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85-400: A "last stand" is a last resort tactic, and is chosen because the defending force realizes or believes the benefits of fighting outweigh the benefits of retreat or surrender. This usually arises from strategic or moral considerations, such as staying and fighting to buy time for wounded soldiers or civilians to get to a safe place, leading defenders to conclude that their sacrifice is essential to

170-524: A fortified position. It is also forbidden to declare that "no quarter will be given". Last stands loom large in history due to the pull on popular imagination. Historian Nathaniel Philbrick argues: Long before Custer died at the Little Bighorn, the myth of the Last Stand already had a strong pull on human emotions, and on the way we like to remember history. The variations are endless — from

255-433: A last stand situation, recognising that trapped men will fight harder. Sun Tzu wrote: "To a surrounded enemy, you must leave a way of escape" . Similarly, they have sometimes suggested deliberately putting their own forces in such a situation, for example by burning boats or bridges that could tempt them to retreat. The historian Bryan Perrett suggests that although the majority of last stands throughout history have seen

340-641: A last stand to protect their ruler or leader or commander. In the Battle of Hastings in 1066, King Harold II battled the Norman William the Conqueror , who invaded with 7,000 men. After most of the English were killed in the battle, "Harold and his housecarl bodyguard...fought on until an arrow struck the king in the eye." After Harold died, the housecarl bodyguard made a last stand and "...fought to

425-643: A public rally presided over by the Punjab Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal. Following this, the State Government issued a notification that the battle story should be included in the school curriculum from this session. There had been a constant demand from the Sikh Regiment and various ex-servicemen's associations that the battle be included in the school curriculum. A similar request had also been put forward to Mr Badal during

510-458: A rearguard last stand. It took place on July 13, 1660, at a mountain pass in the vicinity of fort Vishalgad, near the city of Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India between the Maratha warrior Baji Prabhu Deshpande and Siddi Masud of Adil Shahi dynasty . 300 Marathas in a rearguard action, held off an attacking force of 10,000 Bijapuris, allowing their king Shivaji to escape to a nearby fort. Ultimately

595-584: A series of forts, originally built by Ranjit Singh , the ruler of the Sikh Empire , were consolidated. Two of the forts were Fort Lockhart (on the Samana Range of the Hindu Kush mountains), and Fort Gulistan ( Sulaiman Range ), situated a few miles apart. Fort Lockhart is located at 33°33′22″N 70°55′08″E  /  33.5562°N 70.9188°E  / 33.5562; 70.9188 . Due to

680-512: A standing army. Hooper asserts that while the Housecarles might well have had superior esprit de corps and more uniform training and equipment than the average Thegn, they would not necessarily have been a clearly defined military elite. Yet another theory is that the role of a standing army was not assumed, or was not mostly assumed, by the royal housecarls; but that the housecarls were a smaller body of household troops, partly stationed at

765-585: A strict code ( see above ); Aggesen having been used as a main source by L.M. Larson's The King's Household in England Before the Norman Conquest (1902). However, more recently, historian Nicholas Hooper criticised Larson and stated that "it is time to debunk the housecarl"; according to Hooper, housecarls were not in effect distinguishable from Saxon thegns , and were mainly retainers who received lands or pay (or both), but without being really

850-531: A term for all paid warriors and thus is applied to housecarl , but it also refers to butsecarls and lithsmen . It is not clear whether these were types of housecarl or different altogether. Originally, the Old Norse word húskarl (plural: húskarlar ) (spelled huskarl, pl. huskarlar in Swedish ) had a general sense of "manservant", as opposed to the húsbóndi , the "master of the house". In that sense,

935-564: A variant of húskarl according to Brøndsted] erected this stone after Erik his fellow, who died when the warriors sat around [i.e. besieged] Hedeby , but he was a commander, a very brave warrior. "Sven" is probably king Svein Forkbeard, as elsewhere on the Hedeby stones. Another runestone there, the Skarthi stone (DR 3), was apparently personally raised by king Svein: King Sveinn placed

