According to my brother in law who commanded Guides Cavalry, as did his father, Guides was raised as two troops of Cavalry and two companies of Infantry, in 1846. It was known as the Corps of Guides and according to my source, it consisted of all the ruffians and badmashes of the Mardan area. Lt.Harry Lumsden was the founder. The numbers of the units given in the article are not correct. Guides usually recruited in the Mardan area of the Nothwest frontier. Mardan is considered to be the Wild West of the region. It seems unlikely that so many of the Guides soldiers were from the inner Lahore city. The actual narrative of the fighting in Kabul is accurate.Perhaps these soldiers were in a different unit which fought in some other action on the Frontier, of which there were many Ali

Thanks, Ali for the information.I thought the Guides and other Piffer (Punjab Irregular Frontier Force) units were raised from the remnants of the Sikh armies after their defeat in the First Anglo-Sikh War.While their Pathans could've been from Mardan and other Frontier areas, the Sikhs, Punjabi Mussalmans and Dogras would've been from areas falling in Punjab.Inany case recruitment would've been well nigh impossible from the inner city areas of Lahore or any other city. Your brother in law ? The same gentleman who commanded the President's Body Guard at one time ? Mandeep On 15/03/2008, Ali Khan <salem@comsats.net.pk> wrote: > > > According to my brother in law who commanded Guides Cavalry, as did his > father, Guides was raised as two troops of Cavalry and two companies of > Infantry, in 1846. It was known as the Corps of Guides and according to my > source, it consisted of all the ruffians and badmashes of the Mardan area. > Lt.Harry Lumsden was the founder. The numbers of the units given in the > article are not correct. Guides usually recruited in the Mardan area of > the > Nothwest frontier. Mardan is considered to be the Wild West of the region. > It > seems unlikely that so many of the Guides soldiers were from the inner > Lahore > city. The actual narrative of the fighting in Kabul is accurate.Perhapsthese > soldiers were in a different unit which fought in some other action on the > Frontier, of which there were many > Ali > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >