Storming of Aligarh

01Perron’s fortress

Pierre Cuillier-Perron had succeeded de Boigne as commander of Scindia’s brigades and governed a wide tract of the Doab from Aligarh. Lake crossed the frontier from Kanpur at the end of August 1803 and scattered Perron’s cavalry outside the town on 29 August. Perron himself soon left Scindia’s service and gave himself up to the British. The fort, behind a broad deep ditch, was left to his officer Pedron.

02Through the gates

Lake had no time for a regular siege. Before dawn on 4 September Monson led the 76th Regiment and sepoy battalions along the causeway to the gate. A gun was brought up to blow in the doors, and the stormers pushed through a winding passage of several gates under fire from the walls. Once inside they took the fort in hand-to-hand fighting. Wellesley later called it one of the most extraordinary feats he had heard of in India.

Battle · 11 September 1803Battle of Delhi (1803)In the Second Anglo-Maratha War, Lake’s army beat Scindia’s European-trained brigades outside Delhi. For forty years the Marathas had kept the Mughal emperor; now the Company did.Read →