Battle of Nalapani

Battle context

The Battle of Nalapani opened the Anglo-Nepalese War of 1814–1816 and immediately complicated British assumptions about the campaign. A garrison of roughly 600 Nepalese troops under Balbhadra Kunwar held Nalapani fort near Dehradun against a British East India Company force exceeding 5,000 men for over a month. The death of Major-General Robert Rollo Gillespie on the first day of the siege — a senior commander with prior campaign experience — underscored how costly the war would prove. The Nepalese defense demonstrated that the House of Gorkha's forces could withstand sustained pressure from a numerically and materially superior opponent, setting the tone for a conflict that would last until 1816 and ultimately end in a negotiated settlement rather than outright British conquest.