Suppression of the Indian uprising by the British in 1884. The devilish wind of the “white master” race. The reason for the uprising

From the translation of the name of this execution, it is almost impossible to guess what it actually was. Much closer to the original sounds like “cannon fire”, “cannon shots” or, at worst, “cannon blowing”. Then it becomes clear that, firstly, this type of death penalty was directly related to guns, and secondly, it was used exclusively in wartime. This is probably why it was not widely used.

As with many instruments of torture and capital punishment, the inventor of the devilish wind is lost somewhere in the depths of history. It is only known that he was an Englishman, since Indians were killed by cannon fire during the sepoy uprising in 1857-58.

How exactly was the execution carried out?

In a very interesting way. The devilish wind, contrary to assumptions, did not at all resemble. An Indian soldier condemned to death was tied so that the cannon muzzle rested between his shoulder blades, and then, in fact, the shot was fired. It didn’t matter whether there was a cannonball or a blank shot, the person was literally torn to pieces.

It would seem: what’s creepy about this? Death is immediate. In most cases, the victim did not even have time to feel pain.

The Sipays were not afraid of pain, but of the psychological aspect of such a death. According to their beliefs (see “”), the greatest shame was to appear before the deities in an indecent form, i.e. being, in the literal sense, assembled from pieces of his body. An additional moral torment was the impossibility of a decent burial, when the division into castes was lost after death, and the head of the priest - a Brahman - came into contact with the head of some untouchable poor man. This happened quite often, since the devilish wind was a mass form of execution.

And people still wonder why psychology is needed, which is contemptuously called a pseudo-science. As you can see, it is simply irreplaceable for breaking the spirit of opponents during war.

There are relatively few references to the devilish wind in history. If the famous artist V. Vereshchagin had not become interested in this type of execution in that era, it is very likely that it would not have reached us at all. Although it is mentioned later – in the novels of Jules Verne (“The Steam House”) and R. Sabatini (“The Odyssey of Captain Blood”). And also in the film "Captain Nemo". It is noteworthy that Jules Verne turned this execution on its head, i.e. in his story, it was not the Hindus who were executed by cannon shots, but the Hindus - a British colonel, in revenge for the events of 1857.

Perhaps it is precisely with the devilish wind that the entertainment idea that arose much later in circuses is connected - entertaining the public through cannon shots, when a man in a helmet was used as a cannonball.

P.S. Have you been experiencing frequent chest pains lately? On the information portal otvet.hi.ru you will receive a complete answer to the question

The desperate people of India more than once rebelled against their English oppressors, but the East India Company was of little concern. The colonial authorities were confident in the reliability of their mercenary Indian soldiers, with the help of which they easily suppressed the discontent of the poorly armed peasants.

From the very beginning of the colonization of India, the British had a huge advantage over the natives - after all, even the most zealous defenders of their native land, armed only with sabers and leather shields, could not withstand rifle salvoes and artillery fire. However, the British did not want to lose their soldiers in a godforsaken part of the world, so the main force in the policy of unifying the fragmented Indian principalities became sepoys - hired soldiers from among the local population, who were equipped with modern weapons, trained and paid a substantial salary. For the poor, getting into the service of the British was the ultimate dream. Sepoys were recruited exclusively from Hindus and Muslims. By 1857, the three armies (Bengal, Bombay and Madras) included 233 thousand sepoys, while there were only 36 thousand British soldiers in India.

This seemed like a very smart move - to give poor savages a chance for a bright future in the service of the East India Company, to arm, train and guard the interests of the colonialists. Even though mercenaries' pay was severely cut in 1856, and promotions were limited to the rank of sergeant, they still remained loyal, preferring service to death from hunger or disease in some crumbling shack. But, while engaged in the Christianization and culturalization of the local population, the colonial authorities did not take into account one detail - not all traditions were ready to be exchanged for money and better conditions.

It all started with the adoption of cartridges with bullets from the system of the French inventor Claude Minier. This cartridge had a paper sleeve, which had to be bitten with your teeth when loading the weapon. But when adopting this cartridge, the authorities did not take into account that the cartridge case was soaked in cow and pork fat to protect it from moisture, which in turn offended the religious feelings of Muslims and Hindus.

