<P> After the outbreak of the mutiny in Meerut , the rebels very quickly reached Delhi , whose 81 - year - old Mughal ruler , Bahadur Shah Zafar , they declared the Emperor of Hindustan . Soon , the rebels had also captured large tracts of the North - Western Provinces and Awadh ( Oudh ) . The East India Company 's response came rapidly as well . With help from reinforcements , Kanpur was retaken by mid-July 1857 , and Delhi by the end of September . However , it then took the remainder of 1857 and the better part of 1858 for the rebellion to be suppressed in Jhansi , Lucknow , and especially the Awadh countryside . Other regions of Company controlled India -- Bengal province , the Bombay Presidency , and the Madras Presidency -- remained largely calm . In the Punjab , the Sikh princes crucially helped the British by providing both soldiers and support . The large princely states , Hyderabad , Mysore , Travancore , and Kashmir , as well as the smaller ones of Rajputana , did not join the rebellion , serving the British , in the Governor - General Lord Canning 's words , as `` breakwaters in a storm . '' </P>
<P> After the outbreak of the mutiny in Meerut , the rebels very quickly reached Delhi , whose 81 - year - old Mughal ruler , Bahadur Shah Zafar , they declared the Emperor of Hindustan . Soon , the rebels had also captured large tracts of the North - Western Provinces and Awadh ( Oudh ) . The East India Company 's response came rapidly as well . With help from reinforcements , Kanpur was retaken by mid-July 1857 , and Delhi by the end of September . However , it then took the remainder of 1857 and the better part of 1858 for the rebellion to be suppressed in Jhansi , Lucknow , and especially the Awadh countryside . Other regions of Company controlled India -- Bengal province , the Bombay Presidency , and the Madras Presidency -- remained largely calm . In the Punjab , the Sikh princes crucially helped the British by providing both soldiers and support . The large princely states , Hyderabad , Mysore , Travancore , and Kashmir , as well as the smaller ones of Rajputana , did not join the rebellion , serving the British , in the Governor - General Lord Canning 's words , as `` breakwaters in a storm . '' </P>
what helped the british to suppress the first war of independence
what helped the british to suppress the first war of independence
the Sikh princes
the Sikh princes