The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c21.48

v4.c21.48

The Nizām's army, deprived of its French corps and Ibrāhīm Khān Gārdī's artillery (the latter having entered the Peshwā's service now), was reduced to helplessness. On the other hand, the strength and ambition of the Marāthās proportionately increased from the adhesion of Ibrāhīm Khān, which stiffened their "myriads of light horse" with French-drilled modern artillery. The Peshwā renewed war with the Nizām; his cousin Sadāshiv Bhāo gained the important fort of Ahmadnagar by terms (9 November, 1759). A vast Marāthā army under the Peshwā's brother Raghunāth and cousin Sadāshiv, with Ibrāhīm Gārdī's artillery, began the invasion in the beginning of January, 1760. Nizām ‘Alī with Salābat Jang issued forth to oppose them and reached Udgīr on the 11th. Daily fighting began immediately. Hopelessly outnumbered, the Nizām planned to force his way to Dharūr and join a large body of his troops who were detained there. The Mughul force, only 7000 strong, was completely enveloped by 60,000 Marāthā horse, its progress impeded, and its supplies cut off. "This time the Cossack-tactics of the Marāthās were combined with the European mode of warfare (of Ibrāhīm Khān Gārdī) against the Nizām." The march from Udgīr to Ausā was a long drawn agony. The small Mughul army, slowly moving in the open field in close column, presented a sure target to the French-drilled artillery hovering round, while the dispersed and wheeling Marāthā horse were practically safe from their enemy's fire. It was the situation of Pānīpat inverted in favour of the Marāthās. When on 3 February the Nizām reached Ausā, forty miles south of Dharūr, 40,000 Marāthās attacked his rear-guard, which was straggling some miles behind, and a great disaster fell on it, all the commanders and most of the men being killed. The victorious Marāthās then fell upon the Mughul centre and the battle raged till sunset. The Nizām’s army was in no condition to fight any more. So, he made peace by ceding territory, yielding six million rupees in the province of Aurangābād, half of Bījāpur and Bīdar, the forts of Asīr, Daulatābād and Mulher, and the cities of Bījāpur and Burhānpur to the Peshwā (February, 1760). The descendants of Āsaf Jāh retained nothing more than Hyderābād, some parts of the province of Bījāpur, and a little of Bīdar, and that, too, on condition of paying the Marāthās one-fourth of the revenue.