Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c10.s7: § 14. Delhi army at Manupur
Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c10.s7
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§ 14. Delhi army at Manupur
v1.c10.s7.1
The news of the loss of Sarhind was brought to the prince’s camp late on 2nd March by ten Persian scouts whom Safdar Jang had sent out. But the wazir, blinded by conceit, would not believe it, as none of his own spies had returned. Therefore, the imperial army lost one precious day in sending out fresh scouts to verify the report. When the news was found to be too true, "it so alarmed the chiefs and soldiers of India that they were on the point of dispersing without offering battle.” (*Mujmil*, 103.) The prince immediately beat a hurried retreat from Bharaoli towards Sarhind and reached Mānupur, a village ten miles north-west of the latter city, where the enemy were sighted. Here the imperialists halted and began to entrench themselves as a measure of defence. Guns were ranged round the tents of the prince and the other generals, their wheels being chained together in the Turkish fashion, ditches were dug and the earth heaped up to form ramparts, and *sangars* (musket-houses) were built at suitable points.
v1.c10.s7.2
The huge host, with its followers, spread over 14 or 15 miles of ground. It was a dry region with only a few wells. Some more wells were dug, but not enough for that vast gathering of men and beasts. Severe scarcity of water soon made itself felt; their food supply was altogether stopped by the roving bands of the enemy. The Indian army completely immobilized itself in the face of such a swift raiding force of invaders; it was, in effect, completely invested. [Anand, 339, 343.]
v1.c10.s7.3
Abdāli also entrenched his advanced camp, five miles north-west of Sarhind and about the same distance in front of the imperial camp at Mānupur. His roving bands had daily skirmishes with the patrols round the Delhi force. He had brought with himself only seven small portable pieces (*top-i-jilau*) and therefore could not reply to the heavier and more numerous artillery of the imperialists, nor venture near the Mughal trenches within the range of these guns. But the imperial host was thrown entirely on the defensive; its unwieldy size made it vulnerable at many points and its surrender through starvation was only a question of time. The imbecile wazir rejected the idea of seeking a decision by fight before his food supply gave out, as "his plan was to avoid an action, but to cut off the enemy's food supply by inciting the neighbouring zamindars to attack his foraging parties and in the end to overpower him with artillery fire." (Anandram, 345.) From 4th to 11th March this fruitless cannonade continued. But at last the wazir's hands were forced when he saw the price he must pay for the policy of inaction which left all the initiative to the enemy. The Abdali had brought a large gun from Lahor and on the 9th mounted it on a hillock overlooking the wazir's camp; its fire began to kill his men and camels, and so he decided to risk a pitched battle two days later as preferable to such helpless slaughter.
v1.c10.s7.4
In the morning of the appointed day (11th March 1748), all the divisions of the Delhi army got ready. The wazir was to have issued on his elephant and led the attack. He had nearly finished his morning prayer and recital, when a cannon ball struck the ground outside his tent, rebounded over the wall and falling inside wounded him mortally in the waist.
v1.c10.s7.5
People could not believe that it was by pure accident that a single shot fired in that direction was so well-aimed as to reach that particular tent and hit the wazir seated within it. The contemporary Anandram narrates the story that some days before this two spies of the Abdāli had gone to the wazir, pretending to have been former artillerymen of Zakariya Khan and now deserters from the compulsory service of the invader. Being fully trusted by him, they in a few days learnt all about his place of residence, habits, and hours for different kinds of work, and then returned to the Afghan camp on the plea of bringing over more deserters. The information supplied by these men so guided the Afghan gunners that one shot was enough to kill the wazir. Ghulam Ali, writing in 1807, says that Mahdi Quli Beg, Abdali’s chief of ordnance, had visited the wazir with a pretended proposal of peace, and measured the distance of his tent by counting his steps.
v1.c10.s7.6
The wazir knew that his wound was mortal. Calling his son Muin-ul-mulk from the trenches, he told him, “My son, it is all over with me.
v1.c10.s7.7
But the Emperor's work is not yet finished. Before this news spreads, do you quickly ride out and deliver the assault. When it is done, you may think of me." These were his last words. Muin rose to the occasion; he suppressed his filial tears, hurriedly buried his father's corpse, wrapped up in its blood-stained clothes, in the floor of his sleeping tent, and levelled the sand over it, to remove all signs. Then he mounted his father's elephant and going to the army in the field publicly declared that the wazir was ill of a cold and had deputed him to lead the army in his place.
v1.c10.s7.8
But an event so momentous could not be totally concealed. Muin imparted the news in secret to the captains of the wazir's division and made an appeal, telling them, "Advance with me or stand back from the battle as you like it, but do not take to flight during the fighting and thereby ruin our cause. I myself shall fight on till my death." (Bayān, 233.)