Account: Victor Jacquemont on European Officers of the Sikh Army

Victor Jacquemont during his travels to the Sub-continent made an observation on the conditions of European officers serving under Ranjit Singh.

Victor Jacquemont made a name for himself as a young intellectual in Paris during the 1820’s. In 1828, the National Museum of Natural History of Paris invited Jacquemont to work for them that gave him an opportunity to travel and collect samples in the United States, Canada, and finally India. His letters described his observations during his travels becoming a primary source for historical studies. In May 1829, he arrived in Calcutta and in March 1830 visited Delhi before travelling the Himalayas, Punjab, and Kashmir. His travels, however, placed a huge strained in his health to which he ultimately succumb on December 7, 1832 at the age of 31.

During his time in India, Victor Jacquemont made a visit to the Sikh Empire in 1830 to seek approval for his plan to visit Kashmir. He observed the situation of the Empire and made an account of his meetings with its Maharaja Ranjit Singh. One of his accounts detailed the grim situation of European soldiers serving in Ranjit Singh’s army.

M. Allard is quite the Soliman Bey (Perhaps a reference to Baltoghlu Suleiman Bey, a Bulgarian in origin who served Mehmet II during his conquest of Constantinople) of Ranjit Singh. He comes from time to time to Ludhiana (on the banks of the Sutlej) to visit the English officers on that station, one established beyond the Company’s territory, among the independent Sikhs, in the dominions of my friend the Rajah of Patiala, who has not yet sent me back my syringe. He is well paid (a 100,000 Francs). But he is half a prisoner. Ranjit Singh takes great care to make him spend the whole of his income every year, in order to take away all desire of leaving him. He pursues the same policy with regard to his other European officers, upon whom he only half relies. A Mr. Mevius, a Prussian commander of one of his regiments of cavalry, having very lately excited a revolt in his corps, by the application of the German procedure of the whip to his Sikhs, was obliged to take refuge in the tent of the king himself (Ranjit Singh) to escape the fury of his men. Ranjit saved his life, but refused to retain him in his service; upon this, sharp words ensued upon both sides, and at last Ranjit, dismissing him, exclaimed with an oath: “Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, those ----- are all the same!

He also added:

Ranjit Singh is not without resemblance to the Pasha of Egypt (Mohammad Ali Pasha). No doubt, Europeans in his service are exposed to occasional injustice, but nothing very grievous. 

See also:
Ranjit Singh

Bibliography:

Jacquemont, Victor. Letters from India: Describing a Journey in the British Dominions of India, Tibet, Lahore, and Kashmir, During the Years 1828, 1829, 1830, 1831. London: Late Bull and Churton, 1834.