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1020-403: Is given a house by another). The use of the term in the inscriptions suggest a strong similarity between heimþegar and housecarls: like housecarls, heimþegar are in the service of a king or lord, of whom they receive gifts (here, homes) for their service. Johannes Brøndsted interpreted heimþegi as nothing more than a local (Danish) variant of húskarl . Johannes Brøndsted suggested that

1105-716: Is in memory of the Sikhs who died at Saragarhi. The Indian Armed Forces , in particular the Indian Army , has been pushing for the battle to be taught in India's schools. They would like the heroism demonstrated by the Indian soldiers to be taught as an inspiration to children. In 1999, various articles were printed regarding the matter in Punjab's longest-established newspaper, The Tribune , such as: "the military action at Saragarhi

1190-639: Is likely that some of them were English, with many Englishmen becoming housecarls early in Cnut's reign. Housecarls were only one group of paid soldiers or hiredmenn who fought for England before the Norman Conquest . From the annals, it is not clear whether other paid men were types of housecarl or a different subdivision of retainers. There were groups known as lithsmen and butsecarls , who were soldiers that were equally adept in land and maritime warfare. Also, there were bands of foreign warriors under

1275-460: Is taught to students the world over and particularly to students in France." Although there seems to be no evidence for this claim (it is not, for example, on France's national school curriculum), the news was enough to provoke political debate, and the battle has been taught in schools in Punjab since 2000: The decision to include the battle story in the school curriculum was taken last year during

1360-549: The Heimskringla and the Konungs skuggsjá ("King's Mirror"), make explicit the link between a king or leader and his retainers (housecarls and hirðmenn ). There was a special fine for the killing of a king's man, which in Konungs skuggsjá is underlined as an advantage of entering the king's service. Conversely, retainers were expected to avenge their leader if he was killed. Sigvatr Þórðarson (also known as Sigvat

1445-471: The Battle of Thermopylae , the vastly outnumbered Greeks held off the Persians for seven days (including three of battle) before the rear-guard was annihilated in one of history's most famous last stands. During two full days of battle, the small force led by Leonidas blocked the only road by which the massive Persian army could pass. When Leonidas became aware that his force was being outflanked, he dismissed

1530-560: The Grand Prince of Kiev . Thus, the housecarls mentioned here would be royal bodyguards; in any case, it can be seen here that the word "housecarl" now applied to a person who fought in the service of a different person. In Norway, housecarls were members of the king's or another powerful man's hirð . The institution of the hirð in Norway can be traced back to the ninth century. The texts dealing with royal power in medieval Norway,

1615-579: The Holi festival. Housecarl A housecarl ( Old Norse : húskarl ; Old English : huscarl ) was a non- servile manservant or household bodyguard in medieval Northern Europe . The institution originated amongst the Norsemen of Scandinavia , and was brought to Anglo-Saxon England by the Danish conquest in the 11th century. They were well-trained, and paid as full-time soldiers. In England,

1700-778: The Indian Army continues to commemorate the Battle of Saragarhi on 12 September each year as the Regimental Battle Honours Day. To commemorate the men, the British built two Saragarhi Gurdwaras : one in Amritsar , very close to the main entrance of the Golden Temple , and another in Firozpur Cantonment , in the district that most of the men hailed from. The epic poem " Khalsa Bahadur "

1785-659: The Indian Order of Merit , at that time the highest gallantry award which an Indian soldier could receive. The corresponding gallantry award was the Victoria Cross . The award is equivalent to today's Param Vir Chakra awarded by the President of India . The battle has become iconic of Eastern military civilisation , the British Empire 's military history, and Sikh history. The modern Sikh Regiment of

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1870-703: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising , by the end of 1942, the Jews trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto learned that the deportations were part of an extermination process , as the deportees were sent to death camps . Many of the remaining Jews decided to revolt. The first armed resistance in the ghetto occurred in January 1943. On 19 April 1943, Passover eve, the Nazis entered the ghetto. The remaining Jews knew that

