Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s18: § 13. Causes of the military superiority of the Durrāni over the Maratha army
Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s18
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§ 13. Causes of the military superiority of the Durrāni over the Maratha army
v2.c27.s18.1
During the two and a half months' leaguer of Pānipat, the Shāh had received some reinforcements from home. The new arrivals, both men and horses, untouched by the Indian summer and strangers to the scarcity and sickness which had afflicted their brethren during the past twelve months' campaign and cantoning, were in the pink of condition. The Afghan army totalled 60,000 men, nearly half of this number being the Shāh's own subjects (23,000 horse and 7,000 foot) and the other half his Indian allies (7,000 horse and 23,000 foot.) The Durrani divisions, thanks to the iron discipline and constant exercise enforced by their chief, moved like one man at the will of the Shāh, while the preponderance of cavalry among them (three to one) and their superior horses, made them a match for more than double their number of Indian troops.
v2.c27.s18.2
This advantage could have been neutralized if the Indians had a superiority in fire-arms. But here, too, Abdali’s artillery was incomparably more efficient and mobile. The field-guns of the Marathas were of larger calibre than those of the Afghans, but once placed in position, they could not be dragged forward with the advancing troops and became useless. On the other hand, the Shah had, in addition to his cannon (40 light pieces), two thousand camels each carrying two soldiers armed with swivel-guns, called *zamburaks*, which formed the finest mobile artillery of that age in Asia. Their effect on the Maratha horsemen was as decisive as that of the galloper guns in Lord Lake’s campaign against Sindhia 42 years later. The fire-strength on the Bhāu’s side was composed of (*a*) the big guns which became stationary and silent after the battle had joined, (*b*) the rockets,—that constant favourite of this race, which merely served to frighten horses and wound a man here and there except when fired into a dense mass, and (*c*) the foot-musketeers under Ibrahim Khan Gardi, actually 8,000 strong, who were most probably armed with French fusils of the early 18th century pattern, having short barrels and firing small bullets which inflicted light wounds only.* Opposed to these last were the long Afghan flint-locks or *jizails*, firing heavier bullets and carrying very much further than the fusils.
v2.c27.s18.3
∗ C. 1708, the French muskets were of smaller calibre than those of other countries, and their lighter bullet,—20 to the lb. —had no doubt something to do with the less effectiveness of
v2.c27.s18.4
The Durrānī officers were clad in armour, the weight of which was easily borne by their superb Khurasani horses. Even the leather jackets and thick quilted coats which their common soldiers as natives of a very cold climate wore, could turn away many a sword cut or spear thrust. But among the Marathas armour was hardly worn even by the officers; their garments were very light as more suited to the warm South where they lived and the small mares they rode, while their common soldiers often wore nothing beyond the *dhoti* wrapped round the waist; whence Ahmad Shah’s habitual scornful reference to them as ‘the bare backed’ (*kun berahna.*)
v2.c27.s18.5
Above all, on that fateful morning, over the flat plain of Panipat a starving army mounted on sorry famished nags, met the finest cavalry in Asia in the best of conditions.