In May of 47 BCE, Caesar travelled to Asia to confront and defeat the rebellious Pharnaces II, King of Pontus, in an area near the Black Sea in north-eastern Turkey. With only three legions, Caesar marched against Pharnaces and his force of 20,000 and trounced him handily in the Battle of Zela, or what is today Zile in the Tokat province of northern Turkey. To inform his friends in Rome, and more for the benefit of the Roman Senate, Caesar succinctly sent a despatch, “Veni, Vidi, Vici.” I came, I saw, I conquered.
These three words became the briefest victory message then known in human history. That it was attributable to the incomparable Julius Caesar gave it an extraordinary aura rarely associated with words. The message was inimitable and never again would such a pithy pronouncement signal absolute triumph.
Till it was bettered by another despatch of victory almost 1,900 years later.
General Sir Charles James Napier was born in 1782 at London’s Whitehall Palace. Married to the granddaughter of King Charles II, he had an illustrious military career, twice beating death on the ground and surviving captivity by the French army in the Peninsular War in Iberia against Napoleon himself in 1809.
A man of tremendous courage, Napier was also known to clash with his superiors, his rebellious and independent streak often bringing him censure.
Napier took the view that while Britain’s presence in the subcontinent was a crime, British rule was better than that of feudal oppressors. In all frankness, he once wrote: “Our object in conquering India, the object of all our cruelties, was money. Every shilling of this has been picked out of blood, wiped and put into the murderer’s pocket. We shall yet suffer for the crime as sure as there is a God in Heaven.”
Napier was to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in India as well as the Governor of Sindh. During this time, Hindu priests complained about the prohibition of sati by the British. This was the custom of burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband. According to Napier’s brother, William, he told them with his characteristic bluntness: “Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pyre. However, my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is expended. Let every one of us act as indicated by national traditions.”
Fine words indeed.
His victory in Sindh, where he would be made Governor, is where Napier would show his pithiness along with his pageantry. In 1842, at the age of 60, he was appointed as a Major General in charge of an army in Bombay, and was tasked with quelling an insurrection by Muslim Rulers of Sindh who were in constant rebellion. He wrote in his diary: “It is my first battle as a commander: it may be my last. At sixty, that makes little difference but my feelings are, it shall be do or die.”
He then led his force of 2,600 men to a stunning victory over 30,000 Balochis at the Battle of Miani in Sindh Province (today in Pakistan). Napier fought hand-to-hand in the battle and finally led the cavalry charge that ended the conflict. His conquest of Sindh was the stuff of imperial legend. His orders had been only to put down the “rebels”. Instead, after the Battle of Miani, he went on to fight and win the Battle of Hyderabad, subjugating the entire Sindh Province.
He celebrated with the now briefest victory despatch in history by way of a pun: ‘Peccavi’.
As explained in May of 1844 CE by Punch magazine of London under the title ‘Foreign Affairs’: “It is a common idea that the most laconic military despatch ever issued was that sent by Caesar to the Horse-Guards at Rome, containing the three memorable words ‘Veni, vidi, vici,’ [I came, I saw, I conquered] and, perhaps, until our own day, no like instance of brevity has been found.
“The despatch of Sir Charles Napier, after the capture of Sindh, both for brevity and truth, is, however, far beyond it. The despatch consisted of one emphatic [Latin] word – ‘Peccavi’, ‘I have Sindh,’ (sinned).”
Having bested Caesar himself, Napier died in 1853 from complications after catching a cold while serving as a pallbearer at the Duke of Wellington’s funeral. He was 71.
PS: The use of the word Peccavi was brilliant. Unfortunately, it is wrongly attributed to Napier. After reading about Napier’s exploits, a schoolgirl called Catherine Winkworth said to her teacher that his despatch after capturing Sindh should have been Peccavi. She was so pleased with her pun that she sent it to the humorous magazine Punch. Inexplicably, the editor printed it as a factual report. And the legend of Napier, the man of the brilliant one-word despatch, was born.
PPS: Perhaps Caesar’s admirers have a role in the legend’s persistence – they would no doubt prefer their hero’s one-upmanship to have come from a general at the front, not an English schoolgirl!
scribo ad LX 