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The Siege of Delhi was one of the decisive conflicts of the Indian rebellion of 1857. The rebellion against the authority of the East India Company was widespread through much of Northern India, but essentially it was sparked by the mass uprising by the sepoys of the units of the Army which the company had itself raised in its Bengal Presidency (which actually covered a vast area from Assam to Peshawar). Seeking a symbol around which to rally, the first sepoys to rebel sought to reinstate the power of the Mughal Empire, which had ruled much of India during the previous centuries. Lacking overall direction, many who subsequently rebelled also flocked to Delhi. This made the siege decisive for two reasons. Firstly, large numbers of rebels were committed to the defence of a single fixed point, perhaps to the detriment of their prospects elsewhere, and their defeat at Delhi was thus a very major military setback. Secondly, the British recapture of Delhi and the refusal of the aged Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah II to continue the struggle, deprived the rebellion of much of its national character. Although the rebels still held large areas, there was little co-ordination between them and the British were inevitably able to overcome them separately. ==Outbreak of the Rebellion== After several years of increasing tension among the sepoys (Indian soldiers) of the British East India Company's Bengal Army, the sepoys at Meerut, north east of Delhi, openly rebelled against their British officers. The flashpoint was the introduction of the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle. The cartridges for this were widely believed to be greased with a mixture of cow and pig fat, and to bite them open when loading the rifle (as required by the drill books) would defile both Hindu and Muslim soldiers. Eighty-five men of the 3rd Bengal Cavalry stationed at Meerut refused to accept their cartridges. They were hastily court martialled, and on 9 May 1857 they were sentenced to long periods of imprisonment and were paraded in irons before the British and Bengal regiments in the garrison. On the evening of the following day, soldiers of the Bengal regiments (3rd Light Cavalry, 11th and 20th Infantry) rebelled, releasing the imprisoned troopers and killing their British officers and many British civilians in their cantonment.〔(Analysis of the 1857 War of Independence – Defence Journal )〕 The senior Company officers at Meerut were taken by surprise. Although they had ample warning of disaffection among the Bengal Army after earlier outbreaks of unrest at Berhampur, Barrackpur and Ambala, they had assumed that at Meerut, where the proportion of European to Indian troops was higher than anywhere else in India, the Bengal units would not risk open revolt. They were fortunate that they did not suffer disaster. The Bengal regiments broke into rebellion on Sunday, when European troops customarily attended evening Church parade without arms. Due to the increasingly hot summer weather, the Church services on 10 May took place half an hour later than on previous weeks, and when the outbreak occurred, the British troops had not yet left their barracks and could quickly be mustered and armed.〔Hibbert, ''The Great Mutiny'', pp.82–90〕 Other than defending their own barracks and armouries, the Company's commanders at Meerut took little action, not even notifying nearby garrisons or stations. (The telegraph had been cut, but dispatch riders could easily have reached Delhi before the sepoys, had they been sent immediately.) When they had rallied the British troops in the cantonment and prepared to disperse the sepoys on 11 May, they found that Meerut was quiet and the sepoys had marched off to Delhi. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Siege of Delhi」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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