Qualla: Battle of Nalapani

Battle of Nalapani: Introduction

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Archibald Forbes, Arthur Griffiths and others., Public domain. Eighty-four soldiers signed the pledge. Their fort's walls had been razed to rubble, their water supply cut off for two days, their cannons silenced. The British forces surrounding them numbered in the thousands, backed by reinforced artillery batteries. Yet when Captain Balbhadra Kunwar asked his remaining men to commit to fighting to the last, eighty-four stepped forward and made their marks. What happened next -- a breakout charge through a full siege -- would define the reputation of the Gurkhas for the next two centuries and earn the enduring admiration of the very army they were fighting against.

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Image: Archibald Forbes, Arthur Griffiths and others. | Public domain

Battle of Nalapani: A Fort in the Doon Valley

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rajeshbahuguna.in, CC BY-SA 4.0. The fort at Nalapani, also called Kalunga, sat on a hill near what is now Dehradun in Uttarakhand. In 1814, it was garrisoned by roughly six hundred Nepali troops under Captain Balbhadra Kunwar as part of the Gorkha Empire's western territories. When the Anglo-Nepalese War began,...

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Image: Rajeshbahuguna.in | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Nalapani: A Month Under Siege

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Archibald Forbes, Arthur Griffiths and others., Public domain. It did not fall quickly. The initial British assault was repulsed with significant losses, and Gillespie himself was killed leading an attack -- one of the highest-ranking British officers to die in the entire war. The defenders fought from behind the fort's stone walls with a di...

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Image: Archibald Forbes, Arthur Griffiths and others. | Public domain

Battle of Nalapani: Water and Stone

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Archibald Forbes, Arthur Griffiths and others., Public domain. What finally broke the siege was not courage or firepower but thirst. Colonel Mawbey, who had assumed command after Gillespie's death, sent scouts to locate and sever the fort's external water source. His gunners destroyed roughly a hundred earthen vessels stored in a portico -- ...

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Image: Archibald Forbes, Arthur Griffiths and others. | Public domain

Battle of Nalapani: The Charge Through the Siege

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Archibald Forbes, Arthur Griffiths and others., Public domain. Balbhadra Kunwar refused to surrender. With approximately seventy survivors -- out of the original six hundred -- he led a breakout charge directly through the British siege lines. They fought their way clear and escaped into the hills. The British found upwards of ninety dead in...

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Image: Archibald Forbes, Arthur Griffiths and others. | Public domain

Battle of Nalapani: A Reputation Forged in Defeat

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Archibald Forbes, Arthur Griffiths and others., Public domain. The Battle of Nalapani was a military defeat for the Nepali garrison, but it became the foundational legend of Gurkha martial identity. More than any other engagement of the Anglo-Nepalese War, it established in British minds a deep respect for Gurkha soldiers -- a respect that l...

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Image: Archibald Forbes, Arthur Griffiths and others. | Public domain