The riot began on May 10, 1857, after 85 sepoys refused to receive new cartridges and were sentenced to hard labor. This provoked an uprising of three regiments in Meerut, which is 60 km from Delhi, and subsequently led to the uprising of the entire Bengal Army. On this day, many British soldiers were on leave, so they could not resist the rebellious natives. The rebels killed English soldiers, officers and officials, as well as several European civilians. They released their arrested fellow soldiers and another 800 convicts from prison. Soon the rebels captured Delhi, where soldiers of a small detachment of British guards from the arsenal, realizing that they could not protect the property of the East India Company, blew up an ammunition depot along with themselves and several hundred sepoys.

The mercenaries decided to raise the whole of India to revolt, so they moved to the palace where the last descendant of the Great Mughals, Padishah Bahadur Shah II, lived out his life. He was taken out of his chambers and forced to sign an appeal in which the entire Indian people were called upon to fight for independence. What began as an uprising grew into a nationwide war of liberation. Its front stretched from Punjab to Bengal, and the main centers of resistance were Delhi, Kanpur and Lucknow, where their own independent governments were formed. The British had to retreat to the south, where relative calm still reigned and there were troops loyal to the company.

Having recovered from the first blow, the colonialists began to suppress the rebellion. The British knew that Delhi was the gathering point for the sepoys, so it was there that the first blow was struck on June 6, 1857. General Harry Barnard captured the Bedliko Serai ridge, which overlooked the capital, and then began a four-month siege of the city itself. The British made good fighters out of the Indians, and sepoy artillerymen performed especially well, surpassing even the colonialists themselves in their art of firing. Barnard's troops would most likely have had a very difficult time if it had not been for that fateful warehouse that exploded at the beginning of the uprising, leaving the Delhi garrison almost without shells. However, the city's 30,000-strong garrison regularly made forays and launched attacks, destroying small detachments of the British.

Reinforcements came to the aid of the colonists in the form of British soldiers, as well as Indians who supported the suppression of the uprising. These were mainly Sikhs and Pashtuns of Pendajba. On September 8, a three-day artillery preparation began, as a result of which gaps were made in the walls of the city, and on September 14, colonial troops moved in four columns to assault. At the cost of heavy losses, they managed to overcome the walls and seize a bridgehead inside the city. This was followed by severe street fighting, which lasted six days and ended with the conquest of Delhi.

The British, having lost 1,574 soldiers, literally went mad with rage; they shot the main mosque of the city and the adjacent buildings, where the elite of the Muslim population of India lived, from cannons. The city was plundered and destroyed, peaceful Hindus were dragged out of their homes and killed, avenging their fallen comrades. Having burst into the palace of the padishah, the victors shot his entire family, and Bahadur Shah II himself was captured - this is how the ancient Mughal dynasty fell along with Delhi.

Then, on March 16, 1858, the city of Lucknow was taken, and on June 19, at the Battle of Gwalior, troops under the command of General Rose defeated the last large detachment of rebels, led by Tatia Tony. However, the uprising was finally suppressed only in April 1859.

Despite the victory, the British colonialists were forced to make a number of fundamental changes in their policy in India. So, even before the end of hostilities, in August 1858, the East India Company was liquidated, and the management of India passed into the hands of England, which, in turn, made all residents of the colony subjects of the English crown. At the same time, a number of laws were adopted, according to which land ownership rights were assigned to local feudal lords, and thanks to rental laws that limited the arbitrariness of landowners and princes, the colonists reduced the degree of discontent among the peasants.

Taking a person's life in itself cannot be called a particularly humane act. It is always associated with a panicky fear of death, horror of upcoming suffering, physical torment itself, and the very fact of parting with life. At the same time, the death penalty in many countries is still considered an acceptable method of punishment for the most heinous crimes.
The times of the Inquisition, when people tried to invent the most cruel punishments possible, are long gone. Now the authorities of countries where the death penalty is still practiced are trying to use the most humane methods of killing so that the punishment does not turn into cruel torture. More or less humane methods of execution include several.

Guillotining

The creation of the guillotine was one of the first attempts to make the death penalty as humane and even democratic as possible. Before this, cutting off the head with a sword or an ax was practiced. Only a true master of his craft could kill him quickly and painlessly in this way. If the executioner was skilled and mastered a sword (axe), the condemned person died almost instantly. Such an easy death was considered the prerogative of the nobility. Commoners and habitual repeat offenders were hanged.

