5 January 1869 It was a crime which Maoris have never forgotten, committed when New Zealand, though technically self-governing, was still, both in name and in the thinking of much of its settler population, a colony of Great Britain. On 5 January 1869, the first of several batches of captured Maori rebels, who had attempted…
ELEVEN MALAYAN DETAINEES SHOT DEAD ‘WHILE TRYING TO ESCAPE’ [ 7 November 1948 ] On 7 November 1948, during a counter insurgency ‘sweep’ of the ‘communist infested’ Muar Lenga district of Johor in southern Malaya, British troops shot dead eleven insurgents. They claimed they had been trying to escape. Another nine men were shot dead,…
PM – IRISH FAMINE FEARS EXAGGERATED – DELAY IN ACTING DESIRABLE [ 13 October 1845 ] Today in 1845, a report from Lord Heytesbury, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, lay on British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel’s desk. It predicted the failure of Ireland’s potato crop, on which almost its entire population depended for their…
1100 HOUSES TORCHED – UNKNOWN NUMBER BURNED ALIVE IN CEYLONESE TOWN [ 13 September 1803 ] On 14 September 1803, Captain W. Pollock of the 51st Regiment of Foot, commanding a punitive military column targeting rebel held areas of Ceylon, reported to Major General Macdowal that the previous day, having found ‘the enemy had retreated…
‘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…
INDIAN MUTINEERS BLOWN APART, WOUNDING CIVILIAN SPECTATORS [ 17 June 1857 ] Today in 1857, British troops, having disarmed Indian mutineers at Lahore the previous month, executed twelve of them. BRITAIN BUYS A CONTROLLING INTEREST IN ANGLO-PERSIAN OIL [ 17 June 1914 ] On 17 June 1914, the British government bought over half of the…
OFFICER RECOUNTS SAVAGERY OF HUNTING INDIAN MUTINEERS LIKE ‘VERMIN’ [ 18 January 1859 ] Today in 1859, Major Pemberton Campbell wrote to his mother describing the British military campaign against the last pockets of resistance from Indian mutineers. ‘Our men were very savage,’ he recalled, ‘treating these poor wretches like vermin. Some carried ropes on…
