Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Recent discussions on Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer’s role in Amritsar (April 1919) spawned this piece. It may seem unfair that someone who committed an arguably dastardly deed remains better known than other more worthy folk. In giving the thoughts below no opinion is offered on the rights or wrongs of their causes, rather such meanderings are intended to focus entirely on the individual; of course, fashions in causes change, resulting in fluctuations in the levels of interest in historical figures.

Does an early death of a ‘high achiever’ (for want of a better term) necessarily reduce the chances of him/her being remembered by future generations? There are perhaps too many variables to decide for or against such a thought; after all history is constantly being revisited which often results in re-igniting memories of the almost forgotten. On-going re-examinations are inevitably influenced by contemporary thinking and mores as well as by the unearthing of new information. So, let’s just suggest that dying young is unhelpful to the cause of being remembered while considering examples for and against such a contention.

A hero in many children’s books of my early years was the Battle of Jutland hero John (Jack) Cornwell VC who, as a sailor boy of a mere 16 years, made the ultimate sacrifice manning his gun under unremitting enemy fire. I wonder how many remember his name now, particularly as he represents the category of a single event hero. Whereas it is probably the case that many are familiar with Ann Frank (D. 15 years) and Joan of Arc (D. C19 years) neither of whom represent the single event category. None of these ever reached real adulthood although at least two are still widely remembered.

There are many who achieved Andy Warhol’s ‘15 minutes of fame’. Consider the talented and hugely likeable Sailing Gold Medallist Bart Simpson (D. 36 years). I suspect he is already a distant memory to most of the population. Yet had he lived, armed with his undoubted skill and compelling personality, he may well have transmogrified into a long-lasting household names. But does being cut down in one’s prime mean fame is short lived? Perhaps not if, for example, one considers James Wolfe (D. 32 years) who triumphed at Battle of the Plains of Abraham, Quebec although, in his case, Benjamin West’s famous painting The Death of General Wolfe may have helped to secure his lasting recognition.

While a work of art may help to perpetuate the memory of the great and famous, that may not be the case with the written word. Many books have been written about ‘The Hero of Delhi’ aka the ‘Lion of the Punjab’ but today Brigadier-General John Nicholson is hardly a household name notwithstanding this thought from Look and Learn Issue Number 808 (9 July 1977): “[Nicholson] instantly joined Nelson and Wolfe in that special niche in the hearts of Britons reserved for those who are unlucky enough to be killed in their hour of greatest triumph”.

George Nicholson standing beside the statue of General Nicholson in the grounds of the Royal School Dungannon.  George and Lord Louis Mountbatten were instrumental in recovering the statue to the General’s alma mater.

Authors such as Hesketh Pearson and Captain Lionel J Trotter have focused entirely on Nicholson while many others have dwelt in some depth on the man, including: Charles Allen, William Dalrymple and, most recently, Lieutenant-General Sir Christopher Wallace in his book Rifles and Kukris: Delhi, 1857 which offers a very detailed narrative of the siege. Further, in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim we meet natives singing the ‘Song of Nikul Seyn before Delhi’ and ballads in his honour were written for English Schoolboys, but counter-intuitively they persisted among the native Indians as well; indeed a cult developed. Nicholson even features in a Flashman novel.

Unlike a painting, the written word allows for detailed examination of historical figures sometimes, and perhaps too often, influenced by later mores rather than those that prevailed at the time. And so some, like William Dalrymple, take a rather dim view of Nicholson, describing him as the “great imperial psychopath”; for my part, I am inclined to place more value on the words of his contemporaries, such titans as Field Marshal Roberts, Sir Henry Lawrence, Herbert Edwardes and Neville Chamberlain.

Perishing at 34 years, Nicholson had reached the peak of his intellectual and physical powers and usefulness. However, he had already achieved much, both militarily and administratively. As an administrator he developed a reputation for fairness and speed of delivery which may have been helped by his distaste for Rules and Regulations: “After the [Anglo-Sikh] war the Punjab was annexed to India and Nicholson became one of the administrators. The moment had come to observe the rules of the Book, but that was not his way.” His fairness was however underscored by an advocacy of discipline. Assuming that harsh discipline is fairly and evenly applied, in most situations, it is accepted and he probably enhanced his acceptability by learning Urdu.

