ABSTRACT
The great majority of officers were blind to the dangers of the situation, and even at the very time of the outbreak of the Mutiny commanding officers seemed to vie with one another in apparently genuine declarations as to the loyalty of their troops. The plan to remove the former King of Delhi from his palace had similarly alienated certain sections of the Muslims, and it is significant that one of the first acts of the mutineers was to proclaim Bahadur Shah Emperor of India. Bengal in the old sense included all that part of British territory in India which was administered from Calcutta, and the main recruiting ground for the Bengal Army was the kingdom of Oudh. In spite of its splendid years of service in the early days of the Company, the Bengal Army had always been somewhat difficult, perhaps because of the presence in it of a large number of men of high caste.
