Qualla: Siege of Multan (1848-1849)

Siege of Multan (1848-1849): Introduction

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On the morning of April 19, 1848, two British officers rode out of the citadel of Multan believing the handover of power had gone smoothly. Dewan Mulraj, the Hindu governor who had ruled this wealthy trading city under the Sikh Empire, had just turned over the keys to a new Sikh ruler imposed by the East India Company. There was no sign of hostility. Then a soldier from Mulraj's own army attacked Patrick Vans Agnew with a sword, and the city erupted. By the next morning, both Vans Agnew and Lieutenant Anderson were dead -- hacked apart by a mob that Mulraj's troops either joined or watched. The siege that followed would last nine months, trigger the Second Anglo-Sikh War, and end with an explosion so massive it remains one of the largest non-nuclear detonations in recorded history.

Siege of Multan (1848-1849): A City Worth Fighting Over

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Multan in 1848 was no backwater. With a population of 80,000, it served as the commercial hub for a vast region, its bazaars stacked with spices, silks, and valuables. The Sikh Empire had captured it in 1818, and for three decades it was governed by Dewan Mulraj, a Hindu vassal w...

Siege of Multan (1848-1849): The Long Summer of Inaction

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Mulraj had probably not planned the attack on the British officers. But once his troops committed the murders, he committed himself to rebellion, presenting Vans Agnew's severed head to the new Sikh governor and telling him to carry it back to Currie. Lieutenant Herbert Edwardes,...

Siege of Multan (1848-1849): Thirty-Two Thousand Against Twelve

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Reinforcements from the Bombay Army arrived in late November, swelling General William Whish's force to 32,000 troops with 150 pieces of artillery. Inside the city, Mulraj commanded 12,000 men with 54 guns and 12 mortars. The Indus River, flowing nearby, allowed British steamship...

Siege of Multan (1848-1849): House to House

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The general assault came on January 2, 1849. British and Indian troops scaled the breaches in the city walls, and the fighting devolved into brutal house-to-house combat. Soldiers killed defenders and civilians without distinction. Whish ordered the surviving civilians herded int...

Siege of Multan (1848-1849): The Spoils and the Reckoning

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The British found Mulraj's treasury worth three million pounds -- an enormous fortune in the mid-nineteenth century. Looting by both British and Indian soldiers was widespread. Whish's army, now free from the siege, marched to reinforce Sir Hugh Gough's main force. The heavy guns...