327. India’s Greatest Rebellion: The British Strike Back (Part 6)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Empire: World History – Episode 327

India’s Greatest Rebellion: The British Strike Back (Part 6)

Released: January 22, 2026
Hosts: William Dalrymple & Anita Anand

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the siege of Delhi during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, an episode the hosts describe as one of the “bloodiest sieges of the 19th century.” William Dalrymple and Anita Anand guide listeners through the chaos, hope, and suffering inside the city after the British were expelled, the British military's desperate response, and the social convulsions that rocked India’s imperial capital. The discussion is grounded in fresh archival sources, notably the untranslated 'mutiny papers,' offering listeners an intimate picture of life in revolution-torn Delhi—far beyond the battlefield and nationalist myths.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Rebellion, Chaos, and Hope [00:29–06:20]

• Background: Delhi is seized by rebelling sepoys, the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar is restored, and British authority collapses—albeit briefly.
• Both hosts underscore how Indian nationalist histories often obscure the pivotal role Delhi and the Mughal court played in the uprising.
  • Anita: “Mangalpandi is a minor player... the main theaters of the uprising were Delhi and Lucknow.” [02:16]
  • William: “The mutiny...stood or fell by what happened in Delhi.” [03:19]
• Surprise Factor: Many contemporaries (British and Indian alike) saw the mass convergence of sepoys in Delhi as incomprehensible, underlining the Mughal dynasty’s lingering legitimacy.

2. Inside the Rebel City: Hopes, Fractures, and Daily Life [06:21–18:41]

• William explores Mutiny Papers (archived rebel records), revealing both chaos and efforts at order:
  • Chaos: Rival sepoy factions, class tensions between rural soldiers and urban Delhi elites, and widespread bullying of locals.
    • Anita: “The whole place very rapidly descended into a sort of anarchy because the different sepoy regiments were competing with each other.” [10:00]
  • Documentation of Suffering: Shopkeepers, courtesans, and ordinary citizens file desperate petitions to Zafar, often detailing looting and violence:
    • Notable Petition [15:12]:
      “The troops enter the houses of the poor and penniless and take anything they find, even the string beds, dishes and piles of firewood... we have been reduced to such extremities by the depredations of the troops that we submit this petition to His Majesty.”
  • Authority Undermined: Even as sepoys nominally placed themselves under Zafar’s authority, their disrespect was apparent:
    • William (recounting): “These guys just walk up to Zafar and say, ‘ari bansha — hey, King,’ and they touch his beard...” [18:16]
    • Anita: “That is like someone in Britain going to King Charles, 'What’s up, Charlie?’... entirely casual and unacceptable.” [18:18]

3. Attempts at Administration [13:31–16:55]

• Mahmoud Farooqi’s readings suggest real (if fragile) efforts at governance:
  • Formation of a “Court of Administration” combining sepoy officers and ex-Mughal bureaucrats.
  • Attempted tax collection, keeping muster rolls, and petitions received by the court—a partial restoration of pre-British administrative order.
• The British, meanwhile, collect all rebel paperwork for use in mass reprisals.

4. Siege Dynamics & Suffering on Both Sides [19:09–28:47]

• Arrival of British on the Ridge: Outnumbered and ill, the British occupy a strategic high ground, but are themselves subject to daily, disjointed sepoy attacks.
  • William: “We call it the Siege of Delhi...but for much of that summer period, it really is the British who are being besieged.” [19:57]
• Conditions:
  • Anita: “Bodies of... sepoys... shot every day, piling up in the heat, putrefaction, flies everywhere... cholera and typhoid soup.” [22:55]
  • William: “The only thing that keeps the British going... is pure distilled hatred that keeps them on that ridge and keeps them alive... they are just waiting to get revenge.” [28:47]
• Within Delhi: The civic economy collapses:
  • Courtesans are assaulted.
  • Shopkeepers lose livelihoods.
  • Lawlessness brings opportunities—lovers elope, as described in lost-and-found petitions.

Notable Moment:

• William Dalrymple: “Nobody’s listening to them because nobody can do anything... It’s horrible for the kebab seller; it’s beyond appalling for those poor courtesans who, you know, are raped almost daily, one gets the impression from looking at the papers.” [23:46]

5. Personal Drama Amidst Warfare [24:36–27:31]

• Numerous petitions document love affairs, elopements, and feuds, painting a detailed picture of social breakdown during wartime:
  • Anita Anand: “Courtesan Husseini is missing her old life and doesn’t want to hang out with the Sheikh anymore.” [26:10]
  • “A tin beater complains that his wife has run off with a sepoy called Zia and it’s a disgrace on the families...” [26:31]
• Petitions also show Zafar’s inability to effectively address these crises.
• The city’s internal fractures (class, regional, gender) further sap the resistance.

6. The Avenger Arrives: John Nicholson and The British Counterattack [30:47–41:48]

• Nicholson’s Character & Mythos:
  • Irish, ruthless, called “a charismatic psychopath” and worshipped by some as a deity.
    • William (on Nicholson): “He actually proposes a bill... allowing the flaying alive, impalement and burning of the murderers of the British women and children of Delhi....

'If I had them in my power today, I would inflict the most excruciating tortures I could think of with a perfectly easy conscience.'” [34:15–34:55]

- Cared nothing for protocol; inspired awe and fear in both British ranks and his Indian foes.

• British Leadership:
  • General Archdale Wilson, indecisive and ineffective compared to Nicholson’s extreme resolve.
    • Anita Anand: “Archdale Wilson is sort of super cautious, paralyzed by indecision. And Nicholson has never ever had a moment of hesitation in his life.” [31:16]
• The Nicholson Effect:
  • When Nicholson arrives, British morale shifts. He wins a decisive ambush against sepoy leader Bakht Khan, the first such movement in two months.

