Fauj I Khas

The Fauj-i-Khas was a brigade of the army of Punjab in the time before the First Anglo-Sikh War.

It was the Maharaja Ranjit Singh who started to hire European officers to train and command parts of his army. The Fauj-i-Khas was a model brigade trained and equipped after European model under the command of General Jean-Baptiste Ventura.

The Fauj-i-Khas had 4 battalions of infantry, 2 regiments of cavalry and a troop of artillery. The cavalry was built on a British model and the infantry on French pattern. This was the first unit in the army to be equipped European-style. Impressed by its performance, the Maharaja ordered a total reorganisation of his whole regular force on the model of Fauj-i-Khas in 1835. This alarmed the British, who had come to see the emerging military power of Punjab as a threat, to such a degree that they in 1837 issued orders to be vigilant and try to arrest any French officer travelling in disguise to join Ranjit Singh’s army.

Before Ranjit Singh, the Punjab army was mainly a pure cavalry army. Under the supervision of the European officers, and encouragement by the Maharaja, the infantry and artillery gained importance, and by the time of the death of Ranjit Singh, the infantry service had become the preferred service in the army.

Over the years many Europeans served in the army of the Punjab. Among them:

General Jean-François Allard (cavalry)

General Paolo Di Avitabile (infantry)

General Jean-Baptiste Ventura (infantry)

General Claude August Court (artillery)

Colonel Alexander Gardner (artillery)

Colonel John Holmes

Sources

Major Pearse, Hugh; Ranjit Singh and his white officers. In Gardner, Alexander [1898] (1999). The Fall of Sikh Empire. Dehli, India: National Book Shop. ISBN 81-7116-231-2.