The infamous "greased cartridge"

[Dieslunae]

I'm actually doing research on the Indian Mutiny for an Imperial History course at university. A really, really great source I would recommend is Saul David's "Greased Cartridges and the Great Mutiny of 1857: A Pretext to Rebel or the Final Straw?" in War and Society in Colonial India edited by Kaushik Roy. It's a good read, excellent sources and it's quite recent (2006, Oxford University Press). Clears up a lot of the ambiguity of the cartridge theory. You might not find it in bookstores, however. Maybe check out a university library?

Hope that helps!

[beaumap]

Although rather belated on my part, I think one major factor has been missed out. When various magazines were plundered by the mutineers they took and used the cartridges inside without a problem! In Delhi these cartridges kept the defenders going until just before the final assault when stocks began to run down. (Most of their weaponry was of the older pattern; however they had managed to associate the 'greased cartridge' claim with all ammunition, not just the new issue. Most of the mutineer regiments had not been issued with the new pattern weapon anyway.) The mutineers either knew that the cartridges were not greased with defiling oil, or they never cared much about the issue in the first place. Either way, this exposes the 'greased cartridge issue' as a cynical manipulation by the mutineer leaders, rather than a crazy imposition by the British.

[A.Roads]

The subject of the lubricant used in India is an interesting one. At various times at least three different lubricant compositions were used by EICo forces and Tallow (animal fat) was included in one, it was substituted variously by linseed oil and, (once the self combustion properties of linseed oil were discovered) by coconut oil. But there were no simple answers about when the tallow was used & by which armies etc, though in general it was mostly superceded eventually by non Tallow compositions.
The main type of rifle used was the Brunswick which employed a belted spherical ball wrapped in a lubricated cloth patch, the patched ball was carried seperately to the paper cartridge containing the powder charge. Then the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle was introduced, not long before the mutiny - this had a conical self expanding paper patched bullet integral with the paper cartridge & was also lubricated externally at the bullet end - the British used Tallow in their composition.
Of note is that the Brunswick rifle was for Rifle regiments, line regiments (the majority of troops) used a smooth bore musket (no lubricant). The P/1853 Enfield rifle was to remove forever smooth bore small arms & arm all troops - as it did in other armies - due to its ease of loading etc.
Adrian

[PhilinYuma]

Forum newbies are notorious for the crime of resurrecting long dead threads, but I have decided to indulge myself this once, since I own and have a source for Palmer's The Mutiny Outbreak at Meerut in 1857. The 1st edition was originally published by Cambridge University Press in 1966 and a "digitally printed version (with corrections)" was issued in 2007 (2008, U.S.) so I guess that this is considered a reprint of the first edition. It is still not posted on Amazon U.K. but is available on the U.S. site for $30 (paperback) or about twenty quid, though folks in the U.K. will have to pay extra for shipping. Here is the URL:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss? ... &x=12&y=22
Mark: I hope that you didn't pay a fortune for a beat-up, old copy!

[L. Braden]

For what it's worth: "The Inspector-General of Ordnance and Magazines, Fort William, writes on the 29th January [1857]: '... I enquired of the Arsenal as to the nature of the composition that had been used, and found it was precisely that which the instructions received from the Court of Directors directed to be used--viz., a mixture of tallow and bees-wax. No extraordinary precaution seems to have been taken to insure the absence of any objectionable fat. ...' ... The correspondent of the Times wrote on the 23rd of February, '57: '... The Government ordered mutton fat for the purpose. Some contractors, to save a few shillings, gave pigs' and bullocks' fat instead. [Were these contractors Indians?] ... The [cartridge] paper, they [the sepoys] said, had animal fat in it. I dare say this is true, the paper being made in England and mixed with animal size.' (From the Times of 3rd April, '57.)" (F. C. Maude, Memories of the Mutiny, 1894.) Evidently, just a stupid bureaucratic blunder!

[colsjt65]

My apologies for resurrecting this thread again, but I got bored and started trawling through old threads...

With the introduction of the Enfield Rifle-Musket in the Crimea from 1855 firing the .568 minie-style Pritchett bullet, the bottom (bullet) end of cartridges containing the bullet and powder was lubricated with a mixture of tallow and bee's wax. Pure bee's wax was too hard and needed to be softened with tallow in order to ram down the lubricated, paper-patched bullet. (The problem was ultimately solved by reducing the calibre to .55 with expanding wooden plug in about 1859).

