Aliwal was fought on 28 January 1846 between Harry Smith's division and a Sikh force under Ranjodh Singh Majithia, on the Sutlej near Ludhiana.
It is studied in staff colleges as a model battle: a clean plan, executed as intended, with cavalry, infantry and artillery working together, and the enemy driven into a river crossing.
The charge of the 16th Lancers against Sikh infantry squares at Aliwal is one of the set pieces of British cavalry history.
The Sikh force lost heavily at the crossing. Its guns were taken.
Harry Smith was made Baron Aliwal. A town in South Africa and a battle honour carry the name of a village in Ludhiana district that almost nobody in Ludhiana district can find.
The Sikh force had crossed the Sutlej and taken a position with the river at its back, which is the decision that lost the battle. When the line broke there was one crossing for a retreating army and its guns, and the losses at the water were the greater part of the total.
Harry Smith's dispatch is unusually clear and is a large part of why the battle is taught. It describes an attack delivered in sequence rather than all at once, with the cavalry used at the moment the infantry had opened a gap, which is what a textbook asks for and what battles rarely provide.
The field is near Aliwal village on the Sutlej in Ludhiana district and there is an obelisk. The Sikh dead have no memorial on the field and their number is given differently in every account.