The Story of the Guides | Page 3

of the old school gravely shook their heads, and trembled for
the discipline of men without stocks and overalls. Men of the Irregular
Cavalry, almost as much trussed and padded as their Regular comrades
(who were often so tightly clad as to be unable to mount without
assistance), looked with good-natured tolerance on a foredoomed
failure. But Sir Henry Lawrence had the courage of his opinions, and
determined to put his theories to practice, though at first on a small
scale.
Not only were the Guides to be sensibly clothed, but professionally also
they were to mark a new departure. In 1846 the Punjab was still a Sikh
province, and the administration was only thinly strengthened by a
sprinkling of British officers. Men, half soldiers, half civilians, and
known in India under the curious misnomer of Political Officers,--a
class to whom the British Empire owes an overwhelming debt--were
scattered here and there, hundreds of miles apart, and in the name of the
Sikh Durbar practically ruled and administered provinces as large as
Ireland or Scotland. The only British troops in the country were a few
of the Company's regiments, quartered at Lahore to support the

authority of the Resident,--a mere coral island in the wide expanse.
What Sir Henry Lawrence felt was the want of a thoroughly mobile
body of troops, both horse and foot, untrammelled by tradition, ready to
move at a moment's notice, and composed of men of undoubted loyalty
and devotion, troops who would not only be of value in the rough and
tumble of a soldier's trade, but would grow used to the finer arts of
providing skilled intelligence.
The title selected for the corps was in itself a new departure in the
British Army, and history is not clear as to whether its pre-ordained
duties suggested the designation to Sir Henry Lawrence, or whether, in
some back memory, its distinguished predecessor in the French army
stood sponsor for the idea. Readers of the Napoleonic wars will
remember that, after the battle of Borghetto, the Great Captain raised a
Corps des Guides, and that this was the first inception of the _Corps
d'Elite_, which later grew into the Consular Guard, and later still
expanded into the world-famed Imperial Guard ten thousand strong.
But whatever the history of the inception of its title, the duties of the
Corps of Guides were clearly and concisely defined in accordance with
Sir Henry's precepts. It was to contain trustworthy men, who could, at a
moment's notice, act as guides to troops in the field; men capable, too,
of collecting trustworthy intelligence beyond, as well as within, our
borders; and, in addition to all this, men, ready to give and take hard
blows, whether on the frontier or in a wider field. A special rate of pay
was accorded to all ranks. And finally, fortunate as Sir Henry Lawrence
had been in the inspiration that led him to advocate this new departure,
he was no less fortunate in his selection of the officer who was destined
to inaugurate a new feature in the fighting forces of the Empire.
Even from among officers of proved experience and ability it is by no
means easy to select the right man to inaugurate and carry through
successfully an experimental measure; much more difficult is it to do
so when the selection lies among young officers who have still to win
their spurs. Yet from among old or young, experienced or
inexperienced, it would have been impossible to have selected an
officer with higher qualifications for the work in hand than the young

man on whom the choice fell.
Born of a soldier stock, and already experienced in war, Harry
Lumsden possessed all the finest attributes of the young British officer.
He was a man of strong character, athletic, brave, resolute, cool and
resourceful in emergency; a man of rare ability and natural aptitude for
war, and possessed, moreover, of that magnetic influence which
communicates the highest confidence and devotion to those who follow.
In addition he was a genial comrade, a keen sportsman, and a rare
friend to all who knew him. Such, then, was the young officer selected
by Sir Henry Lawrence to raise the Corps of Guides.
That the commencement should be not too ambitious, it was ruled that
the first nucleus should consist only of one troop of cavalry and two
companies of infantry, with only one British officer. But as this story
will show, as time and success hallowed its standards, this modest
squad expanded into the corps which now, with twenty-seven British
officers and fourteen hundred men, holds an honoured place in the
ranks of the Indian Army.
Following out the principle that the corps was to be for service and not
for show, the time-honoured scarlet of the British Army