10 MAY
INDIAN MUTINY INCITES PRESS DEMANDS FOR ‘BLOODY VENGEANCE’
[ 10 May 1857 ]
On 10 May 1857, the Indian Mutiny broke out in the garrison town of Meerut, 40 miles north east of Delhi. A day earlier, on 9 May, 85 Sepoys, serving as soldiers for the East India Company, had been given long prison sentences for refusing to handle cartridges covered with paper greased with cattle and pig fat. This had enraged both Hindu and Muslim soldiers since the greased paper covering had to be bitten off before the cartridges could be loaded into the rifles.
FOREIGN SECRETARY – WE MUST PROP UP THE SAUDI DICTATORSHIP
[ 10 May 1963 ]
Today in 1963, Foreign Secretary Douglas-Home advised Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, that it was in Britain’s interest ‘that the present regime (in Saudi Arabia) should survive and that its principal prop should be efficient.’1 The ‘prop’ he was referring to was the National Guard, commanded by the King Saud’s brother, Prince Faisal.
FOOTNOTE
- Nicholas Gilby, Deception in High Places: A History of Bribery in Britain’s Arms Trade, Pluto Press, London, 2014, p. 42.
Please feel welcome to post comments below. If you have any questions please email alisdare@gmail.com
© 2019 Alisdare Hickson All rights reserved