History of the Khaljis, A.D. 1290–1320 c11.23

c11.23

Mobility was a great quality of the Mughal army. As the Mughals had hardly anything that did not decay, their armies were not burdensome. Their equippage consisted of bare essentials and they carried no paraphernalia with them. They carried their felt tents—"all grimy and greasy, and ready at any moment to be taken down by the women of the tribe ... Of forts, walls, or streets there could have been no sign."¹⁸ A modern authority on Mughal strategy aptly remarks that the Mughals had "grasped the essentials of strategy, while their tactical mechanism was so perfect that a high conception of tactics was unnecessary."¹⁹ Therefore, when Barani says that the Mughals, who came prepared for big battles sometimes vanished in one night, there is nothing surprising. The mobility of the Mughal army was proverbial. Both in their attack and their retreat they baffled their adversaries more by their movements than by their fighting power. It was dangerous to give them chase for as they fled they shot back over their heads and did much persecution upon their pursuers. "They understood the art of feigning retreat, of envelopment and of surprise, and, as battle after battle was fought against nations employing different methods of warfare, the sum of their experience had made them invincible." Marco Polo describes in detail how in their fights the Mughals never got into a regular mêlée, but kept perpetually riding round and shooting at the enemy; and as they did not count it any shame to run away in battle, they would sometimes pretend to do so, killing in stray attacks and then wheeling round and returning to the charge in perfect order and routing their enemy.