This HTML5 document contains 6 embedded RDF statements represented using HTML+Microdata notation.

The embedded RDF content will be recognized by any processor of HTML5 Microdata.

Subject Item

n2:

rdfs:label

Bite the cartridge

rdfs:comment

Refusing to "bite the cartridge" was a turn of phrase used by the British in India of native Indian soldiers (sepoys) who had mutinied in 1857. It derives from the act of biting open a paper cartridge containing gunpowder and musket ball in order to load contemporary rifles, especially the new Pattern 1853 Enfield rife musket. The phrase is thought by some to have later spawned the more familiar idiom "bite the bullet".

owl:sameAs

dbr:Bite_the_cartridge

dcterms:subject

n5:

n7:wikiPageUsesTemplate

n8:

n6:abstract

Refusing to "bite the cartridge" was a turn of phrase used by the British in India of native Indian soldiers (sepoys) who had mutinied in 1857. It derives from the act of biting open a paper cartridge containing gunpowder and musket ball in order to load contemporary rifles, especially the new Pattern 1853 Enfield rife musket. The phrase is thought by some to have later spawned the more familiar idiom "bite the bullet". One of the alleged causes of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 were rumours that the grease on these cartridges designed to keep them dry was, variously, pork or beef fat (pork being abhorrent to Muslims, cows being sacred to Hindus), thus their refusal to bite them.