Believe it or not, it was the ‘Enfield Rifle’. Most famously, the introduction of the Enfield rifle to Indian troops (sepoys) in 1857, issued with cartridges lubricated with mutton tallow, provided one of the catalysts to the Great Mutiny of 1857. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, sepoys tended to take great pride in their military prowess, and they exhibited enormous loyalty to their British officers. Sepoys throughout India were issued with a new, more powerful and more accurate gun, the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifled musket. The rest of the cartridge, including the ball, was then forced down with a ramrod. But in the 1830s and 1840s, tensions began to emerge. Add to Cart. Illustrations of events tended to reinforce Victorian notions of honor and bravery. Sepoys were forced to watch such displays as it was believed it set an example of the horrific death that awaited mutineers. Large numbers of native soldiers, known as sepoys, were employed by the company to maintain order and defend trading centers. And when the Indian independence movement gained momentum in the 20th century, events of the Revolt of 1857 were viewed as having been an early battle for independence, while individuals such as Mangal Pandey were hailed as early national heroes. Rumours spread that the cartridges for the new rifle were greased with pig and cow fat. It was developed at the Enfield arsenal by James P. Lee and fired a .303 caliber ammunition that had to manually loaded before firing. Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist. The standard method of loading was to bite the top off the cartridge and then pour the powder down the barrel. Both Muslim and Hindu soldiers refused to use these cartridges and staged an uprising when they were forced to use them. So what was the immediate cause of the Revolt of 1857? The Revolt of 1857 was the rebellion of Indian sepoys against the British officers. Sepoys in the British East India Company's armies in India were issued with the new rifle in 1857, and rumours were spread that the cartridges (referring here to paper-wrapped powder and projectile, not to metallic cartridges) were greased with beef tallow, pig fat, or a combination of the two – a situation abhorrent to Hindu and Muslim soldiers based on religious bel… Lee Enfield SMLE Spare Magazine . Rumors began to spread that the grease used to make the cartridges was derived from pigs and cows, which would be highly offensive to Muslims and Hindus. Eley Cartridges . The new Pattern 1858 gun with a different bore (0.656) was introduced to quell any uneasiness among the Indian sepoys and assurances were given that the cartridges were not dipped in beef or pork fat. In Mangal Pandey … in the mid-1850s, a new Enfield rifle was introduced into India that required a soldier to bite off the ends of greased cartridges in order to load the weapon. Add to Wish List Add to Compare. Fiocchi Cartridges . The cartridges were wrapped in paper, which had been coated in grease which made the cartridges easier to load in rifle barrels. Unlike existing percussion muskets, the Enfield's grooved bore required the cartridge to be greased to allow loading. Fighting in some places continued well into 1858, but the British were ultimately able to establish control. Each area had a leader. The Lee-Enfield had its origins in the late 19th century, when repeating rifles firing full-powered cartridges were coming to the fore. Any British plans to reform Indian society, which had been one of the underlying causes of the revolt, were essentially set aside, and religious conversion of the Indian population was no longer viewed as a practical goal. Sepoy units in the south of India remained loyal, but in the north, many units of the Bengal Army turned on the British. Victoria added the title "Empress of India" to her royal title. Origin of the Mutiny . As the mutiny spread, the British began called mutineers "pandies." Its cartridges consisted of a .577 inch ball projectile and a charge of gun powder propellant wrapped in waterproofed cartridge paper. Add to Cart. The cartridges to be used for the Enfield Rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. Gun Maintenance . Loading and firing a .577 cal 1853 Enfield rifle-musket using a paper cartridge containing 60 grains of black powder and a 460 grain lead minie ball pre-lubricated with Bore Butter and beeswax. Later in April sepoy troopers at Meerut refused the Enfield cartridges, and, as punishment, they were given long prison terms, fettered, and put in jail. The system was subject to abuse, and the company used it to annex territories in a questionable manner. £20.00 £16.67. And the uprising became extremely violent. This resource will grow as the Museum's Collection is catalogued and computerised, and as new acquisitions are added. During 1857, rumours began to circulate among the Bengal Army's sepoys that the cartridges were deliberately greased with pig and cow fat, offensive to Moslems and Hindus, in order to defile them. The Enfield rifle-musket was a contributing cause of the Indian rebellion of 1857. ... CIVIL WAR ENFIELD STYLE SPANISH CONTRACT MODEL 1857 OR P1857 PERC. Palmer and John Kaye trace the origins of the soldiers’ rebellion at Meerut to the Lee-Enfield Rifle. This presented a problem for native soldiers, as pig fat is a haraam, or forbidden, substance to Muslims, and beef fat is, likewise, deemed inauspicious for certain … A New Type of Rifle Cartridge Caused Problems, The Indian Revolt of 1857 Brought the End of the East India Company, Indian Rebellion of 1857: Siege of Lucknow, Seven Years' War: Major General Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, Biography of Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore, Industry and Agriculture History in Europe, independence movement against British rule. January 1857 : Enfield rifle and cartridges The British authorities officially adopted the Enfield rifle, but in the first place it was issued to the rifle regiments. Pandey, it should be noted, is considered a hero in India, and has been portrayed as a freedom fighter in films and even on an Indian postage stamp. The rest of the cartridge, including the ball, was then forced down with a ramrod. For more than 150 years historians have maintained that India’s first revolt against British rule broke out at least in part over a gun—to be precise, the muzzle-loading Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle-musket. As mutineers were captured, they were often killed on the spot, and many were executed in dramatic fashion. To what extent was the issue of the greased cartridge from the Enfield rifle the key reason for the Revolt of 1857? The rifle featured cartridges that contained 68 grains of black powder and had a ball that was typically 530-grain Pritchett or Burton-Minié. Introduced in the British Army by the War Department during 1854 in the Crimean War, they proved very effective at a range of 50 to 300 yards (270 m). The immediate cause of the Indian Revolt of 1857, or Sepoy Mutiny, was a seemingly minor change in the weapons used by the British East India Company's troops.The Company had upgraded to the new Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle, which used greased paper cartridges. 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