[Most of the following I lifted from Wikipedia, but I feel justified because I wrote most of it]-
The new Rifle-Musket was a contributing cause to the Indian rebellion of 1857. Sepoys in the British East India Company's armies in India were issued with the new rifle in 1857, and rumours began to spread that the cartridges (referring here to paper wrapped powder and projectile, not metallic cartridges) were greased with either pig fat or beef tallow - an abhorrent concept to Muslim and Hindu soldiers, respectively, for religious reasons. British military drills of the time required soldiers to bite open the cartridge and pour the gunpowder contained within down the barrel, as part of the loading process. The musketry books also recommended that “Whenever the grease around the bullet appears to be melted away, or otherwise removed from the cartridge, the sides of the bullet should be wetted in the mouth before putting it into the barrel; the saliva will serve the purpose of grease for the time being."

The idea of having anything which might be tainted with pig or beef fat in their mouths was totally unacceptable to the sepoys, and when they objected it was suggested that they were more than welcome to make up their own batches of cartridges, using a religiously acceptable greasing agent such as ghee, or vegetable oil. But this, of course, seemed to be "proof" that the issued cartridges were, in fact, greased with pig and/or beef fat. A further suggestion that the sepoys tear the cartridges open with their hands (instead of biting them open) was rejected as impractical - many of the sepoys had been undertaking musket drill daily for years, and the practice of biting the cartridge open was second nature to them. Incidentally, after the Mutiny, manuals changed the method of opening the cartridge to “Bring the cartridge to the forefinger and thumb of the left hand, and with the arm close to the body, carefully tear off the end without spilling the powder.”

[Mark]

My apologies for resurrecting this thread again, but I got bored and started trawling through old threads...

Nothing wrong with resurrecting old threads Thank you for the additional information, very interesting!

Mark

[L. Braden]

The biting method, though unsanitary and otherwise objectionable, was sensible and practical in that you could securely hold the rifle barrel, with the butt resting on the ground; otherwise, you would either have to support the rifle under your arm and against your body or fumble with the cartridge while trying to hold the barrel--awkward and insecure procedures that must have delayed loading and resulted in spills if not done carefully. So, the biting method wasn't an arbitrary innovation!

[colsjt65]

The biting method is a hangover from flintlock loading. In army drill, in order to load, the soldier had to hold the musket parallel to the ground in the left hand with the butt under the right armpit. He needed to open the cartridge in his right hand in order to prime the pan with a small amount of powder. Trying to tear open the cartridge using fingers on both hands would have caused the musket to wave around, which is highly undesirable while standing in two closely packed ranks. Biting if off made sense. Then the musket was brought to perpendicular and the rest of the powder and ball rammed down.

Loading a percussion firearm the actions were reversed - loading comes before priming. The ramming was done first, so the rifle was held perpendicular and steady against the left foot. Secured this way, ripping the cartridge by reaching around the muzzle cap with a thumb and finger to hold the cartridge while ripping off the top with the right hand is easy (and even less likely to spill powder than biting) - this is the drill I perform as an 1860 British soldier. When re-enacting American Civil War, I bite the cartridge. There is no practical difference in either method - so I have come to the conclusion that the reason the British actually changed was because of the Mutiny.

I have an animated illustration of the British, post-Mutiny method on my web site http://hicketypip.tripod.com/Rifledrill/musketry.htm

[L. Braden]

I agree about the practicality of both methods; and for drill purposes, the non-biting method was preferable; but in the heat of battle, when rapid firing was essential, I recall reading that most soldiers preferred the biting method as faster and surer, rather than reaching into the ammo pouch with one hand, then transferring the cartridge to the thumb and forefinger of the hand holding the barrel, then (after pinching or tearing off the top) transferring the cartridge back to the other hand for loading; and if you had nervous hands, it was hard enough to swiftly and surely cap the nipple and adjust the backsight without fumbling! Moreover, according to Sgt. Wm. Forbes-Mitchell of the 93rd, the "pinching process" was considered "effeminate"; "and for all practical purposes, you couldn't easily hold a rifle and pinch off a cartridge end at the same time." Just his opinion, not mine!

