"use of elephants in the Sikh wars" Topic

I am just starting to ( slowly) collect figures for the Sikh wars and I noticed in the Foundry listings a couple of elephants, one is listed as a command elephant and the other as a war elephant with a basic howdah. How common was the use of elephants in this conflict, I would love to field some !!

Cheers,

Dave

They were around and used, but no real accounts of them in battle or as such. (Not counting beast of burden/artillery roles).

HOWEVER…they would do in a pinch with the same armies, same time frame for the Gwalior Campaign where elephants played a role (ala' Opera Bouffe on the British side) and probably the Scinde Campaigns too.

To my knowledge, the Khalsa never fielded war elephants.

I should have mentioned just command elephants…my mistake.

Thanks for the replies so far, not quite what I was hoping ! Andrew, looking forward to your book !

I'd only seen engravings showing elephants used as artillery limber draft animals for the heavy guns.

Who used them as command elephants – the Company or the Sikhs?

All…

The Kingdom of Lahore, as all wealthy Indian principalities did, had state elephants, for various uses and are not to be confused with draught elephants.

There is no mention of state elephants at all in any of the campaign s BUT…plenty of accounts of their use during the upheaval after Ranjit's death, along with the famous incident that occurred during the Gwalior campaign a year earlier.

So, if you want an elephant in an entourage going to the front, feel free to do so, but they were modes of transport only and not used for war. Crushing was common, but that was a government/political action, not war.

…that was a government/political action, not war.

Yeah, yeah…I know, a hole big enough for a state elephant to trot through!

Very interesting, I suppose they were more common in the mutiny ? I have seen several illustrations of Mutiny commanders lording from the back of the beast !

Well, you have to remember, photography was borderline non-existant, so artistic license reigned.

Gough, despite his faults, was a very active and healthy man and always ahorse, as was Hardinge, especially in his early dash to Ludhiana. During the 1st SW, speed was the order of the day.

Hardinge did have elephants though and I am almost sure that during the procession into Lahore where the peace treaty was signed, they were used(or borrowed from the Sikhs), but not on any field of battle.

The illustrations I have seen are of the Indian command riding elephants, good point on the artistic license !

I'm planning a Sikh army in 1/72 and the two things I haven't sourced yet are elephants pulling giant cannon and the camels with light cannon mounted (zamburak?).