7. Escalation: Siege Guns and Betrayals [41:48–44:09]

• Massive British reinforcements arrive, including legendary siege guns hauled by elephants—an endgame for the city’s defenses.
  • 653 bullock carts bring up ammunition; sepoys’ own gunpowder stocks are nearly depleted.
  • The city's economy collapses, lawlessness abounds, and demoralization is rampant.
• Indian Divisions:
  • Sikh and Baluch regiments fight for the British due to pre-existing fealty and rivalries, highlighting the complicated allegiances of the conflict.
    • Anita Anand: “It’s that fealty...very Game of Thronesy, that means...they will stand by the house of Nicholson. They have to, because that’s what they agreed to.” [43:19]

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Quotes & Timestamps

• Anita Anand (on the myth of Mangalpandi):
  “[Savarkar] tried to make it all about Mangalpandi, this character in Bengal. In reality, Mangalpandi is a minor player in this story. Hardly referred to in the main theatres of the uprising that were Delhi and Lucknow.” [02:16]

• William Dalrymple (on Delhi’s Mughal legitimacy):
  “At first he’s not that keen... But for the briefest of moments, the important thing is that the flag of the East India Company and the Union Jack are lowered and the Mughals are muscular and back in total control...” [03:31]

• Anita Anand (describing the breakdown):
  “The whole place very rapidly descended into a sort of anarchy because the different sepoy regiments were competing with each other...” [10:00]

• Shopkeepers’ Petition [read by Anita]:
  “The troops enter the houses of the poor and penniless and take anything they find, even the string beds, dishes and piles of firewood...” [15:12]

• William Dalrymple (revealing the rawness of sources):
  “Nobody’s listening to them because nobody can do anything... It’s horrible for the kebab seller. It’s beyond appalling for those poor courtesans.” [23:46]

• Nicholson’s chilling proposal (quoting archival letter):
  “He actually proposes a bill...allowing the flaying alive, impalement and burning of the murderers of the British women and children of Delhi.... If I had them in my power today, I would inflict the most excruciating tortures I could think of with a perfectly easy conscience.” [34:15–34:55]

• Anita Anand (Game-of-Thrones style observation):
  “They owe fealty to the British because they didn't take their lands and they didn't take their kingdom and they didn't take their king and ship him off to Queen Victoria’s court. And so it’s that fealty—you know, very Game of Thronesy....” [43:19]

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Notable & Memorable Moments

• The hosts’ playful banter about Hindi slang (“musty” as mischievous—not “smelling of the cupboard”) [01:55].
• The revelation of ordinary Delhiites’ voices, surfacing through petitions and love affairs in the midst of anarchy [23:46–27:31].
• Vivid, grim scene-setting: “Swimming in a soup of decay with all the disease that it entails” [27:31].
• Comparing Nicholson to Shakespearean “machines of war” like Coriolanus [38:33].
• Zafar, an “Indian King Lear,” composing delusional poetry in his besieged palace:
  • “O Zafar, we are going to take London shortly. It is not far.” [46:04]

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Important Timestamps

• Delhi falls to the rebels / Mughal restoration: [02:16–06:20]
• Primary sources on rebel administration / Mutiny Papers: [08:08–16:55]
• Social chaos, class tensions: [09:59–12:45]
• British besieged on the Delhi Ridge: [19:09–22:19]
• Horrors of siege warfare: [22:19–22:55]
• Everyday lives–petitions & drama: [23:46–27:31]
• John Nicholson’s arrival & character: [30:47–36:36]
• Siege train, endgame for Delhi: [41:48–44:09]
• Fragmenting defenses and Zafar’s capitulation to despair: [44:09–46:42]

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Conclusion

This episode powerfully challenges nationalist myths and British triumphalism alike, painting the 1857 siege of Delhi as a vortex of ambition, suffering, mismanagement, and revenge. Dalrymple and Anand, mining previously overlooked archive material, bring ordinary people—their losses and loves, anger and hopes—into sharp focus, even as the drama of empire and counterrevolution unfolds. The cliffhanger ending leaves listeners as anxious as the besieged Delhiites as they await the next tragic turn.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Anita Anand]

If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast ad, free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to empire [e-mail].

[William Dalrymple]

It's 1857 and one of the greatest uprisings against British rule is about to happen. And there is one city at the heart of all of this and that city is Delhi.

[Anita Anand]

The British are driven out. The last Mughal emperor is hauled back onto the throne. And for a moment it looks as if British rule in India has collapsed.

[William Dalrymple]

But inside the city, rebellion is turning into chaos. Outside the walls there is a battered British army, but it is dig, it is waiting to strike back.

[Anita Anand]

What follows is one of the bloodiest sieges of the 19th century. A fight for a city, but beyond that, a fight for the future of India.

[William Dalrymple]

This is the siege of Delhi. Hello and welcome to Empire with me.

[Anita Anand]

Anita Anand and me, William Durumle.

[William Dalrymple]

Now in our last episode we were in the central Indian plains with the formidable kick ass woman Rani of Jasi, described as the Joan of Arc of the East. And she was fighting a desperate, heroic, ultimately doomed battle against the British.

[Anita Anand]

I think she's more kickass than Joan of Arc and I think she's more your kind of girl than he and Joan of Arc.

[William Dalrymple]

Well, yes, I mean Joan of Arc's.

[Anita Anand]

A bit saintly for you's got more of a sort of. Yeah, got more musty about her maybe.

[William Dalrymple]

Musty by the way, doesn't mean smelling like it's been in a cupboard for many years. Another Hindi word I'm here to translate in case you get the wrong end of the. Musty is a naughty. It's a really good word, a catch all for mischievous and that's what you mean rather than sort of played by Moth.

[Anita Anand]

Musty.

[William Dalrymple]

Yes. Okay, so tell us what you know while she's sort of fighting. Just remind us of the context of that, what is happening elsewhere?

[Anita Anand]

While she is busy in central India and is giving the British a run for their money, the British are trying to reassert their control over what they regard in really as the centre of, of the uprising. This has actually been obfuscated, I think by Indian nationalist historiography. And it's an important point because when Veer Savarkar wrote his book the Great Indian uprising of 1857, he tried to make it all about Mangalpandi, this character in Bengal. In reality, Mangalpandi is a minor player in this story. Hardly referred to in the main theatres of the uprising that were Delhi and Lucknow. And the reason that Via Savarkar didn't like that is it was all about the Mughals. It was the Mughals that led the uprising. And even more embarrassing for a Hindu nationalist like Suvarka, the Hindu sepoys, upper caste sepoys, went to the Mughal emperor and asked him to lead the battle, to lead the struggle. And I think most historians today would not quibble the idea that the mutiny that then became a national uprising stood or fell by what happened in Delhi. And just to recap what we had established before, it need to tell us what happened in early May 1857, on 7 May.