But if desired, even such an “elite” execution as beheading could be turned into a torture worse than quartering. This is exactly what happened to Mary Queen of Scots in 1587. She was executed by an inexperienced executioner, who was only able to cut off the royal person’s head with the third blow. It’s impossible to even imagine how she suffered all this time.

There were plenty of similar cases in history, so the French doctor Joseph Guillotin proposed using a Scottish invention for quick decapitation. It was subsequently named the guillotine in his honor. Since the suicide bomber’s head was clearly fixed, and a sharply sharpened blade fell on his neck from a height, death was almost instantaneous. Duration - several seconds.

Execution

Guillotining was a common practice in many countries until the 1930s. Then it was changed to execution. Many modern prisons also use it. In the Soviet Union they were executed with one shot to the back of the head. It was carried out from a short distance by an experienced employee, so a mistake was practically excluded. Death in this case occurred instantly, in a second or two.

Similar to this type of execution was the so-called “devil's wind”, which was practiced in 1857-1859 by the British military in India. With the help of the “devil wind,” the white colonialists executed thousands of rebel sepoys. The Indians were tied with their backs close to the muzzle of the cannon, after which a shot was fired. The man was literally torn apart in a second. The execution was quick, but by Hindu standards, shameful: not a single sepoy wanted to appear before God in an indecent form.

"Fictitiously humane"

For a long time, electrocution and lethal injection were considered humane. These 2 types of capital punishment are still practiced in some US states and a number of other countries. But they only seem humane to a person not privy to the details.

In fact, execution by electric chair can only ideally last 0.5 minutes, as “prescribed” by the regulations. Some unfortunate people do not die immediately, so it is necessary to pass a current of 2700 V through their body several times. During these painful minutes, a person’s eyes pop out of their sockets and the brain literally becomes fried.

The same is true with lethal injection. The condemned person is administered a “cocktail” of three drugs: sodium thiopental, pavulon and potassium chloride. The first acts as a soporific. The other two paralyze breathing and stop the heart. For a long time it was believed that this was the most painless method of execution. In fact, the dosages of the drugs were often violated, which led to terrible suffering for suicide bombers. So both types of execution cannot be considered humane.

From the very beginning of the colonization of India, the British had a very great advantage over the natives. Even the most zealous defenders of their native lands, armed only with sabers and leather shields, could not oppose anything to the Europeans, armed with rifles and cannons. At the same time, the British did not want to lose their own soldiers at such a distance from the metropolis. For this reason, one of the main forces in the policy of uniting numerous and fragmented Indian principalities were sepoys - mercenary soldiers whom the British recruited from among the local population. The sepoys had modern equipment at their disposal and were paid a monthly salary. For the poorest sections of the Indian population, entering military service with the British became the ultimate dream for a long time.

Sepoys

By 1857, when the rebellion broke out, there were about 40 thousand British soldiers and officers and more than 230 thousand sepoys in India, who were part of three armies: Bengal, Bombay and Madras. All these armies had separate commands and differed in their organization. The most numerous and combat-ready of them was the Bengal army. It numbered 128 thousand people, who were recruited mainly from the natives of Oudh. Moreover, most of the sepoys of this army belonged to the Kshatriya (warrior caste) and Brahmin (clergy caste) castes. Thanks to this fact, in the Bengal army there was a stronger bond between sepoys than in the armies of Bombay and especially Madras, where sepoys were often recruited from the most lumpen-proletarian elements, as well as from the lower castes. In India, castes - the social groups into which Indian society was historically divided - were of great importance.

The sepoy troops were well armed and trained in the English style; all existing branches of the military were represented in them. The artillery units were especially well prepared. The sepoys were even superior to their British teachers in terms of accuracy in firing their guns. Typically, sepoys were hired for service for 3 years, after which the contract was renewed. The salary of an ordinary sepoy was 7 rupees per month, which in the realities of that India provided them with a satisfying life and even allowed them to leave a small surplus. The British even initially placated the sepoys, who enjoyed privileges in the examination of their cases in court, taxes on their families were reduced, and during the war they received time and a half salary.