1955-435: The 120th anniversary of the epic frontier battle. A TV series, 21 Sarfarosh - Saragarhi 1897 aired on Discovery Jeet from 12 February 2018 to 11 May 2018, starring Mohit Raina , Mukul Dev , and Balraj Singh Khehra. Kesari is a 2019 Indian Hindi -language war film based around the battle. Directed by Anurag Singh and starring Akshay Kumar , it grossed over ₹ 100 crores worldwide in its opening weekend during

2040-662: The 12th century. But, by the end of the 12th century, housecarls had probably disappeared in Denmark; they had transformed into a new kind of nobility, whose members no longer resided at the king's court. The term entered the English language when Svein Forkbeard and Cnut the Great conquered and occupied Anglo-Saxon England; the housecarls of Cnut were highly disciplined bodyguards. It is unclear, however, whether Cnut's housecarls were all Scandinavians; some were Slavs according to Domesday Book records and according to Susan Reynolds , it

2125-711: The 1795 battle of Krtsanisi , where the Persian army led by Agha Muhammad Khan defeated the Georgians , the Three Hundred Aragvians – a detachment of the highlanders from the Aragvi valley – loyally fought and died in order to enable the escape of King Heraclius II , for which they are remembered as national heroes and were canonized by the Georgian Church. The Battle of Pavan Khind involved

2210-471: The 20th century, " no quarter was given " if a besieged garrison had refused any offered terms of surrender prior to the attackers breaching the defences, so a last stand was part of the end of many sieges, such as the Battle of the Alamo . However, since the 1907 IV Hague Convention it is unlawful for an attacking force to kill a garrison if they attempt to surrender, even if it is during the final assault on

2295-491: The 36th Sikhs. In 1897, insurgent and inimical activities had increased, and on 3 and 9 September Afridi tribesmen, allied with the Afghans, attacked Fort Gulistan. Both the attacks were repulsed, and a relief column from Fort Lockhart, on its return trip, reinforced the signalling detachment positioned at Saragarhi, increasing its strength to three non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and eighteen other ranks (ORs). Details of

2380-758: The Achaemenid Empire by Alexander the Great : Persians, led by Ariobarzanes of Persis , tried desperately to stop the Macedon offensive towards the capital city Persepolis , blocking the Persian Gates pass. A similar action to Thermopylae occurred in April 1951 at the Battle of Kapyong when strategic Hill 677 was held by the 700 men of the Canadian 2 PPCLI against two attacking Chinese PVA divisions, encircled and outnumbered by more than 10 to 1 in

2465-401: The Afghans turned their attention to Fort Gulistan, but they had been delayed too long, and reinforcements arrived there on the night of 13–14 September before the fort could be captured. The Pashtuns later admitted that they had lost about 180 killed and many more wounded during the engagement against the 21 Sikh soldiers. Some 600 bodies are said to have been seen around the ruined post when

2550-543: The Battle of Saragarhi are considered fairly accurate because Sepoy Gurmukh Singh signalled events to Fort Lockhart by heliograph as they occurred. The weapons used by the Indian troops were of an older generation compared to the small arms issued to British troops. This was intentionally done after the Indian Mutiny of 1857 to prevent any further mutinies and uprisings from getting out of hand. The Afghans used

2635-468: The Battle of Saragarhi, numbered around 4,800. The inscription of a commemorative tablet reads: The Government of India have caused this tablet to be erected to the memory of the twenty-one non-commissioned officers and men of the 36 Sikh Regiment of the Bengal Infantry whose names are engraved below as a perpetual record of the heroism shown by these gallant soldiers who died at their posts in

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2720-557: The Battle of Saragarhi. Sikh military personnel and civilians commemorate the battle around the world every year on 12 September. All units of the Sikh Regiment celebrate Saragarhi Day every year as the Regimental Battle Honours Day. The first recorded public discourse on Saragarhi was delivered by Viscount Slim in 2001 when he delivered the annual Portraits of Courage lecture at the Imperial War Museum . This

2805-566: The British Indian contingent consisting of 21 Sikh soldiers of the 36th Sikhs , when faced with insurmountable opposition of 10,000 Afghans, decided to make a last stand in accordance with their traditional and religious belief that duty is above all convictions. All 21 Sikhs were killed, together with approximately 600 Afghans. During the Battle of Okinawa , the Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Yamato sailed from

