1846
Battle of Sobraon
The setting
Sobraon, on the Sutlej
A Sikh bridgehead entrenched on the SOUTH bank with a single boat bridge to the north bank behind it. The whole army had one way out.
Reveal the outcome
Recorded sideSikh Khalsa Army
Recorded resultdefeated; the army destroyed against the river
British victory, and the end of the First Anglo-Sikh War.
How the atlas explains it
The Sikh army was entrenched on the wrong bank with one bridge. Tej Singh left the field early, crossed, and the bridge was damaged or cut behind him; the boats went. What followed was not a rout but a massacre of men who could not withdraw and would not surrender. Sham Singh Attariwala, who had had no part in the negotiations, put on white, told his men he would not leave, and was killed in the entrenchment with them.
What followed
The destruction of the Khalsa as a field army, and the Treaty of Lahore on 8 March 1846. ⚠ The atlas holds Sobraon and Aliwal three weeks apart for a reason: same army, same war, same enemy, and two entirely different mechanisms of defeat. Sham Singh Attariwala is the counter-example that keeps the treachery finding honest - the Sikh command was not uniformly compromised, and the man who was not compromised died on the position.