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Sepoy
''Sepoy'' () is a term related to ''sipahi'', denoting professional Indian infantrymen, traditionally armed with a musket, in the armies of the Mughal Empire and the Maratha. In the 18th century, the French East India Company and its European counterparts employed locally recruited soldiers within India, mainly consisting of infantry designated as "sepoys". The largest sepoy force, trained along European lines, served the British East India Company. The term "sipahi" (or sometimes "sepoy") continues in use in the Indian, Pakistan and Nepalese armies, where it denotes the rank of private. Etymology In Persian (Aspa) means horse and Ispahai is also the word for cavalrymen. The term ''sepoy'' is the anglicised form of the Persian word (), meaning the traditional "infantry soldier" in the Mughal Empire. In the Ottoman Empire the term was used to refer to cavalrymen. Historical usage The term ''sepoy'' came into common use in the forces of the British East India Com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sipahi
The ''sipahi'' ( , ) were professional cavalrymen deployed by the Seljuk Turks and later by the Ottoman Empire. ''Sipahi'' units included the land grant–holding ('' timar'') provincial ''timarli sipahi'', which constituted most of the army, and the salaried regular ''kapikulu sipahi'', or palace troops. However, the irregular light cavalry ("raiders") were not considered to be . The ''sipahi'' formed their own distinctive social classes and were rivals to the janissaries, the elite infantry corps of the sultans. A variant of the term "''sipahi''" was also applied by colonial authorities to several cavalry units serving in the French and Italian colonial armies during the 19th and 20th centuries (see ). Name The word is derived from Persian and means "soldier" and is also transliterated as and ; rendered in other languages as: in Albanian and Romanian, ''sepuh'' (սեպուհ) in Armenian, () in Greek, or in Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, and Macedonian (Cyril ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Presidency Armies
The presidency armies were the armies of the three Presidencies of British India, presidencies of the East India Company's Company rule in India, rule in India, later the forces of the the Crown, British Crown in British Raj, India, composed primarily of Indian sepoys. The presidency armies were named after the presidencies: the Bengal Army, the Madras Army and the Bombay Army. Initially, only Europeans served as commissioned or non-commissioned officers. In time, Indian Army units were garrisoned from Peshawar in the north, to Sind in the west, and to Rangoon in the east. The army was engaged in the wars to extend British control in India (the Anglo-Mysore Wars, Mysore, Anglo-Maratha Wars (other), Maratha and Second Anglo-Sikh War, Sikh wars) and beyond (the Anglo-Burmese wars, Burma, Anglo-Afghan War, Afghan, First Opium War, First and Second Opium Wars, and the Expedition to Abyssinia). The presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the Company ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hyder Ali
Hyder Ali (''Haidar'alī''; ; 1720 – 7 December 1782) was the Sultan and ''de facto'' ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India. Born as Hyder Ali, he distinguished himself as a soldier, eventually drawing the attention of Mysore's rulers. Rising to the post of Dalavayi ( commander-in-chief) to Krishnaraja Wodeyar II, he came to dominate the titular monarch and the Mysore government. He became the ''de facto'' ruler, King of Mysore as Sarvadhikari (Chief Minister) by 1761. During intermittent conflicts against the East India Company during the First and Second Anglo–Mysore Wars, Hyder Ali was the military leader. Though illiterate, Hyder Ali concluded an alliance with the French, and used the services of French workmen in raising his artillery and arsenal. His rule of Mysore was characterised by frequent warfare with his neighbours and rebellion within his territories. This was not unusual for the time as much of the Indian subcontinent was then in turmoil. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South Asia and Southeast Asia), and later with East Asia. The company gained Company rule in India, control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent and British Hong Kong, Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world by various measures and had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British Army at certain times. Originally Chartered company, chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies," the company rose to account for half of the world's trade during the mid-1700s and early 1800s, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, sugar, salt, spices, Potass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Topass
Topass (Topass, Topass Seaman or Topas) was a term used by the British Empire for sailors and soldiers of Indo-Portuguese descent who served as foot soldiers in the army and as the equivalent of Boy First Class in the imperial British Navy. They were often assigned the worst duties aboard the ship, such as cleaning latrines. The Topasses possibly originated from soldiers raised in the 18th century in Madras as a private force to protect local factories. They were employed as mercenaries and used to bolster the ranks of the East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ... in India, especially during times when Britain was at war and the company struggled to recruit soldiers. References {{reflist Merchant navy Military history of the British East India Compa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persian Language
