AFVOA Newletters of Year 2008

Page 13 of 56 the previous Commanding Officers of the boat, her pennant, Naval Ensign and National Flag were brought down. Cmde Van Haltren received the arms of the Boat to mark her decommissioning. LITERATURE :: BOOKS BY MEMBERS EMPIRE’S FIRST SOLDIERS By Capt. D P Ramachandran An innovative addition to India’s war literature from the author of ‘Legion of the Brave’. “An absorbing read…..”, The Indian Express Copies at discounted rates for armed forces units / organizations: Details at the end. About the Author. D P Ramachandran is an ex-cavalry officer of the Indian Army, and a veteran of the 1971 Bangladesh War. He worked for many years in corporate sector after leaving the army, and now lives in Chennai. The first book he wrote, ‘Legion of the Brave’, a narrative based on his experiences during the war, was published in 2000 by EastWest Books (Madras). ‘Empire’s First Soldiers’ is his second book, and is being published by Lancer Publishers & Distributors, New Delhi, the leading military books publishers in India. What the Book is About. The book narrates all the great battles down the years for over two and a half centuries, which form the rich legacy of the Southern Indian Soldier; magnificent pieces of action tucked away in the folds of history. It takes up from mid-18 th Century when the Europeans began recruiting ‘Sepoy Levies’ (which led to the raising of the old Madras Army, and consequently the creation of the Indian Army itself), portraying the action of the Carnatic, Mysore and Maratha Wars, as well as those of the rebellions in the South; before moving on to operations overseas or beyond the borders of India, during the Burma, China, Afghan, Persian and Sindh Wars of the 19 th Century; and those of the 20 th Century during the two World Wars and the wars India fought after independence, right up to Kargil. EXCERPTS How it begins. It was a pleasant morning, going by the weather conditions round the year along the Coromandel Coast. The year was 1746, the month, that of October, and the date, the 24 th. With the rains, Adyar, the river that flows along the southern districts of the Madras Metropolis, Chennai if you will, often breaches the sandbar at its mouth to join the Bay of Bengal. Madras was no more than a township about four miles to the North. Here, across the expanse of the river, on that October morning, two armies faced each other, to fight a battle, the outcome of which, in the years to come, was to conceptualize the greatest military enterprise the Indian Subcontinent had known in all its history – the creation of the Indian Army. Occupying the Northern bank of the river, was the Army of the Nawab of Carnatic, 10,000-strong. Facing them, on the Southern bank, was a puny force, one tenth of its adversary in size, put together by Compagnie des Indes Orientales , the French East India Company, consisting of 300 Europeans and 700 sepoys, the French-trained Indian soldiers. The Nawab’s Army, with San Thome to its rear, stretched right up to the sea on the left. But cross the French did, the troops fording the river braving artillery fire, following the classic European technique of the musketry salvo; drawn up in three ranks and advancing, while firing successive volleys of shot. The Nawab’s line broke. The French had made a point – numbers didn’t matter; training and discipline did. The lesson was not lost on the British, though they were only bystanders.