Sepoys of the 20th and 11th Native Infantry Regiments, a Suwar of the 3rd Light Horse Battalion, a soldier of the 53rd Infantry Regiment, a Marine officer and a pikeman from the 9th Cavalry Regiment

Initially a smart move to give the natives a chance at a bright future in the military service of the East India Company, over time it lost its original luster. By the beginning of the uprising, the sepoys had turned from a privileged class into ordinary “cannon fodder”; by that time, Great Britain had been waging continuous wars in Southeast Asia for almost 20 years. In addition, in 1856, sepoys' salaries were cut, and promotion through the ranks was limited to the rank of sergeant. But even despite this, many sepoys continued to be loyal to the colonialists, preferring service to death from disease and hunger in some shack. However, while consistently engaged in the cultivation and Christianization of the local Indian population, the colonial authorities did not take into account one detail - not all people were ready to exchange centuries-old traditions for money. Dissatisfaction with colonial policies among Indians and sepoys only grew stronger, turning the region into a “powder keg.”

Background to the Sepoy Rebellion

By the time of the Sepoy Mutiny, India had finally become a key element of the British colonial system. By the middle of the 19th century, a very complex mechanism for the economic exploitation of India had formed, which represented a kind of “standard” of Western colonial policy. The implemented mechanism made it possible to ensure a stable and fairly large-scale pumping of various material resources from India, which to a large extent ensured the success of the rapid industrial development of the metropolis. On the other hand, the economic policy pursued by Great Britain greatly contributed to the development of the capitalist system of relations in India itself, where new economic relations were being formed and new sectors of the economy emerged. At the same time, this process was quite painful and contradictory.

Painting by V. Vereshchagin “Suppression of the Indian Uprising by the British”

The local colonial administration built a unique fiscal mechanism, which was based on a land tax. In some Indian regions, four tax systems were formed, which were based on different forms of land use. At the same time, some economic activities were carried out in the country: the construction of the first railway, the organization of a postal service, and the construction of the Ganges irrigation canal. On the one hand, they brought the benefits of civilization to India, on the other, innovations were necessary for the British bourgeoisie in order to facilitate and reduce the cost of the export of Indian raw materials. The bulk of the Indian population did not derive any benefit from these benefits of civilization, which were mainly oriented towards the British themselves, as well as towards representatives of the native aristocracy. Along with this, the situation of ordinary Indian peasants, artisans and workers worsened over time. These classes bore the main burden of ever-increasing taxes, duties and taxes, which went towards maintaining the Anglo-Indian army, which numbered more than 350 thousand people and the entire bureaucratic apparatus of the British administration.

In general, the economic policy pursued by the British in India led to a disruption of traditional ways of life, and also destroyed the beginnings of those market relations that began to take shape in India even before the intervention from Great Britain. The colonialists sought to do everything to transfer the Indian economy to the needs of the industrial society of the metropolis. After the rural community was destroyed with the direct participation of the British, the process of development of new capitalist relations in the country began. At the same time, part of the local aristocracy also suffered from British innovations. In Bengal, many local ancient aristocratic families, as a result of the land and tax reform implemented by the British, were ruined and ousted by a new layer of landowners who took their place from among officials, city merchants, moneylenders and speculators. The policy pursued by Governor General Dalhousie unceremoniously liquidated a number of Indian princely states. At the same time, local native princes lost their thrones, subsidies and titles, and considerable damage was caused to various feudal dynasties of the country. Finally, after the annexation of Oudh in 1856, the British administration significantly reduced the rights and possessions of local large feudal lords - “talukdars”.

The beginning of the transformation of the agricultural sector, which was the basis of the traditional Indian economic structure, the destruction of traditional handicraft production - the birthplace of cotton over time practically ceased to export finished fabrics from local raw materials to the metropolis. Gradually, India's main export item became not finished goods, but the raw materials themselves for factories located in the metropolis. All this led to a serious aggravation of the socio-economic situation in India. The British, while destroying and transforming the existing foundations of Indian society, were in no hurry to create new conditions that could provide the people of India with progressive cultural and economic development.

The British repulse the rebel attack

At the same time, the colonial authorities infringed on the interests of a significant part of the Indian nobility. In the mid-19th century, its representatives were massively deprived of their possessions under the pretext of “bad management.” There was also a reduction in the pensions that the British paid to many Indian princes. In the future, it would be representatives of the local princely aristocracy who would stand at the head of the spontaneously erupted sepoy uprising. In addition, the colonial British administration decided to tax the lands that belonged to the Indian clergy, which also did not add to its popularity. This policy caused outright irritation among the Hindu and Muslim clergy, who at that time enjoyed enormous influence among the common people.

