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

OFFERING IN THE SACRIFICIAL FIRE
Now, the Revolutionaries divided themselves into two
parts, one under Tatia and the other under Rao Sahib
Peshwa. The two armies marched separately. But they
did not give up their old tactics. They often eluded the
enemy cleverly, got guns and lost them, fought when it
was necessary as at Mangroli and Sindhwaha, retreated
in good order after skirmishes, were pursued for miles and
escaped successfully ; and again the two armies came to-
gether at Lalitpur. But, the Narbada was now no nearer.
Nay, Tatia and Rao were, now finally, almost in the grip
of the enemy. Mitchell from the south, Colonel Liddell
and Colonel Meade from the east and the north, Colonel
Parke from the west, Roberts from the Chambal—on all
mock at defeat, and made Tatia's name more familiar to Europe
than that of most of our Anglo-Indian generals. The problem be-
fore him was not an easy one. He had to keep together an army
of beaten Asiatics bound by no tie to his person and bound to
each other only by one common hate and one common fear—hate
of the Britisher's name and fear of the British gallows. He had
to keep this ill-assorted army in constant motion at a pace which
should baffle not only the enemies who pursued him but the 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 promised
only incessant flight at sixty miles a day. That he accomplished
these ends with the means at his disposal indicates ability of no
mean kind. Slightly as we may hold the marauding leader, he
was of the class to which Haidar Ali belonged, and, had he carried
out the plan attributed to him and penetrated through Nagpur to
Madras, he might have been as formidable as his prototype. As
it was, the Narbada proved to him what the Channel was to
Napoleon. He could accomplish anything except cross the stream
......These columns, which moved at first as slowly as British
columns are accustomed to move, learnt to march, at last ; and
some of the later marches of Brigadier Parke and Colonel Napier
were equal to half of Tatia's average rate. Still, he escaped ; and
through the hot weather and the rains, and the cold weather and
the hot weather again, he was still flying, sometimes with two
thousand 'dispirited' followers and sometimes with fifteen thou-
sand men !”—From The Friend of India.
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