2890-610: The Confessor . The royal housecarls had some administrative duties in peacetime as the King's representatives. Florence of Worcester recounts how, in 1041, there was a revolt against a very heavy levy in Worcester, and two of king Harthacnut 's housecarls, who were acting as tax collectors, were killed. Because the main sources on Cnut's housecarls were written at least one century after Cnut's reign, there are several theories about

2975-517: The Danish heimþegar ( see below ) or to the housecarls of Cnut the Great ( see below ): free men in the service of a king or lord, who gave them gifts as payment of said service. It is known from Icelandic sources that in the 1060s, the royal housecarls were paid with Norwegian coins. Six runestones in Denmark, DR 1 , DR 3 , DR 154, DR 155, DR 296 , and DR 297 , use the term heimþegi (pl. heimþegar ), meaning "home-receiver" (i.e. one who

3060-594: The Danish kings had lost England, housecarls continued to exist in Denmark. Such a group of royal retainers was still in place at the beginning of the 12th century, under Niels of Denmark , when, according to Danish historian Svend Aggesen , Aggesen's grandfather, a member of the retinue, was tried for the murder of a fellow housecarl. Svend Aggesen's account of the law governing Cnut the Great's housecarls in 11th century England (the Witherlogh or Lex Castrensis ) may reflect, in fact, those governing Danish housecarls in

3145-538: The Guru to escape the fort and live another day. During the second Persian invasion of Greece the Greeks hoped to use the narrow pass of Thermopylae to prevent the vastly large army of the Persians from outflanking them. A Greek force of 7,000 men marched north to block the pass in the middle of 480 BC. The Persian army, ranging between about 100,000 and 150,000, arrived at the pass in late August or early September. During

3230-485: The Japanese home islands to join the fight , in which she would have been hopelessly outgunned. As a last ditch effort she would have beached herself on the shore, her crew joining the troops on the island and using her as a stationary gun battery. Yamato was sunk on her approach with the loss of some 3,055 crew of her complement of 3,332 after coming under attack from a large strike force of carrier borne aircraft. Given

3315-660: The Nazis would murder them all and they decided to resist the Nazis to the last, rather than surrender. Another example of a famous last stand was during the First Battle of Mogadishu , where two US 1st SFOD-D snipers, MSG Gary Gordon and SFC Randy Shughart , protected the crash site of helicopter "Super 6-4" and injured pilot Mike Durant , whom they feared would be executed by a crowd of deadly rioters. The two snipers killed 25 and wounded dozens more before they ran out of ammunition and were killed. Their defense, however, allowed Mike Durant to survive long enough for one of

3400-514: The Skald), a court poet to two kings of Norway, Olaf II of Norway (saint Olaf) and Magnus the Good (and also to two kings of Denmark), called the retainers of Olaf II of Norway heiðþegar , meaning "gift- (or pay-)receivers". More precisely, Snorri Sturluson explained that " heið -money is the name of the wages or gift which chieftains give". Thus, Sigvat probably referred to an institution similar to

3485-477: The assessment of the housecarls' specificities, and whether or not they were an elite troop. For instance, Charles Oman , in his book The Art of War in the Middle Ages (1885), states that the main advantage of the housecarls at Hastings were their esprit de corps . This view, still widely held today, mainly stems from Svend Aggesen's 12th-century description of Cnut's housecarls as a group characterized by

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3570-635: The battle ended with the destruction of the rearguard Maratha forces, and a tactical victory for the Adil Shahi Sultanate, but failed to achieve its strategic objective of capturing the Maratha king Shivaji. The Battle of Chamkaur occurred in 1704 when the tenth Sikh Guru , Guru Gobind Singh , and a small force of 40 Sikhs , was attacked by a much larger force of Mughal soldiers at his fort for his refusal to convert to Islam . The forty Sikhs fought to their death, allowing enough time for

