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 CHAPTER VIII

Reconstruction

As may readily be imagined, even by readers who are unfamiliar with the details of military administration in India, it was impossible that the defeat of the rebels in the field should be followed by a tranquil restoration of the status quo ante. Bloodshed and disorder had given way to peace and to measures of reorganisation, but it required all the wisdom of the conquerors to reconstruct institutions which had been shaken and discredited; besides dealing with a local European army which, after splendid service in the field, tarnished the glory of its success by a so-called 'white' mutiny, and with a disbanded Sepoy force which was alike despised and detested. Everything was more or less in a state of transition. Men of Indian experience vied with each other in efforts to change everything, to replace everything; nor is it extraordinary that the improved systems and new organisations, eventually adopted, were often found to be of doubtful utility.

The reformers of one great school contended that to be ready for offence was the only way to avoid being