to oppose them). Over the next few months, most of the former Company regiments marched to take part in the Siege of Delhi, where they were eventually defeated. The Gwalior Contingent remained largely inactive until October, when they were led to defeat at Cawnpore by Tantya Tope. These defeats deprived the rebels of a substantial body of trained and experienced troops, and made the subsequent British campaign easier. Meanwhile, most of the now independent princes began raising levies and warring with each other, or demanding ransoms from each other on threat of force. The Nawab of Banda, who induced several units of sepoys to join his service on the promise of loot, appears to have been particularly rapacious. One Mughal prince, Firuz Shah, attempted to lead an army into the Bombay Presidency to the south, but was defeated by a small force under the acting Commissioner for Central India, Sir Henry Durand. Durand then overawed the Holkar Tukojirao II (the ruler of Indore in southern Central India), into surrender. The Campaign to the fall of Kalpi The Central India Field Force, under Sir Hugh Rose took the field around Indore in late December 1857. The force consisted of two small brigades only. About half the troops were Indian units from the Bombay Presidency army, which had not been affected to the same extent by the tensions which led the Bengal Army to rebel. Rose was initially opposed only by the various armed retainers and levied forces of the Rajahs, whose equipment and efficiency were sometimes in doubt. Much of the rebel attention was focused to the north of the region, where Tantya Tope and other leaders were attempting to aid the rebels in Awadh, making Rose's campaign from the south comparatively easy. Rose's first mission was to relieve the town of Saugor, where a small European garrison was besieged. He accomplished this on 5 February after some hard-fought battles against Afghan and Pakhtun mercenaries at Rathgar. Thousands of local villagers welcomed him as a liberator, freeing them from rebel occupation. His force had then to wait at Saugor for several weeks while transport and supplies were collected. Rose assembled his forces at Madanpur then advanced towards Jhansi by two routes, each column capturing and destroying numerous forts. When the British forces finally arrived at Jhansi they found that the city was well defended and the fort had heavy guns which