r. Still more bloody was the battle, which
about the middle of the eighteenth century the Afghan Sultan Ahmed Shah
Durani fought with the great Mahratha princes, Holkar Sindhia, Gaekwar
and the Peschwas; and here, once again, all the horrors of war raged,
when in the year 1857, the English Generals Havelock, Sir James Outram,
Sir Colin Campbell, Sir Hugh Rose, Sir John Lawrence, and Sir Robert
Napier, crushed with pitiless severity the dangerous sepoy mutiny. East
and West had, in gigantic struggles, fought together on this spot so
full of legends, this the cradle of mankind. Hundreds of thousands of
human lives had been sacrificed on this blood-drenched soil, and yet
again was a decisive battle impending, destined to be engraved with a
steel pencil on the tablets of the world's history.

The movements of the Russian army had upset the plan of the English
generals. The English corps which had collected at Mooltan were quickly
pushed on to Lahore, as soon as the Russians' intention to proceed to
the south-east became clear. The time which General Ivanov required for
concentrating his troops at Attock rendered it possible for the English
to reach Lahore. Here their forces were considerably increased by the
strong garrison, and each day new regiments came in from Delhi and
Lucknow, which brought the strength of the army commanded by Sir Bindon
Blood up to the number of one hundred thousand combatants.

The English prepared for a decisive battle, for already the head of
the Russian columns was no further than ten English miles north of
the mausoleum of the Emperor Jahangir at Shah Dara, a military station
scarcely eight English miles north-west of Lahore.

The English troops advanced in their concentrated formation in single
line; their left wing occupied the Shah Dara plantations and the pontoon
bridge across the river Ravi that flows close to Lahore. It extended
thence five English miles further eastwards to a canal which flows
past the Shalimar Park towards the south. This park and a place called
Bhogiwal, lying next to it, formed the right wing. Before their front
stretched a tributary of the sinuous Ravi with its marshy banks. To the
rear of their position lay the fortress of Lahore with its brick wall,
fifteen feet in height, pierced by thirteen gates.

The Ravi, a tributary of the Indus, had at this time but little water.
The bed of the river was for the most part dry, and only consisted of
rapid, irregular rivule