Later Mughals v2.c18.s5: Sec. 111.—Karnal : Indians Issue for Combat.
Later Mughals v2.c18.s5
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Sec. 111.—Karnal : Indians Issue for Combat.
v2.c18.s5.1
The fatal Tuesday, the 13th of February, 1739, dawned. The Persian army advanced from its position in three divisions along the plain between the canal and the Jamuna, a belt nearly five miles in breadth. Prince Nasr-ullah, in charge of the Centre, was ordered to march from the bank of the Jamuna* and take post north of Muhammad Shah’s camp, facing the Nizam’s division. Nadir Shah himself, at the head of the vanguard, first arrived opposite the Indian position on the canal, but learning on the way that Saadat Khan had joined the Emperor at midnight, he swerved aside to his left and pitched his camp on a spacious field, three miles east of the enemy and a mile or two west of the Jamuna. Here his son joined him with the Centre. In these movements the forenoon was passed, and the sun had begun to decline from the meridian, when suddenly the Indians were seen coming out of their lines to offer battle.
v2.c18.s5.2
∗ Mirza Mahdi says "from the northern side of the river Jamuna," which implies that the Prince's division had been thrown across the river the day before, in order to protect Nadir's left flank. Not likely.
v2.c18.s5.3
To understand how this happened it is necessary for us to know the events in the imperial camp. On receiving his master's appeal for aid, Saadat Khan had left his province of Oudh at the head of 20,000 horse, artillery and materials of war, and made successive marches for one month to reach Karnal. He had arrived at Dihli on 7th February and halted there for one day only. The 55 miles between Dihli and Panipat were covered in three days, and then on the 4th day, the 12th of February, he made a supreme effort and passed the remaining 20 miles, reaching Karnal at midnight with the main part of his army, while his camp and baggage slowly straggled behind, in a long line insufficiently guarded, one day's march behind, as was the usual thing with Indian armies.
v2.c18.s5.4
We have seen that on the 12th the Persian scouts had advanced 32 miles from their own camp and secured news of Saadat Khan's position at Panipat. But the intelligence department of the Indian army seems to have been hopelessly careless or inefficient. Saadat Khan had not found out the enemy's whereabouts, nor taken care to protect his baggage train against a possible attack. The Emperor himself at Karnal had been equally careless. As Ghulam Husain writes, "None in the imperial camp knew of the near arrival of Nadir from Lahor, till one day some men of the corn-dealers (banjaras) who had gone six or eight miles outside to bring in fodder, came back wounded and panic-striken after a sudden encounter with the Persian scouts, and the cry ran through the encampment 'Nadir has come! Nadir has come!' A mortal fear seized the army and the longing for Saadat Khan's arrival became keener." [i. 96.]
v2.c18.s5.5
About midnight, 12th February, Saadat Khan arrived near Karnal. He was welcomed a mile in advance by Khan Dauran and conducted within the lines. In the morning he waited on the Emperor. After the usual courtesies had been exchanged, a council of war was held in the imperial presence and plans of operations were being discussed, when news arrived that the Persian advanced skirmishers had fallen upon Saadat Khan's baggage and were carrying off 500 loaded camels. [Harcharan.]
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The Khan immediately took up his sword which he had laid down on the carpet before the Emperor, and asked for permission to depart and fight the Persians.* The Nizam counselled delay, urging that the Oudh soldiers were worn out by one month's incessant marching and required some days' rest to become fit again. Moreover, the sun had already begun to decline, and they would have only three hours of daylight left for fighting after reaching the field. Khan Dauran also pointed out that as the imperial troops had not been previously warned to be ready to fight that day, they would take a long time to assemble arm and form line of battle. It was (the two nobles urged) therefore better to fight the next day, when they would be able to advance in proper array with artillery and full preparations and to follow their accustomed tactics. One courtier even told Saadat Khan that 500 camels were nothing to a man like him, and that if he could defeat Nadir Shah,—as they hoped to do easily by a pitched battle the next day,—the entire Persian royal camp and its wealth would be their prey.
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But he would not listen to this advice and insisted on going out to the rescue of his camp-followers. Sending out some heralds to proclaim in his camp that all his soldiers should assemble and follow him, he hastened to the point of attack with only his escort and the troops within call, amounting to a thousand horse and a few hundred foot, but without any artillery. The Indian cavalryman's employment depended upon the life of his horse, which was his own property, and therefore he was most reluctant to risk it or fatigue it too much. After a month of fast riding, they refused to stir out that day, saying that as their master had gone to visit the Emperor he could not possibly have issued for battle. Still, nearly 4000 cavalry and 1000 infantry joined him in the end. [Bayan 34, Anandram 27.]
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∗ Harcharan says that the Emperor distrusted Saadat Khan for being a native of Persia and made him swear fidelity on the Quran in his presence. Siyar asserts that Saadat had taken leave of the Emperor and was waiting for his baggage in the quarters assigned to him (behind those of Khan Dauran) when he learnt of the attack. But Shakir Kh. (then in the camp) Abdul Karim and Harcharan say that he heard the report in the Emperor's darbar. The Dihli Chronicle says that the Emperor ordered Saadat to go out and attack the Persians. Anandram says that the Emperor overruled Khan Dauran's objection to fighting on that day. All other authorities hold that the Emperor agreed with the Nizam to defer the action till next day.
v2.c18.s5.9
As Saadat Khan came to the field, the Persian skirmishers pretended flight; he gave them chase and was thus lured away to a distance of two miles from his camp. He sent off couriers to the Emperor begging for reinforcements to complete the victory. Muhammad Shah took counsel of the Nizam, who replied that as the fight was in the east of the imperial camp, Khan Dauran who commanded the division nearest to that point, viz., the Right Wing, should go. Khan Dauran obeyed the order* and issued forth on an elephant without waiting to assemble his full contingent or drag out his artillery. As he was very popular with the soldiers, many of them, on hearing of his having issued to battle, armed and joined him of their own accord in successive drafts, till at last he had some 8,000 horse round him.
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Later in the afternoon, the Emperor himself marched out of his tents with the Wazir and stood with marshalled ranks by the side of the canal, but more as a distant spectator of the battle than as a participator in it. The delay in the starting of the different divisions, the absence of a common pre-arranged plan of battle and the lack of one supreme director of operations on the Indian side, led to their three divisions being separated from one another by more than a mile's interval. Saadat Khan formed the Right Wing which was in the extreme east and near the Jamuna, Khan Dauran's division now became the Centre and stood in the middle of the plain, while the Wazir and the Emperor formed the Left Wing bordering on the canal. Gradually, by the end of the day, when the successive groups of imperialists had marched up to the field, they formed a vast concourse of men, filling the wide plain from their own camp to the place of conflict, with two intervals as described above. The Left Wing (under the Emperor) had dragged out field artillery from behind the shelter of the trenches and had also pitched small tents in the plain for its chiefs; it did not however, engage the enemy at all.
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∗ Immediately (according to Bayan), or after some grumbling, according to Anandram.
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But this army was a mob; it lacked cohesion; it had no animating soul, no unity of command nor indeed any leading at all. The main portion of it stood stock-still, far away from the point of impact, without contributing anything to the struggle, and their vast number only caused a vaster butchery during the retreat. The extremely mobile enemy, led by the greatest living general in Asia, struck the Indian host or evaded it as they found most advantageous to them. Nadir Shah's genius neutralized the superiority in numbers and the desperate valour of many of the Indian soldiers.
Linked texts (1)
- Bayān-i wāqiʿ — Khwāja ʿAbd al-Karīm Kashmīrī 1780, Persian