‘EVERY NATIVE IS SHOT DOWN LIKE A DOG’ [ 5 September 1857 ] On 5 September 1857, an account appeared in the Illustrated Times of London by a British junior officer stationed at Allahabad in northern India. It was just one of many reports of the wholesale slaughter of rebels and civilians, during the suppression of the…
BRITISH CHAPLAIN SHOCKED BY THE BARBARITY OF HIS OWN ARMY [ 28 August 1842 ] On 28 August 1842, during the advance of a British punitive expedition led by Major General Sir William Nott, the Reverend Isaac Allen recalled the indiscriminate slaughter of Afghan men in a village, deemed to have been responsible for staging…
‘SLAUGHTER ALL THE MEN’ – BLOODY RETRIBUTION AGAINST AN INDIAN VILLAGE [ 29 June 1857 ] On 29 June 1857, Colonel James Neill ordered his Redcoats on a mission of bloody retribution against an Indian village, outside the city of Allahabad, suspected of harbouring mutineers. He ordered that ‘the village of Mullagu and neighbourhood be…
BRITISH LED POLICE SHOOT DEAD TEN DEMONSTRATORS IN SHANGHAI [ 30 May 1925 ] At 3.37 pm on 39 May 1925, Inspector Edward Everson discharged his pistol into an unarmed crowd of demonstrators who had gathered outside a British police station within the Shanghai international settlement. The Sikh and Chinese officers under his command also…
CAGED ARAB VILLAGERS DIE FROM EXTREME HEAT AND THIRST [ 6 May 1939 ] On 6 May 1939, Captain Neville Blair led troops of B company of the Black Watch Regiment to the village of Halhul, 23 miles south of Jerusalem, where intelligence believed the inhabitants had failed to hand in rifles. The search took…
HENRY VIII’S ORDERS – ‘BURN EDINBURGH’ – ‘PUT ALL TO FIRE AND SWORD’ 10 April 1544 The popular Ladybird History of the Kings and Queens of England acclaims Henry VIII ‘as the right kind of king needed by England at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century.’ The country had benefited from the fact that he…
THOUSANDS SLAUGHTERED AS BRITISH TROOPS SACK THE CITY OF BADAJOZ [ 7 April 1812 ] On 7 April 1812, four thousand Spanish civilians, including many women and children, were slaughtered in the city of Badajoz by victorious British troops, under the command of the legendary Lord Wellington. The soldiers had suffered many casualties while storming…
BRITISH SECURITY FORCES ASSASSINATE THE LORD MAYOR OF CORK [ 20 march 1920 ] At about 2 am on Saturday 19 March 1920, Tomas Mac Curtain, the Republican Lord Mayor of Cork, who was a leading figure in the long political struggle to end British rule, was shot dead in his own home by armed…
WOMEN SLAUGHTERED WHILE CLINGING TO THEIR HUSBANDS [ 25 February 1858 ] Today in 1858, Major Harcourt Anson, of the Queen’s Ninth Royal Lancers, wrote to his wife describing the chilling revenge the British inflicted on an Indian village, where the population was thought to have been sympathetic to the rebellion the previous year against…
SINGAPORE COLONIAL POLICE KILL ACTIVISTS COMMEMORATING WRONG ANNIVERSARY [ 15 February 1946 ] At about 11 am on 15 February 1946, British troops and colonial police armed with loaded rifles and batons, charged into a crowd of protesters assembling on Bras Basah Road in Singapore. Journalists witnessed demonstrators beaten as they lay on the ground. …
