Lal Singh

Recorded sideSikh Khalsa Army

Recorded resultdefeated; withdrew, leaving 17 guns

British victory, costly and confused.

It barely did. The action ran into darkness, British units fired into each other, and Gough's preference for the bayonet over the gun cost him men he did not need to lose. What decided it was that Lal Singh - the Sikh commander, and in secret communication with the British - broke off and withdrew with the battle undecided.

What followed

The opening battle of the First Anglo-Sikh War, and the first appearance of the pattern that runs through the whole war: a Khalsa army that fights extremely well under commanders who do not want it to win.

Recorded sideSikh Khalsa Army

Recorded resultdefeated; the position was lost after a night in British hands under Sikh guns

British victory, and by the account of the men who won it the narrowest of the century in India.

On the evidence, it should not have. The British spent the night of 21-22 December inside a captured entrenchment under Sikh artillery, disordered, short of ammunition, with the Governor-General destroying state papers against the possibility of defeat. On the morning of the 22nd Tej Singh brought a fresh and uncommitted Sikh army onto the field, made a demonstration, and withdrew it. The British position was saved by the enemy commander leaving.

What followed

⚠ THE ENTRY THE LANE EXISTS FOR. The Khalsa's own commanders, Lal Singh and Tej Singh, were in communication with the British before and during the war. Ferozeshah is the case where an army in a winning position was removed from the field by the man commanding it. The engagement idiom fits it as poorly as it fits Plassey, and for the same reason - and unlike Plassey, the army in question fought superbly. Two entries in this atlas, ninety years and one subcontinent apart, are decided the same way.