Notes part four feb 28th.

Notes for February 28th
The Indian Mutiny contained too many factions and too many ideas to work. Some Sepoys revolted and some didn’t. Some sided with the British because they hated other Indian groups/religions more. For example: The Shia and Sunni worked against each other.
Three instances of revolt:
Delhi
Cawnpore
Lucknow
The native soldiers were angry because of pig and beef fat on rifle charges. The British also stopped many ancient Indian practices, such as allowing widow’s to remarry. They no longer had to burn themselves on their husband’s funeral pyre.
The majority of the revolt came from the Bengal army. The Delhi revolt started first and the others followed. The Indian soldiers were able to push back the outnumbered British East India Company soldiers into a few fortified areas. The British were slow to respond because of being outnumbered and they had to tend to European civilians. The British redirected troops that had been bound for China. The British weren’t used to armies attacking civilians like the Sepoys did.
When British reinforcements arrived they met up at Carnow. They pushed the Sepoys into Delhi. They Sepoy’s still outnumbered the British so they still had access to supplies. The British had to bring in more troops to cut off the city. When the reinforcing Brits arrived the Sepoys asked for terms. The British refused. They brought up their siege train and bombarded the city. They took many casualties but eventually the walls were taken. The British took vengeance on the populace for the slaughter of Europeans. Many Indians were killed. However, no Indian women or children were killed. The Sepoy leader of the city was executed along with all his male relatives (sons and grandsons included.)
The British moved on to take Agra and onto Cawnpore. General Wheeler had been in charge of Cawnpore before the mutiny. He was married to a high-caste Indian woman so he thought he would be safe when the mutiny started. Because of this he failed to stockpile weapons and ammo. His city was besieged by Sepoys and in a hopeless situation. The sepoy’s offered to transport the British out of the city if they left their long arms. The British gathered together and were led out of the city. The Sepoys who had been loyal to the British were executed. Several wounded British officers were also left behind and massacred on the road. When the British got to the boats they were supposed to take, someone opened fire. History doesn’t know which side fired. The British were surrounded by Sepoys and were massacred. Only four British soldiers survived. The Women and children were taken captive by the Sepoys. When British troops approached sometime later the Sepoys decided to kill the women and children so as to make the British focus elsewhere. The Sepoys mainly wouldn’t kill the women and children. Only six men could be found who would partake. Two butchers, two peasants, and two bodyguards of their leader. They massacred all the women and children and threw them in a well fifty feet deep. The bodies filled the well. British troops retook Cawnpore and found the well stilled stuffed with bodies. The British would tale bloody retribution and it would change the face of British politics. There had been groups in the British govt who wanted to leave the Indians alone. They didn’t think turning the Indians British was a good idea. They wanted to govern them but not destroy their culture. After the massacre of Cawnpore was discovered though, all that went out the window. The population of England was set on vengeance against the Indians. The soldiers who took Cawnpore tied most of their prisoners to the front of cannons, the cannon was then fired. This was called “Blown from the cannon”, an old Mughal punishment. The rest were hung.
The Siege of Lucknow
The British here had time to fortify their city before it was attacked. The sepoys bombarded the city but failed to blow up the walls. They tried bombing the walls and even tunneling beneath them. None of it worked. A british relief column fought its way into the city to join the garrison. A larger british force came later and was able to break the Britsh troops out of the city. They returned with more troops and ran the Sepoy army out of Lucknow.
The Mutiny was mostly put down by june 1858.
Some British officers would take no prisoners during the war. They killed every male Indian they could find. The British had tried to change too much of India at one time. The Indians saw their way of life disappearing and couldn’t stand it.
As a result of the mutiny the British East India Company was dissolved. A Viceroy was put in charge of India until the work of Gandhi changed it again.
Read “The Curious Great Depression” in the text book. Pg 137. Focus on 137-144.
How England lost its role in industry during the second industrial revolution. Germany and America took over. England didn’t want to put more money into changing industries.
Gladstone vs Disraeli
Gladstone Born 1809- Died 1898. Started his career as a torrie then joined with the Torrie peelites. Helped found the Liberal party. Served as Prime Minister four times. The oldest Prime Minister at 84.
Called “The grand old man of the liberal party.” First entered office in 1832 and became important in 1841 after supporting the repeal of the corn laws. After Robert Peele’s death in 1850 Gladstone became a star. The Peelites broke away from the Torries and joined with the Whigs to form the Liberal Party. The rest of the Torries became the Conservatives. At this time Disraeli was also a Peelite. Disraeli was not picked by Peele to become a minister so he gets very jealous and moved to the conservatives.