Along with this, the Indian sepoys, as noted above, were unhappy with the significant reduction in their salaries, as well as the fact that they began to be used in various military conflicts outside of India itself - in Afghanistan, Iran and China. Thus, by the middle of the 19th century, a whole set of socio-economic factors had developed in India that led to the uprising, and local uprisings against the British colonial administration took place in India throughout the first half of the 19th century.

The reason for the uprising

Any spark was needed to start an uprising, and that spark was the notorious problem associated with the care of the new Enfield percussion cap guns that had just been adopted. The lubrication of this rifle and the impregnation of cardboard cartridges for it contained animal fats, the top of the cartridge itself (with a bullet) had to be first bitten when loading the gun (gunpowder was poured from a cardboard sleeve into the barrel of the gun, the sleeve itself was used as a wad, on top with the ramrod was clogged with a bullet). The sepoys, who were both Hindu and Muslim, were greatly frightened by the prospect of desecration through such close contact with the remains of animals - cows and pigs. The reason was characteristic religious taboos that still exist today: a cow for Hindus is a sacred animal, eating its meat is a great sin, and among Muslims a pig is considered an unclean animal.

Disarmament of the sepoys who refused to fight against their compatriots and participate in the suppression of the uprising.

At the same time, the army leadership insisted on using a new model gun and cartridges lubricated with forbidden animal fats, ignoring the growing discontent among the sepoys. When this mistake was finally realized, it was already too late. Many sepoys interpreted the British innovations as a deliberate insult to their religious feelings. And although the command had previously ensured that sepoy units were recruited on a mixed religious basis in order to eliminate the likelihood of collusion among them, the effect in this case was completely opposite. Both the Hindus and Muslims among the sepoys forgot their differences and united among themselves in defense of the “Dharma and the Koran.”

Sepoy Mutiny

The rebellion began on May 10, 1857 in Meerut. The beginning of the uprising was the refusal of 85 sepoys to conduct training exercises with new cartridges containing animal fat. For this they were sentenced to death, which was commuted to 10 years of hard labor. The convicts were sent to prison, but the very next day in Meerut, which was located 60 kilometers from Delhi, an uprising of three Bengal regiments began. Subsequently, the uprising, like a forest fire, spread to the entire Bengal army. On the day the uprising began, many British soldiers were on leave, they had a day off, so they were unable to provide organized resistance to the rebel natives. The rebels killed a number of British soldiers and officers, as well as officials and European civilians, including women and children. They also released 85 sepoys sentenced to hard labor and about 800 more prisoners in the local prison.

Quite quickly, the rebels captured Delhi, where a small detachment of 9 British officers, realizing that they could not protect the local arsenal, simply blew it up. At the same time, 6 of them survived, but as a result of the explosion, many people died on the streets and neighboring houses were destroyed. The rebel sepoys hoped to raise the whole of India, so they went to the palace in which the last descendant of the Great Mughals, Padishah Bahadur Shah II, lived out his life. On May 11, 1857, the rebels entered Delhi, and the very next day the padishah accepted the help of the sepoys and declared his support for the uprising, calling on the entire Indian people to fight for independence. What began as a small uprising quickly grew into a real war of liberation, the front of which stretched from Punjab to Bengal, and Delhi, Kanpur and Lucknow became the main centers of resistance in India, where their own governments were formed. The British had to retreat to the south of India, where relative calm remained and military units loyal to the East India Company were located.

Sepoy Elephant Artillery

Having recovered from the first sudden blow, the colonial troops began to suppress the uprising. The British knew very well that Delhi had become the gathering point for the sepoys, so it was on this city that on June 6, 1857 their first attack was directed. First, General Harry Barnard managed to capture the Bedliko-Serai ridge, which dominated Delhi, and then began a siege of the city, which lasted for 4 months. The British managed to prepare the Indians well, turning them into excellent fighters. Particularly distinguished were the artillery sepoys, who surpassed the colonialists themselves in their shooting skills. General Barnard's army would most likely have had a very difficult time if that same local arsenal had not been blown up in Delhi. Its explosion left the rebel sepoys in the city with virtually no shells. But even despite this, the 30,000-strong Delhi garrison tried to regularly make forays out of the city, striking at the enemy and destroying small British detachments.

