Why did the British Government annex the state of Oudh?
All the best native soldiers came from Oudh, or nearly all.

They were loyal once; but can a man be fairly asked to side against his own?
If Oudh should rise in rebellion, what would the soldiers do ?" "Dunno, I'm sure," said Cunningham.
"Read me this one, then.

By pacifying both Mohammedan and Hindoo and by letting both keep their religion, by sometimes playing one against the other and by being just, the British Government has become supreme from the Himalayas to the ocean.

Can you tell me why they now issue cartridges for the new rifles that are soaked in the fat of cows and pigs, thus insulting both Mohammedan and Hindoo ?" "I didn't know it was so." "Sahib, it is! These damned new cartridges and this new drill-sahib, I--I who am loyal to the marrow of my bones--would no more touch those cartridges--nor bite them, as the drill decrees--than I would betray thee! Pig's fat! Ugh!" He spat with Mohammedan eloquence and wiped his lips on his tunic sleeve before resuming.
"Then, like a flint and steel, to light the train that they have laid, they loose these missionaries, in a swarm, from one end of India to the other.

Why?
What say one and all?
Mohammedan and Hindoo both say it is a plot, first to make them lose their own religion by defilement, then to make Christians of them! Foolishness to talk thus?
Nay! It was foolishness to act thus! "Sahib, peace follows in the wake of soldiers, as we know.