Battle of Dubba (Hyderabad)

01The Lion of Mirpur

Sher Muhammad, called the Lion of Mirpur, had not been at Miani. After the surrender of the Hyderabad Mirs he gathered Baluch and Sindhi levies and came down on Hyderabad, where Napier now sat with his army in an entrenched camp. Napier waited for reinforcements to arrive by river, then marched out on 24 March 1843 to attack him at Dubba, a village a few miles from the city, where the Mir had placed his men behind a nullah.

02The end of the Talpurs

The British infantry carried the nullah after hard fighting and the cavalry pursued the broken army for miles. Sher Muhammad escaped and kept up resistance for some months before going into exile. Ellenborough declared Sindh annexed, and Napier became its first governor. The annexation was attacked even in Britain; Outram, who had dealt with the Mirs for years, wrote against it, and the episode became a byword for a war of pure aggression.