During the siege, reinforcements from new British soldiers came to the aid of the colonists (some of the troops were transferred from Singapore and the metropolis, some after the end of the Crimean War came overland through Persia), as well as Indians who turned out to be loyal to the colonial administration. These were mainly Sikhs and Pashtuns of Pendajba. On September 7, 1857, the British received powerful siege weapons and began artillery preparations, during which they managed to make holes in the city walls. On September 14, colonial troops stormed the city in four columns. At the cost of serious losses, they managed to seize a bridgehead directly in Delhi, after which bloody street battles followed, which lasted a week and ended with the fall of the city.

Storm Delhi

The British, who lost 1,574 of their soldiers during the assault, were literally mad with rage. From cannons they shot at the main city mosque, as well as the adjacent buildings in which the elite of the Muslim population of India lived. Delhi was robbed and destroyed, many civilians were simply dragged out of their homes and killed, avenging their comrades killed in battle. Having burst into the palace of the padishah, the victors took Bahadur Shah II prisoner, and shot his entire family. Thus, along with Delhi, the ancient Mughal dynasty also fell. After capturing Delhi, the British methodically suppressed uprisings in other cities. On March 16, 1958, they captured Lucknow, and on June 19 of the same year, in the battle of Gwalior, the troops commanded by General Rose defeated the last large detachment of the rebels, led by Tatia Toni. After that, they eliminated only small pockets of resistance. The main reasons for the defeat of the uprising were the better equipment of the British colonialists, differences in the goals of the rebels, primarily poor peasants and artisans and rich feudal lords, and the continued disunity of peoples in India, which allowed the British to isolate the main centers of the uprising.

Results of the uprising

The Sepoy Rebellion was finally crushed by April 1859. Despite the fact that the uprising ended in defeat, the British colonialists were forced to change their policy in India. On November 1, 1858, Queen Victoria's manifesto was published in India, which announced the transfer of control of India to the English crown and the liquidation of the East India Company. Queen Victoria promised her forgiveness to all Indian feudal lords who joined the Sepoy Rebellion, excluding those who were directly involved in the murder of English citizens. After the adoption of the Administration of India Act, the East India Company lost its original significance, although it was able to exist until 1873, but as an ordinary commercial organization. A number of laws were also adopted, which secured the ownership of land for the Indian feudal lords, and thanks to the rental laws, which limited the arbitrariness of princes and landowners, the colonists managed to reduce the degree of discontent among Indian peasants.

After the East India Company was removed from power in India, its armed forces (European and Sepoy) were turned into royal service troops. At the same time, the old sepoy army almost ceased to exist. In the Bengal army, the overwhelming number of sepoys joined the uprising of 1857-1859. When carrying out the reorganization of this army, first of all, the number of British was increased. Before the uprising, there were five sepoys for every English soldier, and after the uprising the ratio was increased to one to three. At the same time, artillery and technical units were now staffed only by the British. Also in the sepoy units the number of British non-commissioned officers and officers increased.

The ruins of the palace of the governor of Uttar Pradesh province in the city of Lucknow after shelling

The national composition of the renewed sepoy units also changed. Brahmins were no longer recruited for military service, and the recruitment of residents of Oudh and Bengal was stopped. The Muslim tribes of the Punjab, the Sikhs and the warlike inhabitants of Nepal (Gurkhas) made up the majority of the newly recruited soldiers of the Anglo-Indian army. Now, in most cases, a third of each regiment was Hindu, a third Muslim, and a third Sikh. Moreover, they all belonged to different nationalities of India, spoke different languages ​​and professed different religions. By making extensive use of religious and national divisions, recruiting from the most backward tribes and nationalities of India (with the exception of the Sikhs), the British hoped to prevent the bloody events of 1857-1859.

Information sources:
http://orientbgu.narod.ru/seminarnov/sipay.htm
http://www.e-reading.mobi/chapter.php/1033674/13/Shirokorad_-_Britanskaya_imperiya.html
http://warspot.ru/459-vosstanie-sipaev
http://army.lv/ru/sipayskoe-vosstanie/2141/3947
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It consisted of tying a condemned person to the muzzle of a cannon and then firing it through the victim’s body (both with a cannonball and a blank charge of gunpowder).

History of origin

This type of execution was developed by the British during the Sepoy Rebellion (-1858) and was actively used by them to kill rebels.

