vizier, Lal Singh, and the commander, Tej Singh, both belonged to the Dogra faction at court.

The Company, meanwhile, strengthened its forces near the frontier, building a cantonment at Firozpur close to the Sutlej, and in 1843 annexed neighbouring Sindh. Historians disagree about British aims. Most British accounts present the build-up as defensive against an army that no one in Lahore could control; Sikh and Indian historians argue it was preparation for conquest, pointing to equipment such as bridging trains and siege guns. On 11 December 1845 Sikh troops began crossing the Sutlej, and the British treated this as an act of war.

The Commander-in-Chief, Sir Hugh Gough, accompanied by the Governor-General, Sir Henry Hardinge, met Lal Singh's force at Mudki on 18 December and won a scrappy encounter. Three days later, on 21 December, Gough assaulted the fortified Sikh camp at Ferozeshah. Sikh guns inflicted heavy losses, and by nightfall Hardinge feared defeat. The next morning the British cleared the camp, and when Tej Singh's army arrived it withdrew without pressing an attack, a decision that has puzzled observers ever since.

In January 1846 Sikh forces crossed again towards Ludhiana and harried Sir Harry Smith's column at Baddowal on 21 January, but Smith won a clear victory at Aliwal on 28 January. The decisive battle came at Sobraon on 10 February, where the Sikhs held strong entrenchments on the east bank. After an artillery duel and costly assaults, British and Indian troops broke in. The bridge of boats behind the Sikh lines gave way, trapping a large part of the army; Sikh accounts accuse Tej Singh of sabotaging it, while British accounts attribute the collapse to the swollen river. The Sikhs lost perhaps 8,000 to 10,000 men that day.

By the Treaty of Lahore of 9 March 1846, the Sikhs ceded the Jullundur Doab and owed an indemnity of 15 million rupees. Unable to pay in full, they also surrendered Kashmir and hill territories between the Beas and the Indus. By the Treaty of Amritsar, the Raja of Jammu, Gulab Singh, then bought Kashmir from the Company for 7.5 million rupees. In December 1846 the Treaty of Bhyroval replaced the regent with a British resident and a council of regency, giving the Company effective control of government.

Sikh historians have long argued that Lal Singh and Tej Singh deliberately sought to break their own army. Anger at British interference led, within three years, to the Second Anglo-Sikh War.

Our 1815 map shows the Sikh Empire at the height of Ranjit Singh's power beside the expanding Company domains, and the 1878 map shows the Punjab absorbed into the British Raj.