The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c21.169

v4.c21.169

The news of the defeat and death of Dattājī reached the Peshwā on 15 February, while the Marāthās in the Deccan were jubilantly celebrating the victory of Udgīr. It was at once decided that a force must be despatched under a member of the Peshwā’s family to restore Marāthā influence in Hindūstān. Raghunāth Rāo applied for the command, and with his experience of fighting in northern India, undoubtedly the choice should have fallen upon him. But Raghunāth Rāo had incurred very heavy expenditure during his last campaign, which had brought no revenue to the exchequer, and for this reason he was under a cloud. Little love was lost between the two cousins, and on the strength of this Sadāshiv Rāo, the hero of Udgīr, claimed the command. The Peshwā, now too indolent to take the field himself, unwisely agreed: but with him, “according to the ancient custom of the Marāthās”, he sent his young heir, Vishvās Rāo, a gallant and handsome lad of nineteen years, as nominal commander and the Peshwā’s representative.¹ The army which set out from Patdur in the Deccan on 10 March, 1760, was the most magnificent that the Marāthās had ever sent forth to battle. There were twenty thousand of the famous Marāthā horse, including the *Khās Pāgā*, or household cavalry, commanded by chieftains of note who had fought from one end of India to the other—Balvant Rāo Mehendale, Shamsher Bahādur, Bājī Rāo’s son by the notorious Mastānī, Nāro Shankar, Vithal Shivdeo Vinchurkar, Trimbak Sadāshiv Purandhare, Antājī Mānkeshwar, and a host of others. With them went Ibrāhīm Khān Gārdī’s corps of 9000 sepoys, trained under Bussy on the French model, with forty pieces of cannon, which had done so well at Udgīr. But the experienced observer would have noted signs about this imposing array well calculated to make him uneasy. Shivājī’s successes had been due to the fact that his men moved without transport, subsisting on a nose-bag of grain carried on the saddle and on food taken from the surrounding country. And that great commander had made it an offence punishable with death to bring a woman into the camp. But the Bhāo Sāhib moved with a vast amount of equipage and thousands of camp followers; behind followed numbers of elephants, loaded with lofty silken tents; the wives of the principal nobles accompanied their husbands with numerous retinues, and the officers were resplendent in cloth of gold. Lastly, the Marāthās were forsaking their traditional tactics for new methods, based on European models imperfectly assimilated.