2-711-164 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'The Advance of the Siege Train to Delhi', 1857, (1901). Delhi was besieged and captured by the British in 1857 during the Indian Mutiny. The capture of the city from the mutineers was vital to the British due to its symbolic importance as the seat of India's Mughal rulers. Here we see the advance of reinforcements from the Punjab, under the command of Brigadier-General John Nicholson. The siege train included 32 guns and 2,000 men. Most of the reinforcements were Indian, and without their help the weak British forces besieging Delhi would never have been able to take the city in September 1857. From "The Life and Deeds of Earl Roberts, Vol. I. - To The End of the Indian Mutiny", by J. Maclaren Cobban. [T. C. & E. C. Jack, Edinburgh, 1901]