१८५७ का स्वातन्त्र्य समर (वीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर - अंग्रेजों द्वारा छपने से पूर्व प्रतिबन्धित महाग्रन्थ)

TATIA TOPÉ IN THE BATTLE AT KALPI
Tatia Topé's career as a general bears the
stamp of a great military genius. He was well
skilled in military tactics and had made the
old predatory system of Maratha warfare
his study. His success lay in the celerity of his
marches, his knowledge of the country, and the
free-booting manner he adopted to obtain sup-
plies. He carried along with him neither bag-
gage nor commissariat, compelling the coun-
tries through which he passed to provide him
with everything his army required. With an
enemy less perseverent than the British, Tatia
might have founded a great State and rebuilt
the Maratha power. He seemed to mock at
defeat and, at the time, his name became more
familiar to Europe than that of most of the
English Generals. His reputation was by no
means undeserved. The problems before him
were not easy. He had to keep together an
army of beaten soldiers, bound by no tie to
his person and bound to each other by one
common hate—the hate of the British name.
He had to keep this ill-assorted army in constant motion, at a
pace which would baffle not only the enemies who pursued but
enemies who streamed down at right angles to his line of march. He
had, while thus urging his half-disciplined host to mad flight, to
take some dozen cities, obtain fresh stores, collect new cannon and
above all induce recruits to join voluntarily a service which pro-
mised only incessant flight at sixty miles a day. That he ac-
complished these ends with the means at his disposal indicates
ability of no mean kind. He was of the class to which Hyder
Ali belonged and had he carried out the plan attributed to him
and penetrated from Nagpur to Madras, he might have been as
formidable as his proto-type. He gave no mercy and he sued for
none, stern and relentless to the last, he yielded up his life without
a murmur or a struggle, betraying little symptoms of nature or
humanity on the scaffold at Sipri. He seemed to feel that the end
was come and it was easy to perceive in his general demeanour, that
he was quite prepared to yield up the life he had hazarded upon
the cast of the die. While imprisoned in the camp, although heavily
fettered, his bearing was dignified and consistent. Sentenced to be
hanged, by the court martial, he mounted the ricketty ladder of the
scaffold with as much firmness as handcuffs would allow him, and
deliberately put his head into the noose.