Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s18.2

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.