Beschreibung:

The important Indian Mutiny medal to Sir George Udny Yule, K.C.S.I., C.B., who raised and commanded a corps of volunteer cavalry during the Mutiny, a senior Civil Servant who was later Chief Commissioner of Oudh and Resident at Hyderabad Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (G. U. Yule, Civil Service) good very fine £1200-1500 Footnote Ex Ritchie Collection Part 3. George Udny Yule was educated at Haileybury, where he won the Bengali prize, and sailed for India in 1832. In 1857 he was Commissioner of Bhagalpur, a large division in eastern Bihar consisting of the districts of Bhagalpur, Manghyr, Purnia, Santhalia and Rajmahal. From his headquarters at the station of Bhagalpur, some two hundred miles from Calcutta, he ruled over a native population of six million excluding the primitive Santhals. ‘Mr George Yule was a good specimen of a manly, true-hearted gentleman. He was essentially a man of action. His even-handed justice had gained for him - what was rare in those days - the confidence alike of the native ryot and the European planter. Both classes alike trusted him, and were prepared to obey his orders without hesitation or murmur.’ At the outbreak of the Mutiny in May 1857, Yule considered it unnecessary to ask for a detachment of European troops, believing he would be able to maintain order in Bhagalpur with the help of his assistants and the planters. In this he was successful until the third week of July, when the 12th Irregular Cavalry and native regiments at Dinapore broke into open revolt and threatened the loss of western Bihar. The defection of the regiments encouraged the Rajput noble Kunwur Singh to throw in his lot with the mutineers. Yule, ‘a practical man, accustomed to command’, immediately waylaid 140 men of H.M’s 5th Fusiliers travelling up the Ganges. He kept ninety at Bhagalpur and despatched the other fifty to garrison Manghyr. Both stations were salient points on the Ganges and by their occupation he ensured the free navigation of this most vital means of communication which at that time constituted the only safe highway between Calcutta and Allahabad. The presence of the European troops also cowed the 5th Irregular Cavalry, contemplating mutiny at Bhagalpur, the 32nd Native Infantry at Baosi and the 63rd at Berhampore, who were all eagerly awaiting the outcome of the siege of Arrah on which the fate of eastern Bihar depended. On 14 August, the Sowars of the 5th Irregular Cavalry learned that Major Vincent Eyre, Bengal Artillery, had relieved Arrah, but refused to believe the news, thinking the story to be a weak invention of the enemy and that the rebel cause had prevailed. Accordingly the Sowars of the 5th broke into revolt and made for Baosi where their brethren of the 32nd N.I. had received absolute proof of the defeat of the mutineers at Arrah. Yule, abreast of all the developments, sent word to Colonel Burney, of the 32nd N.I., warning him as to the approach of the 5th Irregular Cavalry. Burney effectively harrangued his Sepoys in his fluent Hindustani, telling them that whether they marched east or west they would be marching to their destruction. Thus when the 5th Irregular Cavalry presented themselves at Baosi they were received by the Sepoys of the 32nd with bullets and bayonets and driven off. Eyre, meanwhile, defeated the Arrah rebels at Jagdishpur, proclaimed martial law, hanged thirty wounded prisoners and attacked and captured Kunwur Singh’s fortress. Kunwur Singh himself, however, escaped to fight another day. Towards the end of the year famine, caused by a long prevailing drought, visited the vicinity of Manghyr and the temper of the natives manifested itself in an increase in highway robbery and other crimes. Under these circumstances a serious threat was posed if the native troops at Jalpaigori mutinied. A Bengal Marine detachment was on its way to Purnia, halfway between Bhagalpur and Jalpaigori, and was due to arrive at the end of November. But Yule considered that this precaution alone