September

CLAUDE AUGUSTE COURT

1793 – 1880

‘General of the Artillery in the Sikh Army’

This temperamental officer was born in the village of St Cezaire in the South of France and studied at the military academy of ‘Ecole Speciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr’ (Special Military School) in 1812. He served in two campaigns for the French army as a sub-lieutenant serving in the 151th ‘Infantry Regiment of Line’ at Halle (Germany) where he was shot and wounded.

Prior to his arrival in Punjab, he served Mohammad Ali Mirza of Persia in 1818 before entering the services of Maharajah Runjeet Singh under the rank of colonel of the artillery on a salary of 500 rupees per month. He was responsible for training the artillerymen and reorganizing the batteries and produced the first brass shells at the Lahore foundry jointly with Sardar Lehna Singh Majithia.

The Maharajah offered General Court 30,000 Rupees for the first shell to be exploded and a further 5000 Rupees for the actual fuses. The arrival of his brigade during the ‘Battle of Jamrud’ in May 1837 further salvaged the Sikh army from utter destruction by the invading Afghans. In 1841, General Court’s regiment became alarmingly turbulent and mutinied.

Troops from his own regiment not only ransacked his residence but his life was barely spared who for the safety of his family fled to Ferozepore without taking formal leave from the ‘Lahore Durbar’. He returned to Marseille with his family and lived out his retirement till his death in Paris in 1880, outliving all of Maharajah Runjeet Singh’s foreign mercenaries.

IMAGE AND CAPTION:

190: General Claude Auguste Court.

191: Pauline Josephine Court (1837 - 1867) – Eldest daughter of General Court.

192: Alexander Louis Philippe Court (1839 – 1890) – Eldest son of General Court.

193: General Court’s surviving residence at Begumpura in Lahore.

194: Fezli Azamjoo Court – The Kashmiri wife of General Court, painted by Auguste

Schoefft at Lahore in 1841, now in private collection in France.