Persian ( ), also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Farsi (, Fārsī ), is a Western Iranian languages, Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan in three mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible standard language, standard varieties, respectively Iranian Persian (officially known as ''Persian''), Dari, Dari Persian (officially known as ''Dari'' since 1964), and Tajik language, Tajiki Persian (officially known as ''Tajik'' since 1999).Siddikzoda, S. "Tajik Language: Farsi or not Farsi?" in ''Media Insight Central Asia #27'', August 2002. It is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan, as well as within other regions with a Persianate society, Persianate history in the cultural sphere o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe, between the early 16th and early 18th centuries. The empire emerged from a Anatolian beyliks, ''beylik'', or principality, founded in northwestern Anatolia in by the Turkoman (ethnonym), Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. His successors Ottoman wars in Europe, conquered much of Anatolia and expanded into the Balkans by the mid-14th century, transforming their petty kingdom into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the Fall of Constantinople, conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed II. With its capital at History of Istanbul#Ottoman Empire, Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) and control over a significant portion of the Mediterranean Basin, the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interacti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gentoo (term)
Gentoo, also spelled Gentue, Gentow or Jentue, was a term used by Ethnic groups in Europe, Europeans for the Indigenous peoples, native inhabitants of India before the word Hindu, with its religious connotation, was used to distinguish a group from Muslims and members of other religious groups in India. ''Gentio'' and ''Gentoo'' terms were applied historically to indigenous peoples of India; later, to Telugu people, Telugu-speaking persons and Telugu language, their language in then Madras Presidency, Madras Province (now the Andhra Pradesh, Andhra region), as opposed to the Malbars, or Tamil people, Tamil speakers and Tamil language, their language (in what is now Tamil Nadu). An example from the Monsignor Sebastiao Rodolfo Dalgado is "moros, gentivos e maos christãos". It was also an Anglo-Indian slang term used in the 17th and 18th centuries; however, in the 20th century, the word became derogatory. Etymology It is unclear why Indians were called ''Gentoo''. As Portuguese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matchlock
A matchlock or firelock is a historical type of firearm wherein the gunpowder is ignited by a burning piece of flammable cord or twine that is in contact with the gunpowder through a mechanism that the musketeer activates by pulling a lever or Trigger (firearms), trigger with their finger. This firing mechanism was an improvement over the hand cannon, which lacked a trigger and required the musketeer or an assistant to apply a match directly to the gunpowder by hand. The matchlock mechanism allowed the musketeer to apply the match himself without losing his concentration. Description The classic matchlock gun held a burning slow match in a clamp at the end of a small curved lever known as the ''serpentine''. Upon the pull of a lever (or in later models a trigger) protruding from the bottom of the gun and connected to the serpentine, the clamp dropped down, lowering the smoldering match into the flash pan and igniting the priming powder. The flash from the primer traveled throug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Nawab's Artillery At Plassey
''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of the archaic pronoun ''thee' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Private (rank)
A private is a soldier, usually with the lowest Military rank, rank in many armies. Soldiers with the rank of private may be conscription, conscripts or they may be professional (career) soldiers. The term derives from the term "private soldier". "Private" comes from the Latin word ''privus'' or perhaps ''privo'' that meant an individual person and later an individual without an Official (other), office. Asia Indonesia In Indonesia, this rank is referred to as ''Tamtama'' (specifically ''Prajurit'' which means soldier), which is the lowest rank in the Indonesian National Armed Forces. In the Indonesian Army, Indonesian Marine Corps, and Indonesian Air Force, "Private" has three levels, which are: Private (''Prajurit Dua''), Private First Class (''Prajurit Satu''), and Chief Private (''Prajurit Kepala''). After this rank, the next promotion is to Corporal. File:prada pdh ad.png, Private (''Prajurit Dua'') File:pratu pdh ad.png, Private First Class (''Prajurit Satu'') ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Babur
Babur (; 14 February 148326 December 1530; born Zahīr ud-Dīn Muhammad) was the founder of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent. He was a descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan through his father and mother respectively. He was also given the posthumous name of ''Firdaws Makani'' ('Dwelling in Paradise'). Born in Andijan in the Fergana Valley (now in Uzbekistan), Babur was the eldest son of Umar Shaikh Mirza II (1456–1494, Timurid governor of Fergana from 1469 to 1494) and a great-great-great-grandson of Timur (1336–1405). Babur ascended the throne of Fergana in its capital Akhsikath in 1494 at the age of twelve and faced rebellion. He conquered Samarkand two years later, only to lose Fergana soon after. In his attempt to reconquer Fergana, he lost control of Samarkand. In 1501, his attempt to recapture both the regions failed when the Uzbek prince Muhammad Shaybani defeated him and founded the Khanate of Bukhara. In 1504, he conquered Kabul, which was un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