[William Dalrymple]

So by early May 1857, the unthinkable is happening. Something that, you know, all of these people with their big brains could never have comprehended. The British have been hunted out of the Mughal capital. So the sepoys have been marching, they've marched from Meerut, they've crossed the Yamuna river, they have restored the aged Bahadur Shah Zafar to the throne of his ancestors. And I think it's fair to say that, you know, at first he's not that keen. You know, they are a bit scary to him as well. But for the briefest of moments, the important thing is that the flag of the East India Company and the Union Jack are lowered and the Mughals are muscular and back in total control of both the Red Fort and the wider Delhi hinterland.

[Anita Anand]

I think it's fair to say that the extraordinary way in which the sepoys from across the country converge on Delhi is something that surprises both British observers at the time and indeed many modern Indian observers today, because it's often felt that the late Moguls barely existed, that they were a ghostly presence that didn't compare at all to their ancestors. And certainly it's true that they were much less powerful. But what it shows, I think, in 1857 is that they're still regarded as the legitimate center of authority. That's why the sepoys go to Delhi, not because it's a strategic center. They don't march to the Maratha heartlands, they don't try and put Shivaji back in control. They try and put Bahada Shah Zafa, even though he's 80, even though he's a Sufi poet and even though he's Muslim. And these sepoys, it's worth stressing, you know, are very largely upper caste, usually Brahmins from up, and most of them march to Delhi. Now, that may be a strategic error, as it will later prove but in terms of trying to reassert Indian authority over the interloping British, it is absolutely the story. And it's a story that's been obfuscated, and I think it's one that it's worth stressing. So what we're going to see in the story we're telling today is how the British managed to reassert their hold back on Delhi. And they do it, in a sense, in two stages. When they're driven out, they arrive first of all with a very small token force that then becomes besieged itself up on the ridge above the city. But then that small token force grows over the course of 1857, as more and more reinforcements arrive from the frontier and the Punjab. And it's a story of unimaginable suffering. Suffering for the sepoys also, I suppose, for the British in their trenches, surrounded by corpses, with terrible heat and this rotting flesh all around them. But most of all, it's a story of unbelievable suffering in the city of Delhi itself. The ordinary people who are caught up in the middle of all this, but.

[William Dalrymple]

We'Re not quite there yet because, you know, the moment we're talking about where all these sepoys are coalescing around, you know, the new Mughals, if you like, a new Mughal era, there definitely is a sense of hope. My God, have we done it? Have we overthrown them? Have we kicked them out of our country? Have we won? I mean, that's sort of, you know, the repeated thing. Did we just win this? And the answer is going to be, as Willi has alluded to, a resounding no. And it is largely sort of coincides with the arrival of a character who we've touched on before. We've touched upon him when we did the Ireland series, because this is a man of Irish extraction, he's educated in Dungannon, he's born in Dublin, and he is, as William very memorably put it, a charismatic psychopath. That's how you put it. I remember because I thought, imperial psychopath, don't pull your punches there. But his name is John Nicholson, and John Nicholson is a name that maybe we don't really know today, but at the time, there wasn't a school child that did not know the name of John Nicholson, because he was a hero of an era to the British.

[Anita Anand]

And I think a crucial fact about him is that he struck about at least as much fear into his own superiors, particularly the general in charge of the siege, General Archdale Wilson, as he ever did into the rebels themselves.

[William Dalrymple]

So we'll Pick up where? And it's a bit. Actually, I think it's fair to say that the history books often skip over. So, you know, the British have fled Delhi. They are in disarray inside the walls. Delhi is for the first time in 50 years free of British control. And I really actually, Willi, I want to know from the primary sources that you've looked into, what did that feel like? What did that look like? Was it sort of carnival? You know, this feeling of, have we won? Did we just win that? What does that look like?

[Anita Anand]

Well, we were very lucky when I was writing the Last Move, because I have two friends, Bruce Whannell, who's a brilliant scholar of Persian, and Mehmud Farouki, who's a brilliant scholar of Urdu. And both these guys went with me into the depths of the Delhi archives and we found this entire collection called the Mutiny Papers. That was their official name, that's the name on the catalog that were basically the papers collected from the rebel camp at the end of 1857. And the British government collected them with a view to hanging anyone that was involved. So anyone that had their name on this collection of papers was on a death list. Likely to be a death list. Yeah, exactly that. But it turned out to be a previously unused cornucopia. One of the great cries often when people are writing about 1857, particularly post colonial historians, is that we don't have the rebel sources, that we only have the British sources which are there in great quantities. And that is true of quite a lot of the places. I mean, the Rani of Jhancey hasn't got much documentation attached to it, as we found in the last episode. Also Lucknow. The Lucknow archives were burnt at the end of 1857. So there's very little to illuminate figures like Begum Hazrat Mahal. And we're often trying to view her against the grain using British sources. But in Delhi, we've got everything. The rebel camp was deserted. The British marched in and they got all the paperwork.

[William Dalrymple]

Okay, so what does it say? Stop teasing us. I mean, what are they saying? Having. Is it party central? Because in the, in the imaginations of the British at the time, they, they think of, you know, sort of the, the mutineers as being, you know, a rape in an Luton and, you know, the streets running with blood. And it sort of characterized the way in which, you know, even in, in modern arenas now when a. When a head of state falls that there's chaos in the street. Is there chaos? Is there order? If there's order. Where does it come from?

[Anita Anand]

Well, funny enough, it's interesting because while I was working on the last Mughal, my colleague Mahmoud Farooqi was also publishing his translations in a separate book called Besieged. And we both answer that question in slightly different ways. To my eyes, it was chaos. And while there were valiant attempts to establish order, the killings were such, the bloodshed was such that the whole place very rapidly descended into a sort of anarchy because the different sepoy regiments were competing with each other. They didn't obey a separate central commander. None of the Mughal princes succeeded in establishing their authority over the rebel regiments that arrived, you know, with their own ammunition and their own chests of treasure and so on and had no need of submitting to a central authority unless they were forced to do so. I was always struck by all the petitions in the mutiny papers that talk about how much the ordinary people of Delhi were being bullied by these soldiers. The soldiers were largely from eastern India. Purbias they're called, or telingas in the Urdu sources. They're not local Delhi boys. So they're coming in and they're also kind of quite, you know, rough boys from the country and suddenly they're in this glamorous city.