3655-672: The battle outside of the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Wednesfield . The statue of Havildar Ishar Singh, paid for by donations from the local Sikh community totalling £100,000, was unveiled on 12 September 2021. In September 2017, Saragarhi: The True Story , a documentary by UK-based journalist-filmmaker Jay Singh-Sohal, was screened at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire to mark

3740-690: The battle's state-level centenary celebrations at Ferozepore in 1997. A subsequent letter sent to the Punjab Government by the Saragarhi Memorial and Ethos Promotion Forum also urged the State Government that the battle has many inspiring lessons for children. On hearing the acts of valour, the British Parliament had then risen in unison to pay homage to the fallen soldiers. Saragarhi Day is a Sikh military commemoration day celebrated on 12 September every year to commemorate

3825-806: The book Saragarhi: The Forgotten Battle in 2013 at Old College, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst . It has since been commemorated each year on its battle honour day by the British Armed Forces. In 2014, the commemoration also took place at Sandhurst at the Indian Army Memorial Room. In 2015, it took place at the Honourable Artillery Company Museum in London, where was also due to take place in 2016. Various senior ministers and armed forces generals have paid tribute to Sikh service by mentioning

3910-464: The bulk of the Greek army and remained to guard their retreat with 300 Spartans , 700 Thespians , 400 Thebans , fighting to the death. Although the Greeks lost the battle, it did check the advance of the Persian army and the delay helped the Greeks prepare a successful defence and ultimately win the war. An analogous battle , with reversed roles, would be fought 150 years later, during the invasion of

3995-576: The control of foreign commanders, who sometimes served as the retinues of important Anglo-Saxon lords. For example, one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to Earl Tostig's retainers as hiredmenn whereas another version calls them hus karlas . As Tostig was fighting against the king at the time, then the use of the term housecarl seems to have been a synonym for a mercenary or retainer rather than just royal bodyguards. It also would have been used to differentiate between that of

4080-418: The death around the body of their dead king." When Rome was attacked in 1527 by the army of the Holy Roman Empire under Emperor Charles V , over 20,000 troops stormed the city. The 189 Swiss Guards made a last stand against the massive army by forming a square around St. Peter's Basilica to give Pope Clement VII time to escape through secret tunnels , and held the doors until Clement could escape. At

4165-402: The defending force overwhelmed, on rare occasions the outnumbered defenders succeed in their desperate endeavours and live to fight another day, and he lists the Battle of Agincourt and the Battle of Rorke's Drift as such engagements. Troops may fight a last stand if they believe that they will be executed if they surrender. In Custer's last stand , at the end of the battle, the extent of

4250-450: The defense of the fort of Saragarhi, on the 12 September 1897, fighting against overwhelming numbers, thus proving their loyalty and devotion to their sovereign The Queen Empress of India and gloriously maintaining the reputation of the Sikhs for unflinching courage on the field of battle. The 21 Sikh non-commissioned officers and soldiers who died in the Battle of Saragarhi were from the Majha region of Punjab and were posthumously awarded

4335-510: The exact nature and role of these housecarls. Cnut is said to have retained 3,000 to 4,000 men with him in England, to serve as his bodyguard. One theory is that these men were Cnut's housecarls, and that they served as a well-equipped, disciplined, professional, and quite numerous (for the time) standing army at the service of the king. However, another theory is that there was nothing like an important, standing, royal army in 11th century Anglo-Saxon England. This debate has direct consequences on

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4420-430: The expression to fight "with one's back to the wall" became a widely-known way to refer to making a last stand. The London Times reported on April 13, 1918, that General Douglas Haig ordered British troops that "Every position must be held to the last man...With our backs to the wall...each one of us must fight on to the end". Battle of Saragarhi [REDACTED] British Empire The Battle of Saragarhi

4505-406: The fall of Srinagar to tribal lashkars. A last stand may also be the last pitched battle of a war where the position of the defending force is hopeless but the defending force considers it their duty not to surrender until forced to do so, as happened to the last Royalist field army of the First English Civil War at the Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold in 1646. At the Battle of Saragarhi in 1897,