[L. Braden]

P.S. I doubt that the Mutiny had anything to do with the change in the British procedure, because it was still in effect at least as late as 1864, according to an official manual of that date. Perhaps public opinion changed it.
Here's the procedure according to Bengal Army Regulations: "The firelock being, at the word 'Prepare to load', placed on the ground six inches in front of the body, and held at the full extent of the left arm, the recruit receives the order, 'Load'. 1st.--Bring the cartridge to the mouth, holding it between the fore-finger and thumb, with the ball in the hand, and bite off the top; elbow close to the body."
(Cont'd)

[L. Braden]

According to govt. records published by G. W. Forrest, the contractors who supplied the fat were Indian; but did they supply forbidden fat unwittingly or intentionally? There was much speculation that the Mutiny was the Tsar's revenge for the Crimean War, and that Russian agents therefore bribed the contractors and instigated other rumors, such as that salt, flour, and sugar were contaminated by the British with the powdered bones of pigs and cows. Historian R. Montgomery Martin was informed that lots of rubles turned up in Indian bazaars at that time. In any case, it's known that Nana Sahib's Eurasian agent, Jamie Green (alias "Azimullah Khan") was in contact with Russian agents, who assured him that NS would receive Russian support if he instigated a revolt in India; and it's also known that AK was in Calcutta when the greased-cartridge scandal occurred in the nearby arsenal, and in Cawnpore when the bone-powder scandal occurred in that district.

[colsjt65]

I doubt that the Mutiny had anything to do with the change in the British procedure, because it was still in effect at least as late as 1864, according to an official manual of that date. Perhaps public opinion changed it.
Here's the procedure according to Bengal Army Regulations: "The firelock being, at the word 'Prepare to load', placed on the ground six inches in front of the body, and held at the full extent of the left arm, the recruit receives the order, 'Load'. 1st.--Bring the cartridge to the mouth, holding it between the fore-finger and thumb, with the ball in the hand, and bite off the top; elbow close to the body."

Of course, after the Mutiny, the British issued the Sepoys with the inferior .65 cal smoothbore Enfield with a fixed rear sight, to keep their own troops ever at an advantage, lest it all happen again.

This looks like the same loading procedure as the smoothbore 42 patterns that the Enfield rifle 'tried' to replace. I assume that they also went back to a round musket ball, which didn't need the offending lubrication.

[L. Braden]

Exactly! And when the breech-loading Snider replaced the Enfield, the sepoys were stuck with the old muzzle-loader and only got the Snider when it was replaced by the Martini-Henry. They still had the Snider in the 1st Sudan War, despite criticism in the Press, but they must have had a laugh at the Raj when recalled and/or surplus DEFECTIVE bayonets that were issued to the Indian Army were later re-issued (either inadvertently or intentionally) to the British Army and Navy in the Sudan! However, the Snider being a more powerful weapon than the MH, and less likely to jam, etc., meant that many preferred it to the MH.

[GrantRCanada]

I am curious why you are of the view that the Snider-Enfield was "a more powerful weapon that the MH" .....

The standard bullet weight for both arms was 480 grains, but the powder charge of the Snider cartridge was 70 grains powder, whereas the Martini charge was 85 grains, producing considerably higher muzzle velocity. Also, the smaller-diameter, longer Martini bullet retained velocity much better and thus had a significantly flatter trajectory.

Comparative penetration tests were performed by the British in 1869 - admittedly these involved the initial "long chamber" experimental .45 caliber Martini-Henry cartridge, which nevertheless used the same bullet form and weight, and the same powder charge, as the final approved "short chamber" bottlenecked round.

Some of the results:

- 1/2-inch elm planks, placed 1 inch apart: the M-H .45 penetrated an average of 14 1/2 planks; the Snider .577 penetrated an average of 8 1/2 planks.

- 3-inch balks of dry fir timber placed close together: at 50 yards, the .577 was stopped by the second balk and the .45 penetrated all three balks "easily". (At 100 yards, with a fourth balk of green fir having been added, the .45 also penetrated three balks easily, and two thirds of the bullets penetrated the fourth balk.)

- iron plate .261" thick: the .577 penetrated at 75 yards, but not at 100; the .45 penetrated at 200 yards but not at 300.

- rope mantlet consisting of four thicknesses of 3-inch rope: the .577 failed to penetrate at 50 yards; the .45 penetrated at 350 yards but not at 400.

- ordinary gabion filled with earth from a clay soil: the .577 failed to penetrate at all; the .45 penetrated at 10 and 25 yards, but failed to penetrate at longer distances.

- sand-bag containing one bushel of sand: the .577 failed to penetrate at all; the .45 penetrated at 10 yards and at 100 yards.