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah, these are not their mothers and sisters. You know, there's that phrase that comes up that, you know, these are. So you've got that kind of behavior, but you've also got the bloodletting that takes place once you have a Victoria side. So you have those purity tests that are going on as well, don't you, with the sepoys from different areas saying, did you ever, have you ever sided with the British? I've heard that actually you were really nice and you fixed a teapot, you must start, you know, that kind of thing. Sort of those reprisals going on as well.

[Anita Anand]

So there's that going on and there's also a class struggle because these guys are often from the countryside and they, you know, they're not gonna bow their heads to some jumped up mogul poet like Ghalib who feels that he's strutting around running the show. Ghalib is very put out to find these ruffians, as he calls them, running around in his mahalla and in his streets. And these guys, you know, are apt to ogle the women turn up at the courtesans, courtes, where everyone behaves with great elegance and dignity and they're just treating them as common prostitutes. And what you find in Delhi is different to what you find in Lucknow. In Lucknow they are local Boys and the people regard their cause as their own and they all join in the uprising in Delhi. You've got fractures. You've got the local shopkeepers who are feeling bullied. You've got the, you know, everyone from the kebab sellers to the courtesans to the woodcutters, all these ordinary people are coming into jagged contact with these guys who suddenly landed in their city, want to be fed and looked after and treated as heroes.

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah.

[Anita Anand]

And then you've got the class issue where the entire Mughal aristocracy, while they didn't like the British, don't particularly want a bunch of ruffians. Armed ruffians.

[William Dalrymple]

Who the hell are these people? Because it's not my emperor. They're not kowtowing as they should. You know, that whole system of the adab, which is, you know, those courtly manners that they are used to, that, you know, these guys are bringing in something completely different. They don't care. I have a question, though. I'm interested in this because there has to be somebody doing some forward planning at some point, you know, you're gonna have to raise money to pay the troops, otherwise they're just going to carry on looting. You're gonna have to manufacture gunpowder. You're gonna have to, you know, because, you know, the British are going to strike back guns, set up an ar. Is anyone thinking along those lines? Because they have done something extraordinary. Is anyone thinking about how to make it stick?

[Anita Anand]

So I said that Mahmoud took a slightly different lesson from the papers that we both studied. His view was that while it was chaotic, there were very strong and sometimes successful attempts to set up an administration. At the top. There is a court of administration. It's called that. And it's made up of the Sepoy officers and Paris officials. And had that actually worked, that could have provided a glue and an authority which everyone follows. And you're right, there is a problem because the Moguls have not actually been involved in the nitty gritty of local administration for two generations.

[William Dalrymple]

They've lost their. They don't know what the paperwork is. They don't know where the filing cabinet is. You know, it's a mess, right?

[Anita Anand]

All that. So 1803, the British take Delhi. At that point, they run the show.

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah.

[Anita Anand]

And the Mughals haven't had to collect taxes. They just had to organize poetry readings and, you know, and spectacles and organize nice sort of, you know, parties at Holi and Diwali and Dussera. But what is needed now is taxes to pay the troops. Gunpowder to replace the ammunition, how do you keep the prices of grain down? How do you stop the sepoys from looting the local shops and raping the courtesans? And this is what's being worked out and there is a measure of success. And what we found in the mutiny papers was, for example, muster rolls every morning for the local kotwal. So we know of who turned up every morning at the police station to keep the administration. So it's not like it's sort of complete chaos. It's not at the rule of the rule of caste. But you have got a lot of armed ruffians running around, often feeling that they're not being appreciated, often feeling they're not being fed and looked after.

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah.

[Anita Anand]

And we also have petitions as well as the military camp, as well as the papers from the different sepoy regiments talking about things like how much ammo have we got left and what's left in the treasury. There are also the petitions which people are presenting to the court. So one of the largest delegations to come before Zafa in the first days of the uprising is from the outer suburbs, the two suburbs outside the wall, which are Baha Ganj and Nizamuddin, very much still there as a great Sufi shrine in, and rather a posh suburb these days. And they complain. So the petition complains that the people they call the Talangas, the sepoys, come out of Ajmeri Gate and oppress us. The shopkeepers, they take our goods by force without paying anything. The troops enter the houses of the poor and penniless and take anything they find, even the string beds, dishes and piles of firewood. So this is where these mutiny papers were so important, because quite often this has been very much romanticized in nationalist historiography is a great national uprising. But when you actually look at the documentation, you've got shopkeepers complaining that, you know, the guys aren't paying for the goods they're taking, that they're pinching the string beds. And it says, whenever we, your humble servants, or even the most respected citizens go to the Telangas and plead with them about the misery to which we've been reduced, they merely threaten us with guns and swords. We have been reduced to such extremities by the depredations of the troops that we submit this petition to His Majesty. So, you know, what we're getting is all the actual. You know, when you've taken away the rhetoric, this is the reality of what is obviously a very bloody and brutal uprising.

[William Dalrymple]

I mean, there's something really touching about the end of the petition as well, because they do believe that this old man, you know, this poor old man who sort of had this all unfolding around him can even do anything about it. So, you know, what they. What they say is, you know, he may turn his gaze of justice and commiseration towards a sender royal order to the telangas that they give us no more trouble, that with the support of our gracious sovereign, we may be left to live our lives in peace. May the sun of prosperity and success and all glory shine brightly for your sake, oh Lord of all. And who they're talking to, who they're addressing, is a man who's just as stressed out as all of them. I mean, they haven't knocked his door down, but he doesn't know, you know, whether they might or they might not. They're talking about Zafar, the last Muggle. He's in the middle of all of this. Does he have a. Have the power to do anything for these people who are appealing for his help?

[Anita Anand]

So, yes and no. The sepoys have come to submit to his authority nominally. But, you know, these are kind of rough guys with guns from the sticks. And there are reports in some of the accounts of them sort of wandering up, you know, not obeying the usual Mughal etiquette where people have to prostrate themselves and even go flat. Instead, these guys just walk up to the to suffer and say, ari bansha. Hey, King.

[William Dalrymple]

Oh, my God.

[Anita Anand]

And they touch his beard and all this sort of stuff.

[William Dalrymple]

Can I give that a bit of context? That is like somebody in Britain going to King Charles, what's up, Charlie? You know something? It is entirely casual and unacceptable. You know, hey, King. It's just terrible. It's like giving him a mistake.

[Anita Anand]

Oh, man.

[William Dalrymple]

Oh, my God. So, I mean, how did Zappo. Did he write about how that felt? Do we know how he felt about that?

