150 THE HISTORY OF KASHMIR

troops. A bloody and indecisive battle was fought at Mudki, December 18, 1845. Another. most hard-won battle—‘“the most severe and critical the British army had ever fought in India”—and in which the Governor-General, Lord Hardinge, himself took part, and lost five aides-de-camp killed, and four wounded, was fought at Ferozeshah on December 21. This just stemmed the tide of invasion, but at such a cost of men and ammuni- tion, that the British could not follow up their success till January 28, 1846, when the decisive battle of Aliwal was fought, which utterly dis- heartened the Government at Lahore. Lal Singh, the minister, was deposed for his incapacity, and Gulab Singh was invited from Jammu to negotiate with the Governor-General.

Here was the wonderful turn in the wheel of fortune, which, when his own brother and so many of the leading men of the Punjab had been murdered or debased, brought him alone and his descendants after him to a position of security.

Gulab Singh immediately made overtures to the British Government, but the Sikh army was not yet thoroughly defeated, and it was not till after the battle of Sobraon, on February 10th, that the