George Edwardson (died 1857) was a veteran British army officer of the East India Trading Company who fought in the First Indian War of Independence.
Biography[]
George Edwardson was born to an aristocratic family in Norfolk. After several failed careers, one in law and one in politics, George Edwardson chose to study military history and the art of war, following in the footsteps of his older brother Percy. Interested only in active service, Edwardson traveled to India, where he commanded an army of native sepoys and British troops in the name of the British East India Company.
His campaigns during the Company's important annexation of Punjab in 1849 cemented Edwardson's reputation as a decisive and courageous field commander. With regards to his attitudes towards the Indian population, Edwardson suffered a passionate and radical shift in ideology in 1842, when his brother was killed in the First Anglo-Afghan War. Percy was one of the few unlucky soldiers of the 44th battalion, the British garrison that was surrounded and massacred by Afghan forces. Like much of the British public, Edwardson saw the act as barbarous, and he supported the British army's devastating retaliation.
The death of his brother affected Edwardson deeply, and he allowed it to encurage his already racist tendencies towards the regional populations. In the subsequent years, Edwardson became less predictable as an officer and often allowed his personal feelings to guide his strategy. Over time, his name became tainted by a series of controversies regarding his brutality towards sepoy soldiers and innocent civilians. Edwarson simply shrugged off the accusations as "hearsay and misinterpretation".
In April 1857, when the First Indian War of Independence broke out, he recaptured Saltpeter trade posts in the Punjab from the Sikh natives, and later that month exhibited great cruelty in massacring fleeing arsonists who burnt Calcutta. The Indian populace were disrespected by his rule, and even his Lieutenant Nanib Sahir had confused thoughts of which side to strike his sword at. Anger finally boiled over when the Sepoys refused to bite into pig fat-soaked cartridges in Enfield Rifles, and when Edwardson insisted that Nanib show his men how to load the rifle, Nanib shot a Hussar, starting a rebellion.
Edwardson fortified himself in Meerut behind Fort Ingoldsby and Fort Good Hope, but did not expect the Tufanci Corps of the Ottoman Empire to ally with the rebels. Nanig led his men through the mines and blew up the gunpowder stored there, allowing the Indians to attack the breached rear wall of the fort and destroy the command post. Edwardson fled, and by June 1857 Delhi too was in rebel hands. Bahadur Shah II became the Supreme Ruler of all India, and the rebels gained a leader and a general.
Death[]
Edwardson took care to fortify a camp at Shimla, which was a major fort. Nanib's massive rebel army encircled the fort, destroying the mills and saltpeter posts outside of the castle to starve the British of both food and gunpowder, respectively. Colonel Edwardson's many waves of attack on the Indian camp were defeated by the Portuguese Expeditionary Army and when the Indian Sepoys and Portuguese cannon attacked his fort, he was shot and unhorsed. As his fort fell, Edwardson warned Nanib that there was more of the Company behind him, bigger than the whole forsaken country of India. Edwardson died shortly after damning Nanib and his men.