[Anita Anand]

So, yes, we have lots, lots of reports of him getting obviously very depressed because these guys are completely out of control. They've murdered the Brits on whom he depends for his pension. And he realizes that whether he likes it or not, he's now cast his lot with this bunch. And, you know, increasingly he's worried that this isn't going to end up well. And this becomes particularly the case only one month later. Anita, when the British turn up again, tell us what happens.

[William Dalrymple]

Right, yeah. So they're not doing nothing because it's been a shock to them, but, you know, what are they going to do? Are they going to get on boats and leave no, they're not. Of course they're not. Again, they're going to try and do something about it. So they are licking their wounds in Shimla, which is the sort of summer capital. It's where a lot of the Brits went during the heat, and they're trying to work out just, how do we. How do we sort this out? What do we do about this? By June 1857, they managed to muster together a force and march it onto a place called the Delhi Ridge. Now, that's sort of a high level of ground above the old city. And this is, I think, a bit of an irony about this story, William, tell me if you agree, because we call it the Siege of Delhi. But for much of that summer period, it really is the British who are being besieged because they've got this position. But, you know, it sort of leaves them stuck a bit in a quagmire, doesn't it?

[Anita Anand]

Exactly. So the Delhi Ridge is still there. It's part of the Aravali Range, which goes all the way through to. Through Rajasthan to Gujarat. This is the last shudder of it, really, before it gives up. Where they camp is exactly where Delhi University is today. If you go to St. Stephen's or go to give a lecture up in the University, you go under the Delhi Ridge and then up onto it to the university buildings, which are just beside the. What's called the Flagstaff Tower. But this force which gets there under General Archdale Wilson in June, is too small to attack the city. So they're meant to be besieging the city. But within days they realize that they are now just made themselves the focus for the attacks of the people inside the city. And what the situation is, is that they're saved really instantly by the disunity of the sepoys. Each sepoy regiment. Remember, all these guys have marched from various parts. Some have come from Rajasthan, some have come from Central India, some have come from the Ganges Plains. They've all marched into Delhi and they all camp separately and they take it in turns to attack the British. So rather than having a sort of concentrated strategy whereby they're all attacking together and overwhelming, this actually quite small, for what they do is they take it in turn.

[William Dalrymple]

Wear them out, wear them out, wear them out.

[Anita Anand]

But each day, having done their little attack and bravely climbed the hill and shown how brave they are and, you know, taking potshots at the Brits in their trenches, they then march down the hill again, have a rest, and the.

[William Dalrymple]

Next bunch take over, go home in.

[Anita Anand]

Time for the next day, no land is won.

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah, but it's not just, you know, the constant attack from people, you know, the sepoys, but also, you know, Diliwalas, you know, people who are from Delhi, because they're all in this now, but they are also being perpetually attacked by. By the weather, because you point out this. This is high summer. So I've been in. I've passed out in Delhi in a Delhi market at that time of year. It is hot, the sun is.

[Anita Anand]

You've been in London too long, Anita.

[William Dalrymple]

I mean, I did. I literally. I passed out in the street. It was too hot. When I was going shopping for my wedding, actually, it was a very lovely woman who was begging for money and I fell right almost into her lap when she was. And she was the one who was looking after me. It was a very strange thing. Anyway, but. But cholera, sunstroke, heat exposure, you know, all of that kind of thing that must have been taking its toll on those Brits on the ridge, as well as that, you know, sort of constant wave after wave of attack on them.

[Anita Anand]

So what you get is you've got the Brits entrenched on the ridge and it's one of the, you know, the 1850s is the moment when modern warfare really begins. It's the same sort of fighting that you're getting in the First World War, where people are in trenches with barbed wire and it's pretty gruesome. And because it's such close combat, no one is clearing the dead bodies out of the way. And so bodies of these successive regiments of sepoys which are shot every day, piling up in the heat, putrefaction flies everywhere.

[William Dalrymple]

Cholera and typhoid soup. Right there, isn't it?

[Anita Anand]

Exactly that. But at the same time, you've got this terrible suffering in the city. And what we read in the mutiny papers is these little petitions which are sometimes very, very sweet and moving. The kebab man complaining that the sepoys are eating his kebabs and refusing to pay him. The wood choppers who can't get into the forest because of the fighting. And there's quite a lot from the Tawaifs, the courtesans, who are very famous in Chari Bazaar. One of them is complaining that their rooms have been taken over as a sniper, lest there's a lot of other sepoys who are trying to sort of, you know, do worse things to the courtesans. And we have detailed stor of these stories. What was lovely was that petitions which were packaged individually, when you come across them in the mutiny papers turn out to often be one of a succession of petitions from the same person or the same family.

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah. And nobody's listening to them because nobody can do anything. No petitions. Can I just. We're going to take a break in a second, but just one little observation just before we go to the break. I mean, it's horrible for the kebab seller. It's beyond appalling for those poor courtesans who, you know, are raped almost daily. One gets the impression from looking at the papers. But you do have a little bit of a window of opportunity for those people who want to run off together, you know, because it's chaotic, the normal order. So, you know, lovers sort of like, you know, sort of, okay, nobody's looking at us, let's get out of here. And. And you've got a lot of petitions, don't you, in this bundle of people saying, hang on a minute, my daughter has run off with that man who I hate and I need you suffer to go and get her back. You know, I just. There were lots of these, weren't there, Willy? I mean, it was a thing.

[Anita Anand]

There was an amazing number. And I think partly it's that order has broken down and, you know, the opportunity now in a quite a conservative society to run off and elope exists in a way that doesn't in normal life. But there's also just something about warfare in general. Have you ever read that wonderful book, the Love Charm of Bombs?

[William Dalrymple]

No. But I do know that birth rates go up when people think they're going to die, you know.

[Anita Anand]

Exactly. People think, we haven't got anything to lose. Let's go for it.

[William Dalrymple]

Spend the time somehow.

[Anita Anand]

And this is what we were surprised by when we went to this. We were expecting to have lots of sort of administrative documents from the court of administration. That was what we were kind of looking for and thinking we're going to come across. Instead, you get these fantastic love stories. There's a woman called Balahia who runs off with a guy called Bikari, having looted me of all my wealth, which she took by stealth, according to her surprised and hurt husband, who comes to Zafa and says, I've just lost this girl. There's another one, these little sort of stories. It normally slips through the net, but because of this, you learn about it. So there's a former courtesan named Husseini who married one Sheikh Islam. Now, Sheikh Islam turns out to be himself a convert from Hinduism and obviously was quite a sort of, I think, quite a dull sort of religious Character and of course decides that that's not what she's after at all, doesn't want Sheikh Islam the convert, and she instead runs off with Hudabaksh the shoemaker, who the jilted husband describes as a spy and a gambler.

