Bearded, kindly, courageous Sam Browne was perhaps the classic beau sabreur of the Indian Army. He is still remembered by the belt he designed which bears his name and has been in use ever since. His father was an HEIC doctor and Samuel was born in India on 3 October 1824. After an English education, he returned to the land of his birth in 1840 and was commissioned in the 46th Bengal Native Infantry. The period was one of great expansion of British power and though he missed some wars, the young Browne was active throughout the Second Anglo-Sikh War 1848–49, including the bloody battle of Chillianwallahm and the decisive victory at Gujerat.
With the Sikhs conquered, the British set their sights on bringing order to the mountainous Punjab-Afghan frontier north of Peshawar. A new kind of irregular cavalry and infantry were needed to police these badlands and Browne began to carve out a name for himself and his new regiment – the 2nd Punjab Cavalry. He took part in frequent skirmishes against the wily tribesmen and in major campaigns against the Waziris, Bozdars and Black Mountain fanatics in 1851–52 and 1857.
The year 1857 saw the Great Uprising break out across northern India and Sam, now commanding his regiment, led them in countless actionsbefore winning his coveted Victoria Cross in an amazing display of courage at Seerporah on 31 August 1858. In a fierce engagement that saw 300 mutineers slain, Browne galloped with just one orderly sowar against a 9-pounder gun and its crew who were about to fire on the advancing British infantry. Surrounded by increasing numbers of the enemy, he managed to kill one gunner before receiving a severe sword wound on the left knee. With blood spurting, he fought on until a mutineer sliced his left arm off at the shoulder. The blow was struck so hard that Brown’s horse toppled over on top of him. Luckily sowars of the 2nd PC then arrived and saved their commandant.
The famous belt that Browne designed is usually ascribed to the loss of his arm, but recent research suggests otherwise; as early as 1852 he told
a visiting English politician that he was ‘designing a new belt for his regiment and was finding out the best way of carrying his arms’. It seems Sam experimented with bits of harness and in 1856 he paid a London saddler to make a belt based on his Indian design. The old-style cavalry belt caused the sword to trail on the ground when a trooper was dismounted and it had no easy attachment for pistols. His new design allowed a man to easily reach his sword, pistol and ammunition. The waist belt also gave greater support to the back and the whole thing frankly looked smarter. The old belt stayed in use for some years, but by 1859 several officers in the 2nd PC had adopted the ‘Sam Browne belt’ and it gradually became universal in the British Army. Another VC hero, Sir Dighton Probyn, commented that soon after the 1857–59 uprising, officers of the 2nd PC had lengths of bridle chain sewn across the shoulders of their jackets. Clearly, the loss of Sam’s arm had an effect and shoulder chains became an increasingly common dress feature of Indian cavalry regiments.
Sam Browne served nineteen years with the 2nd PC and in 1865 was given the prestigious command of the Corps of Guides. The rank of majorgeneral came five years later and in 1875 he was chosen to escort HRH the Prince of Wales on his Indian tour. This resulted in a knighthood and further promotion. In 1878 he was made Military Member of the Viceroy’s Council. Here Browne and the C-in-C India, Sir Frederick Haines, both tried, without success, to curb the rash fantasies of Lord Lytton, warning that Afghanistan would not be an easy nut to crack if war broke out, but the Viceroy was determined on a show of force. When invasion came, Browne was given command of the northern column. His Peshawar Valley Field Force immediately ran into transport difficulties (largely not his fault as the other two invading armies had grabbed the best animals and supplies). Then, in attacking the fort of Ali Musjid that dominated the Khyber Pass, his frontal assault failed because the three brigades involved were not well co-ordinated. One critic who took part, the religious Colonel Ball-Acton, wrote that ‘the whole thing was a mistake … We were much too weak to attack so strong a position … We ought to have waited a day or two …’ Luckily, the Afghans evacuated the fort under cover of darkness (Browne had warned the Viceroy of the dangers that would be faced attacking Ali Musjid before the war even started). He was now able to advance on Jellalabad and by 2 April occupy Gandamak, where a treaty brought a short-lived peace in May 1879. Lytton now had a petty revenge on the man who had cautioned him a year earlier. He told British government that Browne should have been court-martialled instead of being honoured with a GCB, that he ‘was utterly unfit for any responsible command, had neglected every duty of a commander and displayed almost every disqualification; at the end of the campaign, his troops were demoralized and nearly mutinous through lack of confidence in their commander and his neglect of their simplest requirements’.
The Viceroy’s wrath was harsh indeed and Browne was relegated to command the Lahore Division and not sent to the front when war resumed. Lytton’s censure was vindictive, but it was not wholly unfair; one Gurkha officer wrote at the time that Browne had ‘a well-earned reputation of being a regular old woman and quite unfit to command an army’.Sam Browne retired soon after the war but lived for two more decades, until 14 March 1901. A monument ‘to his perpetual memory’, showing a Punjab cavalryman, was unveiled in St Paul’s Cathedral (with a copy in Lahore Cathedral), where it can be seen today. At the time, Lord Roberts said there never was ‘a truer man, a firmer friend, a braver soldier’.
William Wright is the author of Warriors of the Queen which is available now. Based on original research and complemented by over sixty photographs, Warriors of the Queen provides new insight into the men who built (and sometimes endangered) the British Empire on the battlefield.