1846-1851 Gladstone was on the opposition Bench since the Torries/Conservatives were in power. He aided the House of Mercy which helped former prostitutes find real jobs. His opponents floated rumors about him and these prostitutes. (Gladstone’s last act was to leave death note denying these charges.)
In 1852 Lord Aberdeen was made Prime Minister of a coalition of Whigs and Peelites. Gladstone became the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He got rid of tariffs and moved England towards free trade. His budget speech in april 1853 lasted for five hours. People were blown away by the details.
He denied a position in the Palmerston govt because they would push free trade.
In 1859-1866 he is called again to be Chancellor of the Exchequer with a deficit of six million pounds. He refused to borrow money for his country’s debt. He raised the income tax to nine pence from five. He set up free trade between the british and French. This was the Cobdon-Chevalier treaty. This also served to tighten bonds between the former enemy nations. In 1859 there were over 400 duties on the record. In 1860 he reduced those to 40. He kept the higher income tax as well.
At the time the British govt kept the tax on paper high so that the radical press couldn’t afford to print. Gladstone made a bill to abolish this tax but it was denied by House of Lords. This outraged the people as bills dealing with the “purse” were supposed to be dealt with by the House of Commons. The next year Gladstone put the bill into the first British consolidated budget. The House of Lords would have to veto the entire budget to axe the bill. They passed the budget and the paper tax was done away with. Through the years Gladstone was also able to consecutively lower the income tax from nine pence to four. Gladstone became known as the “Liberator of British Trade and the Breakfast Table”, because he made things affordable for the working man. His tax actions were very popular.
Gladstone did make some errors. He flubbed by supporting the Confederate states in our civil war. He was also seen as an asshole for saying that he supported universal male suffrage but only once the working class took an interest in ever voting.
Queen Victoria disliked Gladstone because of his constant formality. She liked Disraeli better because he was a ladies’ man.
Gladstone supported reform in England and the repeal of the mandatory Church of England Tax for Ireland. He also wanted to abolish the unpopular Church of Scotland, and Church of Wales.
Gladstone was of course the MP for Oxford University. When he went against the church, Oxford kicked him out of their seat. He ran again in Lancashire and won there. He became the liberal party leader in 1868, but kept his job as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The liberals had a reform bill they wanted to pass, but the conservatives came up with a better one. It enfranchised more of the males in England. These new voters used their new powers to throw the conservatives out of power. They made Gladstone the new Prime Minister.
Gladstone’s mission in the new govt was to peacefully pacify Ireland. In England he shot down laws limiting personal freedom. He ended the sale of commissions in the armed forces, and reorganized the court system. He also made peace time flogging in the army illegal.
With the Irish land act he tried to help Irish tenants against arbitrary abuse from their landlords.
Forester’s education act- mandatory education for children up to 14 years old.
University test act- Must take an exam to be accepted into a university.
In 1872 Gladstone was even able to pass that old Chartist goal, the secret ballot system.
Gladstone wrote a book in his off time called “Vatican Decrees and their bearing on Civil Allegiance.” He urged British Catholics to deny the new Catholic idea of Papal infallibility.
He constantly attacked Disraeli’s govt. especially for their support of Ottoman’s who were killing eastern European Christians.
In 1880 he was made the Liberal PM again this time to 1885.
Gladstone saw the end of the second Afghan war, the first Boer war, and the war against the African mahdi. Gladstone ordered the bombing of Egyptian capitol and the capture of egypy for the British to “protect the canal.”
In 1881 he passed the Irish Coercion act. Any Irish person could be kept in jail for as long as the authorities pleased. This was because the Irish Secretary Lord Cavendish was stabbed to death in Dublin. The Lord Lieutenant wanted to take a harder line on the Irish.
He also passed the Second Irish Land Act, which gave a little more help to Irish tenants but not much.
In 1886 Gladstone works with the Irish to try to get Home Rule for Ireland. It didn’t work and the Conservatives took back power. He was back on the opposition benches for six years. In 1892 he takes back control and is named Prime Minister. He tries again for Irish Home Rule but the House of Lords killed the bill.
1893- The Conservatives motioned for an expansion of the Royal Navy. Gladstone opposed this, but he was in the minority of that opinion. He resigned as Prime Minister in 1893 because the expansion went against everything he had worked for. In 1895 he left his seat in Parliament for Lancashire, his last seat in govt.
Gladstone was well known for getting exercise by cutting down trees well into his 80’s. He owned 32,000 books and was said to have read 23,000 of them. He had a library built down the street from his house and moved most of the books their by himself with just a wheelbarrow. He was a tough old guy.