Vasily Vereshchagin, who studied the use of this execution before painting his painting “The Suppression of the Indian Uprising by the British” (1884), wrote the following in his memoirs:

Modern civilization was scandalized mainly by the fact that Turkish massacres were carried out close by, in Europe, and then the means of committing atrocities were too reminiscent of Tamerlane’s times: they chopped, cut the throats, like sheep.
The case with the British is different: firstly, they did the work of justice, the work of retribution for the trampled rights of the victors, far away, in India; secondly, they did the job on a grand scale: they tied hundreds of sepoys and non-sepoys who rebelled against their rule to the muzzles of cannons and, without a shell, with only gunpowder, they shot them - this is already a great success against cutting their throats or ripping open their stomachs.<…>I repeat, everything is done methodically, in a good way: the guns, however many there are, are lined up in a row, one more or less criminal Indian citizen, of different ages, professions and castes, is slowly brought to each barrel and tied by the elbows, and then team, all guns fire at once.

- V. Vereshchagin. Skobelev. Russian-Turkish War 1877-1878 in the memoirs of V.V. Vereshchagin. - M.: “DAR”, 2007. - P. 151.

The particular horror of this type of execution for the condemned was that the “devilish wind” inevitably tore the victim’s body into pieces, which, in the light of the religious and social traditions of India, had very negative consequences for the person being executed. Vereshchagin’s memoirs indicate:

They are not afraid of this death, and execution does not frighten them; but what they are avoiding, what they are afraid of, is the need to appear before the highest judge in an incomplete, tormented form, without a head, without arms, with a lack of limbs, and this is not only probable, but even inevitable when shot from cannons.<…>
A remarkable detail: while the body is shattered into pieces, all the heads, detached from the body, spiral upward. Naturally, they are then buried together, without a strict analysis of which of the yellow gentlemen belongs to this or that part of the body. This circumstance, I repeat, greatly frightens the natives, and it was the main motive for introducing execution by shooting from cannons in especially important cases, such as, for example, during uprisings.
It is difficult for a European to understand the horror of an Indian of a high caste when he only needs to touch a fellow low caste: he must, in order not to close off the possibility of salvation, wash himself and make sacrifices after that endlessly. It’s also terrible that under modern conditions, for example, on the railways you have to sit elbow to elbow with everyone - and here it can happen, no more, no less, that the head of a Brahmin with three cords will lie in eternal rest near the spine of a pariah - brrr ! This thought alone makes the soul of the most determined Hindu tremble!
I say this very seriously, in full confidence that no one who has been in those countries or who has impartially familiarized themselves with them from the descriptions will contradict me.

- V. Vereshchagin. Skobelev. Russian-Turkish War 1877-1878 in the memoirs of V.V. Vereshchagin. - M.: “DAR”, 2007. - P. 153.

Execution in culture

• In Jules Verne's novel The Steam House, the Indians were going to execute Colonel Munro by tying him to the muzzle of a cannon and shooting him from it. There are also these lines:

  Munro,” continued the nabob, “one of your ancestors, Hector Munro, was the first to dare to use this terrible execution, which took on such terrible proportions in the war of 1857!”

• In R. Sabatini's novel The Odyssey of Captain Blood, the main character, Captain Blood, orders the captive Spanish caballero Don Diego de Espinosa to be tied to the mouth of a cannon in order to force the latter's son to fulfill his conditions. Sabatini describes this episode as follows:

  Don Diego, tied to the muzzle of the cannon, furiously rolled his eyes, cursing Captain Blood. The Spaniard's arms were placed behind his back and tied tightly with ropes, and his legs were tied to the frames of the gun carriage. Even a fearless person who has boldly looked death in the face can be horrified to learn exactly what kind of death he will have to die.
  Foam appeared on the Spaniard's lips, but he did not stop cursing and insulting his tormentor:
  - Barbarian! Savage! Damn heretic! Can't you finish me off in some Christian way?

  However, the execution did not happen: Don Diego died of fear almost immediately after uttering these words. The cannon still fired, but Don Diego was already dead.
• This execution ends the story of Arthur Conan Doyle “How Copley Banks finished off Captain Sharkey.”
• The execution of “The Devil’s Wind” is depicted in V. Vereshchagin’s painting “The Suppression of the Indian Uprising by the British” (1884) (see above).
• The execution of sepoys is depicted in the film Captain Nemo.
• A failed execution (thanks to a spontaneous revolt of the townspeople, including women and children) by the devilish wind was prepared for the positive hero, a folk violinist, in the Soviet children's film "