4590-436: The fort, preparing to assault it. Led by Havildar Ishar Singh , the 21 soldiers in the fort—all of whom were Sikhs —refused to surrender and were wiped out in a last stand. The post was recaptured two days later by another British Indian contingent. All of the 21 soldiers involved in the battle were posthumously awarded the Indian Order of Merit , which was the highest gallantry award that an Indian soldier could receive at

4675-412: The forts not being visible to each other, Saragarhi was created midway, as a heliographic communication post. The Saragarhi post, situated on a rocky ridge, consisted of a small block house with loop-holed ramparts and a signalling tower. A general uprising by the Afghans began there in 1897 and, between 27 August and 11 September, many vigorous efforts by Pashtuns to capture the forts were thwarted by

4760-410: The garrison of the Danish fort of Trelleborg may have consisted of royal housecarls, and that kings Svein Forkbeard and Cnut the Great may have "safeguarded the country by a network of forts manned by the royal housecarls, the mercenaries, the hird ". Among the Hedeby stones , the Stone of Eric (DR 1) is dedicated by a royal retainer to one of his companions: Thurlf, Sven's retainer [ heimþegi ,

4845-468: The greater success of their campaign or cause, as happened at the end of the Battle of Saragarhi . The situation can arise in several ways. One situation is that retreat by the defending force would lead to immediate defeat, usually due to the surrounding geography or shortage of supplies or support, as happened to the Royalist infantry on Wadborough Hill after the Battle of Naseby . Some military thinkers have cautioned against putting an opposing force into

4930-464: The hands of a pursuing victorious army, a rearguard will be tasked by the commander of the defeated army with hindering the advance of the victorious army. Even if the rearguard is destroyed in a last stand, its sacrifice may buy their commander time to disengage without losing the majority of his army as happened during the Battle of Roncevaux Pass (778), Battle of Tirad Pass (1899), the Battle of Badgam (1947) which proved to be critical to preventing

5015-408: The housecarls in memory of the just(?) (and) Ketiley in memory of her husbandman. These brothers were the best of men in the land and abroad in the retinue [ lid ], held their housecarls well. He fell in battle in the east in Garðar (Russia) , commander of the retinue [ lid ], the best of landholders. According to Omeljan Pritsak , this Þorsteinn may have commanded the retinue of Yaroslav the Wise ,

5100-418: The immediate battle area, and by about 30 to 1 on the larger battlefield. The PPCLI were exhausted of ammunition and supplies, but the commander Lt. Col. James Riley Stone ordered "no retreat, no surrender", and called in artillery fire on his own positions when they were overrun. The PVA divisions eventually withdrew with about 5,000 dead and a large number wounded. Sometimes, rather than face annihilation at

5185-408: The king's court. During the reign of Edward the Confessor, a number of sailors and soldiers, the lithsmen , were paid wages and possibly based in London; those lithsmen were, according to some, the main standing armed force, while the housecarls were only acting as a secondary one. One reason to doubt the existence of a standing army made of housecarls is that, when there was a revolt in 1051, under

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5270-426: The king's service. That was New Year's Eve , a day on which it was customary for Scandinavian kings to reward their retainers with gifts. On one hand, the number of housecarls receiving land grants and estates from the king seems to have been rather limited, from the beginning of Cnut's reign up to the Norman conquest in 1066. At that last date, the Domesday Book records only thirty-three landholding housecarls in

5355-404: The kingdom; furthermore, these estates were small. Thus, it does not seem that the English landholders were deprived of their properties to provide for land grants to the king's housecarls. On the other hand, some of Cnut's housecarls seem to have been quite prosperous; the Abbotsbury Abbey was founded either by one of them under the reign of Cnut himself, or by his wife under the reign of Edward

5440-590: The local warlords to take him prisoner. The US was ultimately able to arrange for his release and he was returned home. For their actions, MSG Gordon and SFC Shughart were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor . People may fight to the death due to the belief that if they surrender they will be tortured or enslaved. At the Siege of Numantia , the inhabitants refused to surrender to the Romans because they were unwilling to become slaves. Japanese soldiers in World War II were told by their superiors that they would be tortured if captured. In some cases, troops will make

