September

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 Maharaja Ranjit Singh with 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 Maharaja 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 and for the safety of his family he fled to Ferozepur in British territory without taking formal leave from the Lahore Durbar. General Court returned to Marseille with his family and lived out his retirement till his death in Paris in 1880, outliving all of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s foreign officers.