[William Dalrymple]

Right.

[Anita Anand]

Perhaps the courtesan Husseini is missing her old life and doesn't want to hang out with the Sheikh anymore.

[William Dalrymple]

I mean, you know, all of these love affairs to one side. There is also another fact of war, apart from the fact that people, people do it a lot more when they think they're about to die, that everyone loves a man in uniform. Now, was there a lot of that kind of thing going on with sepoys who've suddenly arrived from different parts of the country?

[Anita Anand]

There absolutely is. And. And a lot of the complaints are from Delhi men who've lost their girlfriends or their wives to. To sepoys, to handsome sepoys in uniform coming in from. From up. So there's a guy, one guy who's a tin beater complains that his wife has run off with a sepoy called Zia and it's a disgrace on the families, all this sort of stuff. But what is lovely is that you really get the nitty gritty. You don't just get the court, you don't just get the, you know, the commanders. You get stuff you don't normally get in history, which is the ordinary people. And there's this one particular unfortunate courtesan called Munglo, who we had about 10 petitions from her and all the other courtesans because she's kidnapped very early on by a cavalryman called Rustam Khan and kept in captivity. And we see this story go over literally 10 different petitions as it develops over the summer. And Zafar tries to get her released, but Rustam Khan won't release her. And it's kind of. You have soap operas, basically. It's fascinating for us, but obviously very tragic for them at the time.

[William Dalrymple]

Awful. So I'm just sort of thinking, you know, we'll go to a break, but I'm going to leave you with this image before we come back because we're coming back with a big character. You've got Zafar in the middle, who is being plagued by constant complaints and appeals from the kebab wallah to, you know, the grieving husband whose wife has been taken in the night and doesn't know where she is. You have got sepoys behaving badly and, you know, the economy that Delhi thrives on, you know, the sort of hand to mouth economy falling apart because these guys are not paying for what they're eating. So you've got all of that suffering around it. You've got another ring of misery where you've got these, you know, sort of Brits who are up on the ridge who are being just pounded constantly by these attacks on their position and who are swimming in a soup of decay with all of the disease that it entails. The only one thing that keeps the British going, and we've got this again from a British officer who says it is pure distilled hatred that keeps them on that ridge and keeps them alive because they're not fighting a war anymore. They are just waiting to get revenge.

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[Dominic Sambrook]

Hi, everybody, it is Dominic Sambrook here from the Rest Is History. Now, you have probably been watching the scenes on the streets of Iran. You may be wondering where all this comes from. So. And the rest is history. We have just recorded a four part series on recent Iranian history. So it kicks off with the Iranian revolution that brought down the Shah Mohammed reza Pahlavi in 1978, 1979. And it's actually his son who is now leading opposition to the Ayatollahs from exile in the United States. So in this series we explore the history behind the Islamic revolution in Iran at the end of the 70s. Where did people like Ayatollah Khomeini come from? Where did their ideas come from? Why did they have so much support? Why was the Shah driven out of Iran in the first place? And what did it have to do with American intervention and indeed British intervention in the 1950s? And we look at the unfolding story of the revolution and then the amazing story of the SEIZURE of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the taking of, of initially 66 hostages by the Iranians. This is probably the story that I most enjoyed researching and writing. So please, if you're interested in Iranian history and what's going on, check it out. And if you want a taster, we have a clip for you at the end of this episode.

[William Dalrymple]

Welcome back. Now, just before the break, we were telling you that the British are biding their time and they're driven on this diet of revenge. Food is scarce. Revenge. That feeling of revenge is there aplenty. And the man who comes to represent the embodiment of that revenge is Nicholson. So you said about General Archdale Wilson, who was in charge. We haven't really talked about him because he's a bit of a. Well, would we say chinless wonder in the scheme of things as far as the British are concerned.

[Anita Anand]

So Archdale Wilson is sort of super cautious, paralyzed by indecision. And Nicholson has never ever had a moment of hesitation in his life. He's this sort of terrifying Old Testament prophet. Jet black beard, a gaze that supposedly make a man's knees knock together. And he's a sort of astonishing, sort of just a psycho. He's a man of few words. One typical note in the archives has a letter to his boss, John Lawrence, that reads in full, sir, I have the honor to inform you that I've just shot a man who came to kill me. Your obedient servant, John Nicholson.

[William Dalrymple]

Okay, stop. And the letter, you know, his boss isn't. Is not a shrinking violet either. You know, John Lawrence is a man of the stockade, he said. Man of daring. Do. He leads from the front, but even to him, that's going to be quite shocking. What? What, what, what are you saying? So a bit more about Nicholson. As well as being one of our sort of mysterious Irishmen who comes over to do the oppressing that his people have suffered as well from British rule, he has been a frontier administrator in the Punjab. And he has this reputation for being so violent, so unhinged that locals actually start worshiping him as if he's some kind of deity. I mean, what do they call him? They think he's one of the pantheon.

[Anita Anand]

I was doubtful of this. It sounded too much like a sort of British Orientalist story. But it's there in the archives. It's absolutely there.

[William Dalrymple]

Then nicholsoni so, like Saini is a soldier, so Nicholsani would translate as, you know, one of the warriors of Nicholson. And I suppose they tried to, if they chew flowers and things before Nicholson, he's not going to smite them. It's the please don't smite me, I'm your friend kind of school of thought. Not only do they think he's this embodiment of Vishnu, but instead of being flattered Nicholson is such a psycho that he thinks, I don't mind they can worship me, but if I see a single man, one man prostrating himself or, and he says, or begin chanting, they're going to be dragged away and they are going to be flayed. So they are going to be whipped. Three dozen lashes for anybody with a cat o'9 tails who has the temerity to come and prostate themselves, prostrate themselves in front of me. I'm just not having that. So the message from Nicholson is, you know what? Worship me because I'm worth it. But just do it quietly because if I hear it or see it, I'm going to flog you to near death. Nutter. Tell us more.