5525-399: The nature of the quarrel, a varying number of testimonies would be required. However, the Witherlogh as we know it through Svend Aggesen was redacted more than one century after the time of Cnut; thus, we cannot be sure that it presents an accurate picture of Cnut's housecarls. A special tax was levied to provide pay in coin to the royal housecarls. According to Saxo Grammaticus , the pay

5610-410: The offender could be seated at the lowest place, and no-one was to talk to him, but everyone could throw bones at him at will. The murder of another housecarl was punished by outlawry and exile, whereas treason was punished by death and confiscation of all property. Quarrels between housecarles were decided by a specific tribunal ( gemot ), the Huskarlesteffne , in the presence of the king; depending on

5695-492: The original and copy of Martini-Henry rifles. The Martini–Henry was copied on a large scale by North-West Frontier Province gunsmiths . The chief manufacturers were the Adam Khel Afridi, who lived around the Khyber Pass . The Khyber Pass gunsmiths first acquired examples of the various British service arms during nineteenth-century British military expeditions in the North-West Frontier , which they used to make copies. The 21 Sikh soldiers were: Having destroyed Saragarhi,

5780-440: The paid warrior and the unpaid militia known as the fyrd . According to 12th century Danish historian Svend Aggesen, Cnut's housecarls were governed by a specific law, the Witherlogh or Lex Castrensis . Their organisation in a band or guild was Scandinavian in character, but the legal process the Witherlogh defines is mainly derived from canon law, directly or through Anglo-Saxon laws. Other possible inspirations include

5865-447: The reign of Edward the Confessor, no such standing army was used to crush it, whereas its existence would have allowed for a swift, decisive action against the rebels. By the end of the 11th century in England, there may have been as many as 3,000 Englishmen who were royal housecarls. As the household troops of Harold Godwinson , the housecarls had a crucial role as the backbone of Harold's army at Hastings. Although they were numerically

5950-402: The relief party arrived (however, the fort had been retaken, on 14 September, by the use of intensive artillery fire, which may have caused some casualties). After it was retaken by the British, the burnt bricks of Saragarhi were used to make an obelisk for those fighters. The British also built gurdwaras at Amritsar and Ferozepur for them. The total casualties in the entire campaign, including

6035-409: The royal housecarls had a number of roles, both military and administrative, and they fought under Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings . Housecarl is a calque of the original Old Norse term, húskarl , which literally means "house man". Karl is cognate to the Old English churl , or ceorl , meaning a man, or a non-servile peasant. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle uses hiredmenn as

6120-541: The rules of the Jomsvikings and the rules of the Norwegian hirð . The Whitherlogh defined an etiquette: housecarles were to be seated at the kings' tables according to a number of factors, among which skill in war and nobility. They could be disgraced by being moved to a lower place; this was punishment for minor offences, such as not giving proper care to the horse of a fellow housecarl. After three such offences,

6205-458: The smaller part of Harold's army, their possibly superior equipment and training meant they could have been used to strengthen the militia, or fyrd , which made up most of Harold's troops. The housecarls were positioned in the centre, around their leader's standard, but also probably in the first ranks of both flanks, with the fyrdmen behind them. In the Battle of Hastings , these Housecarls fought after Harold's death, holding their oath to him until

6290-453: The soldiers' resistance to the Lakota and Cheyenne warriors indicated they had few doubts about their prospects for survival if they surrendered. In the end, the hilltop where George Armstrong Custer 's remaining troops made their last stand made it impossible for Custer's men to secure a defensive position. Nevertheless, the soldiers put up their most dogged defence, and died fighting. During

6375-531: The stone in memory of Skarði, his retainer [ himþiga or heimþegi , again a variant of húskarl ], Skarde, who has sailed in the west [a possible reference to a campaign in England ], but who then died at Hedeby. Under Svein Forkbeard and Cnut the Great, when the Danish kings came to rule England, a body of royal housecarls was developed there, with institutions that were partly of Norse inspiration, and partly inspired by canon law ( see below ). But even after

