1897: ATTACK ON SARAGARHI: WARS & WARRIORS

• On 3rd September, Gulistan was again surrounded and attacked... Several men were wounded and a sortie had to be made by the garrison to extinguish a fire, which had been lit by the enemy in a hedge surrounding the Fort.
  
• Guerilla tactics were then resorted to by the enemy and the Forts of. Gulistan, Sangar and Dar continually rnolested till the arrival of the Kurram-Kohat Field Force on 8th September.
• On the evening of 11th September; this Force returned to Hangu.
  
• On 12th September; Forts Gulistan, Saragarhi, Sangar and Dar were again attacked by the combined force of over 20,000 Orakzai and Afridi lashkars.
  
• The defenders of Saragarhi put up a most heroic fight beating back many attacks.
  
• Time and again the Pathans asked the small garrison surrender, but each time they were met with a volley of fire and a challenge that they would fight to the last.

Finally, the time came when

• there was only one survivor of Saragarhi left,
  
• the signaller, who had been reporting every activity
  
• to the Regimental Headquarters
  
• This sole survivor Gurmukh Singh, now sent his last message to his Commanding Officer: -
  
• "They are getting in now. Shall I take a rifle or shall I go on signaling?"

But in the meantime,

• the enemv had set fire to the bushes around the fortress,
  
• and under the cover of the smoke,
  
• breached the perimeter wall of the picket.

Sepoy Gurmukh Singh

• probably fought his last gallant action
  
• and was killed before he.
  
• could get any answer
  
• from his Commanding Officer!

The gallant defence of Saragarhi

• by Havildar Ishar Singh and
  
• twenty other ranks and
  
• a follower
  
• is estimated to have lost the enemy

about four hundred and fifty killed or wounded.


...........................................................................................

A poet writes:

"On Saragarhi's ramparts died the bravest of the brave,
Neath Saragarhi's ruined walls they found a fitting grave,
For Saragarhi bears the fame,
They gave their lives to save".



A. E. Housman writes:

"Here dead lie because we did not choose,
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is, and we were young.
..........................................................................................






*Saragarhi (1897):
EXCERPTS FROM REGIMENTAL HISTORY OF SARAGARHI BATTALION
BY COL KANWALJIT SINGH : MAJOR HS AHLUWALIA



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