Wellesley was notorious for disliking such promotions from the ranks (‘they always take to drink’), though he did promote two men for conspicuous bravery on the evening of Assaye.
Assaye is not the most famous of Arthur Wellesley’s battles, but it was the one of which he was most proud. Years later, long after he had swept the French out of Portugal and Spain, and after he had defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington (as Arthur Wellesley became) was asked what had been his finest battle. He did not hesitate.
“Assaye,” he answered, and so it surely was, for he out manoeuvred and outfought a much larger enemy, and did it swiftly, brutally and brilliantly.
He did it, too, without Colonel Stevenson’s help. Stevenson tried to reinforce Wellesley, but his local guide misled him as he hurried towards the sound of the guns, and Stevenson was so upset by the guide’s error that he hanged the man.
Assaye was one of the costliest of Wellesley’s battles: ‘the bloodiest for the numbers that I ever saw,” the Duke recalled in later life.
Pohlmann’s forces had 1200 killed and about 5000 wounded, while Wellesley suffered 456 dead (200 of them Scottish) and around 1200 wounded. All the enemy guns, 102 of them, were captured and many were discovered to be of such high quality that they were taken into British service, though others, mostly because their calibres did not match the British standard artillery weights, were double-shot ted and blown up on the battlefield where some of their remnants still lie.
The battlefield remains virtually unchanged. No roads have been metal led the fords look as they did, and Assaye itself is scarcely larger now than it was in 1803. The outer walls of the houses are still ramparts of mud bricks, while bones and bullets are constantly ploughed out of the soil (‘they were very big men’, one farmer told me, indicating the ground where the 74th suffered so much). There is no memorial at Assaye, except for a painted map of the armies’ dispositions on one village wall and the grave of a British officer which has had its bronze plate stolen, but the inhabitants know that history was made in their fields, are proud of it and proved remarkably welcoming when we visited. There ought to be some marker on the field, for the Scottish and Indian troops who fought at Assaye gained an astonishing victory. They were all extraordinarily brave men, and their campaign was not yet over, for some of the enemy have escaped and the war will go on as Wellesley and his small army pursue the remaining Mahrattas towards their great hill fastness at Gawilghur. Which means that Mister Sharpe must march again.
The End