In January 1852, Nicholson had been appointed the new Deputy Commissioner of the largely lawless Bannu area. Nicholson proved to be ruthless in bringing peace and order to the region showing zero tolerance to crime or any perceived disrespect of British rule, often using flogging or other similar methods both to punish and humiliate anyone who risked infringing the law. At first, he was feared for his foul temper and authoritarian manner but Nicholson soon gained the respect of the Afghan and North Punjabi tribes in the area for his fairness and sense of honour as well as his almost complete elimination of crime. This piece from Herbert Edwardes (quoted in Allen’s Soldier Sahibs) offers a useful summary:

“I only knocked down the walls of the Bannu forts. John Nicholson had since reduced the people – the most ignorant, depraved and bloodthirsty in the Punjab – to such a state of good order and respect for the laws, that in the last year of his charge, not only was there no murder, burglary or highway robbery, but not an attempt at any of those crimes. The Bannuchis, reflecting on their own metamorphosis in the village gatherings under the vines, by the streams they once delighted to fight for, have come to the conclusion that the good Mohammedans of historic ages must have been just like Nikalsain. They emphatically approve him as every inch a Hakim [master]. And so he is.”

During the Anglo-Sikh War he built on his reputation for bravery as this incident portrays:

“Nicholson leaped from his horse and wrestled the musket away from the nearest Sepoy before shouting at them to lay down their arms and leave the fort, which the stunned Sikh garrison promptly did. This action, which was to become the first of Nicholson’s famed exploits among the Sikhs, had enabled him to secure the vital fort without firing a single shot.”

Meerut Church (2007) the seat of the Mutiny

Having proved his bravery in various skirmishes in the Anglo-Sikh Wars, the Mutiny/1st War of Indian Independence in 1857 offered Nicholson the opportunity to command. He cut his senior command teeth at Najafgarh (25 August) where he ignored General Wilson’s orders to stick to the roads, instead opting to lead the Column on a short-cut through flooded boggy terrain thereby wrong-footing the rebels who had anticipated an assault from another direction. Aside from capturing the rebels artillery pieces the rebel losses were 900 killed as against 30 in Nicholson’s column.

Encapsulating the leadership qualities of Nicholson is tricky but, aside from personal bravery, they might be summarised as a willingness to disobey orders in the interests of success; the moral fibre to speak his mind throughout the chain of command; a determination to see the plan through whatever the intervening challenges; and leading by example from the front. The combination of the last two elements is well summarised by a Gunner Officer who told John Coke (Coke’s Rifles, Later 1st Punjab Infantry):

“At one time the water was over the horses’ backs, and he thought they could not possibly get out of their difficulties. But he looked ahead and saw Nicholson’s great form riding steadily on as if nothing was the matter, and he felt sure all was right.”

Within a month of the Najafgarh triumph Nicholson would be dead, having been mortally wounded at the Kashmir Gate leading the assault on Delhi – a cruel blow bearing in mind he was at the peak of his powers and usefulness.

As modern historians examine the entrails of long ago events against a revisionist backdrop, to me the arbiter of a General’s worth should be those who served under his command. So, I am content to base my judgement on the reaction of Pathans, Afghans, and others of the Multani Horse [aka the mixed Punjabi and Pakhtum Horse] to Nicholson’s death, summarised in Soldier Sahibs by Charles Allen:

“Throwing themselves on the ground, they sobbed and wept as if their very hearts were breaking; and be it remembered that these men held the creed, that a man who shed tears was only fit to be whipped out of his village by the women. Probably not one of these men had ever shed a tear; but for them Nicholson was everything. For him they left their frontier homes, for him they had forsaken their beloved hills to come down to the detested plains; they acknowledged none but him, they served none but him. They believed, as others, that the bullet was not cast, the sword not ground, that could hurt him; over and over again in the frontier skirmishes they had seen Nicholson pass unharmed where others must have been killed; and now the earth was placed on his coffin, they threw their tradition of manhood to the wind.”

Lasting admiration for General Nicholson extended beyond that of local folk as manifested during Field Marshal Lord Roberts’s rainy day visit to Lisburn in September 1903. A Reporter from the Hillsborough Parish Magazine made this verbatim record of the Field Marshal’s response to the address made by the Lisburn Town Council:

“It has been my desire to see the birthplace of a man for whom I had a most profound respect and admiration – John Nicholson. It was my great privilege to serve for a short time on General Nicholson’s Staff, and I perhaps had opportunities which few others had of understanding his great military genius and of appreciating his noble qualities. He did great things in Delhi and gave up his life there and gave up his life there in defence of his country. I am proud to think that I was associated with General Nicholson.”