[Anita Anand]

I'd say when I was researching this book, he was a gift because he just comes out with this stuff time and time again and he's just, you know, he's this completely Victorian psycho. He actually proposes a bill to be passed in Parliament as a serious measure. He sends this to London to allow, and here's the direct quote, the flaying alive, impalement and burning of the murderers of the British women and children of Delhi. The idea of simply hanging the perpetrators of such atrocities is madness. I will not, if I can help it, see fiends of that stamp let off with a simple hanging as regards torturing the murders of women and children, if it be right. Otherwise, I do not think we should refrain from it simply because it is a native custom. We are told in the Bible that stripes shall be meted out according to faults. And if hanging is sufficient punishment for such wretches, it is too severe for ordinary mutineers. If I had them in my power today, I would inflict the most excruciating tortures I could think of with a perfectly easy conscience. So that's the kind of guy.

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah. Okay, so this guy has arrived. Now, I. I think they're probably mixed emotions on the ridge, because if you've got that guy arriving, there is going to be, you know, a certain feeling of rejoicing among the people who've been sitting in their own excrement, seeing the rotting bodies of their colleagues around them, that finally we have a man. But if you've got sort of Wilson, who's been there already, who's been, you know, trying to hold things together, he is certainly, I mean, forgive the French, gonna think, oh, shit.

[Anita Anand]

Yeah.

[William Dalrymple]

And so how does that power balance work itself out there?

[Anita Anand]

So you get very contrary emotions with Nicholson. Most people, I have to say, are completely in love with him. He's regarded as the great hero, and there are a whole series of books with titles like the Hero of Delhi.

[William Dalrymple]

Well, he's the avenging angel, isn't he?

[Anita Anand]

Yeah, he's the avenger angel. And he doesn't believe in process. He doesn't believe that. That there should be trials or anyone. When his boss, John Lawrence, wrote to him and said, could you send a list of the people you've court martialed, he writes back on the envelope without opening it. The punishment for mutiny is death.

[William Dalrymple]

I'm not doing paperwork. I'm just killing them. I'm basically John Lawrence doing you a favor. We don't have to follow this up. And he's got with him, I mean, we should say that he has British troops, troops when he arrives, who have spent the last few months, in his words, cleansing the countryside. But he's got Punjabis and Bataans with him as well in that force, that word cleansing. Now I know what ethnic cleansing means today. Is it the same in the Nicholson playbook as well? What does cleansing mean to him?

[Anita Anand]

This means exactly what it means in Gaza today. It's the same. Exactly the same thought, exactly the same. Same feelings of revenge and frankly, the same sort of motive in that there is this sensation that there has been rape of innocent women, which is an important part of the story. And Nicholson makes this bloody road through the Punjab to get to the Delhi ridge. He is constantly attacking sepoy regiments, marching 20, 30 miles a day to ambush them. When they don't, you don't expect it. And he's already a hero to the Brits by the time that he arrives at the ridge. And he immediately trains his guns on Wilson. If I could, I would depose Wilson and take command himself, he says, on arrival. And so Wilson has every reason to feel, you know, that this guy's.

[William Dalrymple]

Well, this man has no respect for him. He's also openly disrespecting him. Him, you know, if there's no chain of command. If you see, this man has nothing but disdain for his commanding officer, who is Wilson. You know, Nicholson is giving permission to everybody else to disrespect Wilson as well.

[Anita Anand]

But he mends the situation pretty quickly.

[William Dalrymple]

Right.

[Anita Anand]

Within a week, I think, of arriving, he takes a force off to ambush a sepoy party that they see leaving the southern gate of the city. And. And Nicholson pulls off this extraordinary ambush. He travels at night to get ahead of them. He waits in a marshy area just as they're going to have to cross. And as soon as this force arrives on the edge of the marsh, he unleashes this ambush. Grapeshot rains down on the marsh of Najafgar, and The sepoys who are caught in the swamp are completely destroyed. And this is the first time since the siege of the ridge began two months earlier that there's actually been a full scale engagement and there's been movement beyond the Trent.

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah, I mean, so we're talking about Nicholson. I just should add that when you look at Victorian sources at the time, how they talk about Nicholson, what they describe, the avenging angel, it's a man who doesn't stop to sleep or eat. He is just a machine of war. That's how they sort of. It's a little bit like if we've ever read. Oh God, I sound so pretentious. But it reminds of Coriolan, Coriolanus, Shakespeare's, you know, that he just very impressed. Well, but it's also that machine of war the man does not see, he's covered in blood, you know, sort of from head to toe because he, he's there for a reason. Anyway, look, that's Nicholson on the one side. I do want to talk a little bit though, Willy, about the other side as well, because the rebels, they have a new commander as well and he is also quite a striking character. Bucht Khan. Now tell us about Bakht Khan.

[Anita Anand]

Bach Khan is a very serious Muslim. He is extraordinary military power as well. And why Najafkar is important, this ambush is important, is that this new hero among the sepoys is humiliated by the new hero among the British. The two rising stars go head to head at Najafkar and Nicholson ambushes Bakkhan and Bakan. Moment of glory is eclipsed by Nicholson. And then the other thing that happens is that because Nicholson has left this desert behind him on the road to Delhi, destroying all troops, the road is now open up. And what happens about the 4th of September, which is about a month after Nicholson finally makes it into Delhi, is that this enormous eight mile long siege train turns up with these massive guns, these super guns of the time from a place called Firospur in the Punjab. And it's an incredible sight because these enormous guns, these heavy howitzers, mortars and these enormous super guns are pulled by elephants. There's this enormous sort of elephant cavalcade of artillery turn up and then 653 hackeries as they call, which are bullock carts full of ammunition. So all the things that the Indians do not have in the city, they're expending all their ammunition. There's an attempt at one point to get the local firework makers, which of course do very well in a mogul city where there's always, you know, Dussel, something to celebrate.

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah.

[Anita Anand]

So the only people that know anything about gunpowder in the city are the firework makers. But the British managed to probably blow up the firework makers, the gunpowder manufacturers. It's not clear whether it's an accident or whether it's a British sort of plot. The people in the city are paranoid enough to assume the British have done it. But just as the rebels are beginning to run out of ammo, 653 bullock carts, load of shells, bullets and these enormous things that really makes impression are these siege guns. They're giant 24 pounders, there's six of them that take whole teams of elephants to put.