6460-770: The story of Saragarhi. In April 2016 the Defence Secretary Michael Fallon MP made mention as a special Vaisakhi event at the Ministry of Defence . In June 2016 the Chief of the General Staff Sir Nick Carter did the same at a special British Sikh Association dinner. In November 2020, the Wolverhampton City Council approved plans for the erection of a 10 ft tall bronze statue commemorating

6545-567: The tactical situation, one battleship accompanied by several smaller vessels with no air support against a fleet of aircraft carriers, the outcome was predictable to military leaders, and ultimately one born out of shame at being questioned by the Emperor over their lack of contribution to the ongoing defensive war effort when the Japanese Army was slowly being annihilated and while air crews were performing suicidal kamikaze missions. Before

6630-531: The term "housecarls" ( húskarlar ) came to acquire a specific sense of "retainers", in the service of a lord, in his hirð , lid or drótt (all meaning "bodyguard", "troop of retainers"). In Denmark, this was also the sense of the word himthige , a variant of húskarl ( see below ). This meaning can be seen, for instance, on the Turinge stone : Ketill and Bjôrn, they raised this stone in memory of Þorsteinn, their father; Ônundr in memory of his brother and

6715-495: The three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae to Davy Crockett at the Alamo—but they all tell the story of a brave and intractable hero leading his tiny band against a numberless foe. Even though the odds are overwhelming, the hero and his followers fight on nobly to the end and are slaughtered to a man. In defeat the hero of the Last Stand achieves the greatest of victories, since he will be remembered for all time. During World War I ,

6800-611: The time. The Indian Army 's 4th Battalion of the Sikh Regiment commemorates the battle every year on 12 September as Saragarhi Day . Saragarhi was a small village in the border district of Kohat , situated on the Samana Range , which was located in the North-West Frontier Province of British India (present-day Pakistan ). On 20 April 1894, the 36th Sikhs of the British Indian Army

6885-478: The word had several synonyms: griðmenn ("home-men") in Norway and Iceland, innæsmæn ("inside-men") in Denmark. Housecarls were free men, not to be confused with thralls (slaves or serfs); to this effect, the Icelandic laws also call them einhleypingar ("lone-runners") and lausamenn ("men not tied"). Both terms emphasise that they were voluntarily in service of another, as opposed to thralls . With time,

6970-553: Was a last-stand battle fought before the Tirah Campaign between the British Indian Empire and Afghan tribesmen . On 12 September 1897, an estimated 12,000 – 24,000 Orakzai and Afridi tribesmen were seen near Gogra, at Samana Suk, and around Saragarhi, cutting off Fort Gulistan from Fort Lockhart. The Afghans attacked the outpost of Saragarhi where thousands of them swarmed and surrounded

7055-506: Was created under the command of Colonel J. Cook, entirely composed of Jat Sikhs . In August 1897, five companies of the 36th Sikhs under Lieutenant Colonel John Haughton were sent to the northwest frontier of British India (modern-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ) and were stationed at Samana Hills, Kurag, Sangar, Sahtop Dhar, and Saragarhi. The British had partially succeeded in getting control of this volatile area, but tribal Pashtuns continued to attack British personnel from time to time. Thus,

7140-665: Was hosted by the Maharaja Duleep Singh Centenary Trust. In May 2002, Prince Charles ( the future King Charles III) inaugurated the Jawans to Generals exhibition which featured a section on Saragarhi. The exhibition successfully toured the UK and was seen by over 100,000 visitors. Saragarhi was introduced back into the UK by writer and filmmaker Jay Singh Sohal and the British Army with the launch of

7225-486: Was monthly. Due to these wages, the housecarls are seen by some as a type of mercenary ; the Knýtlinga saga calls them málamenn ("men receiving wages"), while Florence of Worcester uses the term solidarii ("salarymen") and William of Malmesbury that of stipendarii ("paid men"). Furthermore, the housecarles were not bound to indefinite service; but there was only one day in the year during which they could leave

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