Battle of Agra

Part of Indian Rebellion of 1857

Date	August 2, 1857
Location	Near Agra, India
Result	British-EIC victory

Belligerents

East India Company

United Kingdom

Mughal Empire

Commanders and leaders

Edward Greathed

Bahadur Shah Zafar

Strength

1,900 Indian soldiers
750 British soldiers
12 cannons

10,000
12 cannons

Casualties and losses

433 including-101 Europeans and 332 Indians

4800

The Battle of Agra was a comparatively minor but nevertheless decisive action during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (also known as the First War of Indian Independence or the Indian Mutiny). Indian rebels attacked a column of British troops which had relieved a garrison at Agra, but although they surprised the column, they were defeated and dispersed. This allowed the British to establish communications across all of Northern India, and to concentrate troops for the vital Relief of Lucknow.

Before the rebellion broke out, Agra was an important centre of British administration and commerce. Stationed in the military cantonments nearby were the 3rd Bengal Fusiliers (a "European" regiment of infantry of the East India Company's army), a battery of artillery also manned by white troops, and the 44th and 67th Regiments of Bengal Native Infantry.

The loyalty of the sepoys (Indian soldiers) of the Bengal Army had been wavering for several years, as they feared that the actions and reforms of the East India Company were threatening Indian society and their own caste and status. After increasing unrest during the early months of 1857, the sepoys at Meerut broke into rebellion on 10 May 1857. They subsequently moved to Delhi, where they called on more sepoys to join them, and for the Emperor Bahadur Shah II to lead a nationwide rebellion.

News of the revolt spread fast. In Agra, the news prompted the local British commanders to disarm the two Bengal Native Infantry regiments on 31 May, thus forestalling any potential uprising, although the regiments had apparently made no hostile moves in the fortnight since news of the events at Delhi had reached them. Nevertheless, the news of the events at Delhi and the increasing unrest in the countryside prompted 6,000 refugees (British civilians and their families and servants) to converge on Agra and take shelter in the historic Agra Fort. Although the fort was well provisioned, the sanitation and medical facilities were poor. After an uprising in the city in June, the British were blockaded in the Fort.

They endured a desultory siege for three months. Morale was poor, and the understrength Bengal Fusiliers were mainly raw and untrained troops. Delhi however, was too strong an attraction for the sepoys and other rebels. Many thousands of these moved to Delhi, where they were unable to dislodge a British force on the ridge to the north-west, but none of the rebel leaders there attempted to organise a force to clear the comparatively easy target of Agra.

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Wikipedia