[William Dalrymple]

I mean, they're city destroyers, these siege guns. I mean, that's what they do. They will take out a wall as if it's made of guardboard. And once you've got a breach in a wall, you basically, you can take that city. Now, what is also interesting, just another observation and something that Indians talk about a lot, is that in Nicholson's party, he's got, you know, a European infantry about 400 strong, so new men, new legs, new eyes, not knackered, not dying of dysentery. He also has, though, a large party of Sikh cavalry and a Baloch battalion. Now, often and in conversations in India, you have, you know, why. Why did Indians fight for the British and against Indians? You know, this was the great moment in Delhi when, you know, you had the sepoys saying, no more, so why did Indians fight them? So just a quick observation. The Siege Definitely after 1849 and the deposing of the last Sikh emperor, Duleep Singh, there is a parceling up of land and given to sort of minor royals, like, you know, if you stay loyal to us, we will look after you. And there is this sort of very strange kind of conspiracy of appeasing the British. You know, they owe fealty to the British because they didn't take their lands and they didn't take their kingdom and they didn't take their king and ship him off to Queen Victoria's court. And so it's that fealty, you know, very Game of Thronesy, that means, you know, that they will stand by the house of Nicholson. They have to, because that's what they agreed to. So that's why, you know, when people say, oh, the bloody Sikhs and the Balochis, why were they doing that? It's because those are deals that they've made with the British that, you know, basically don't do this to us and we'll be there when the call comes.

[Anita Anand]

Also, there is a feeling that they, the Sikhs want revenge on the Hindu sepoys who were the guys that were.

[William Dalrymple]

Fighting put down, who fought them. Exactly, good point, exactly that. Who are responsible for, you know, them losing the Sikh Empire. So you've got a city, Willi, at this point and we've got just a few minutes left of this podcast and we'll pick it up again in the next. So, you know, do join us because as you can tell a really extraordinary story, it feels like an apocalypse. What was, you know, a stronghold now must feel like a coffin to the people of Delhi because they are surrounded by city destroying guns, guns, new legs, new guns and no, you know, shortage of ammunition on the British side.

[Anita Anand]

What's going on at every level, it's, it's, you know, just the game is up. A lot of the sepoys who are not being paid slip out of the city at night and go back to their villages. They go and harvest. This is, this is September, this is the harvest. So they go and they go back to their villages, hope for the best and just leave the city to its, to its fate. No one's paying them, they've run out of ammunition, they don't see any reason to stay and get killed. And you have these descriptions of this sort of destroyed city. Now the British have been lobbing shells at it for three months. So there's ruined houses everywhere with gamblers sitting rogues, rascals and bad characters playing cards according to the petitions. And most pissed off of all are the Delhi elite people like Ghalib, our favorite poet. And for the last few months he's had to endure the sight of what he regards as rustic provincials lording it over him and his friends. And he writes these letters and diaries, he says every worthless fellow puffed up with pride perpetrates what he will. While men of high rank like me, who once in the assemblies of music and wine, lit the bright lamps of pleasure and delight with the roses far now lie in dark cells and burn in the flames of misery the jewels of this city's fair faced women fill the sacks of vile, dishonest thieves and pilferers. Lovers who had never had to face anything more demanding than the perverse fancies of their fair faced mistress, now suffer the whims of scandals. And Zafar, who's the kind of, most obviously the kind of, you know, head of this world of Mughal elite, has kind of really lost it by now. There are signs of madness. He's 82 and he's this sort of Indian King Lear. Now, we had Coriolanus a minute ago. Here's King Lear for my counter Shakespearean.

[William Dalrymple]

We're so clever.

[Anita Anand]

And he sits there writing this sort of slightly bonkers poetry. And the British spies inside the palace are baffled by what Zafa's up to. There's a spy called Gorishanka who we have a lot of his reports surviving, and he says the king is employed the whole day composing poetical pieces. One verse composed by him is as follows. O Zafar, we are going to take London shortly. It is not far. So.

[William Dalrymple]

So, I mean, William, basically, it's. That's quite the picture, isn't it? So you've got Zafar, who's wandering the halls and I imagine in a nightgown or something, you know, composing this terrible poetry, completely deluded, you know, tomorrow we take London, that kind of nonsense. You've got everybody around him sort of looking up at the ridge and looking up at the reinforcements, thinking, we're not going to be able to hold this anymore. We've suffered already. This is going to be a lot worse. We might be wiped out. So utter chaos, utter despair within the walls and the Brits poised to move. Join us in the next episode when we find out what happens next.

[Dominic Sambrook]

Hi there, it's Dominic Sambrook again from the Rest Is History. Now, I mentioned during the break that we have a New City series on recent Iranian history. So here is a short extract for you. If you want to hear the whole series, then search for Revolution in Iran on the Rest Is History, wherever you get your podcasts or search for us on YouTube. There are crowds in the streets every day. There are attacks on banks and restaurants every day. And already in some towns in Iran, power has been taken from the legitimate authorities and it's been taken over by Revolutionary Strike Committees. Now, if you're with the revolution, this is very exciting. If you're not with the revolution, it is terrifying. And in his memoirs, Ambassador William Sullivan describes standing at the US Embassy and looking out through an upstairs window. And he sees in the distance troops holding back demonstrators. He sees cars burning in the middle of the road. He sees smoke rising from burning buildings. And he thinks something has to change. You know, we have to do something. So on the 9th of November, he sends a secret cable to Washington with the title, thinking the Unthinkable. And he says, the shower's finished, it's over. And if we don't act now, Iran, which is so vital to us will slip out of our hands forever, he says. We should ditch the Shah right now, and it may well be time to do a deal with the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. If you enjoyed that clip, then please search for the Rest Is History wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gordon Carrera and David McCloskey]

One of the darkest scandals of the modern era a billionaire financier, powerful friends, hidden networks, and questionable that refuse to go away.

[Dominic Sambrook]

Was Jeffrey Epstein a spy?

[Anita Anand]

I'm Gordon Carrera.

[Gordon Carrera and David McCloskey]

And I'm David McCloskey, and we're the.

[Dominic Sambrook]

Hosts of the Rest Is Classified, the intelligence and national security podcast from Goal Hanger.

[Gordon Carrera and David McCloskey]

And we've just released a gripping new series investigating whether Epstein was linked to any spy agencies and asking what those.

[Dominic Sambrook]

Agencies might have known about him.

[Gordon Carrera and David McCloskey]

Listen or watch now on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.