Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s27.21

v2.c27.s27.21

The military disaster to the Marathas at Pānipat was inevitable, considering the polar difference in armament, tactics, discipline, internal cohesion (by means of a dependable chain of officers) and numbers between the rival armies. There could have been no victory for the Bhāu there ; the utmost was a successful retreat with what he could save out of his army, abandoning all his accumulated plunder of six months and most of his non-combatants. His failure in that clash of arms does not excite our indignation so much as the utter blindness to the facts of the situation, the lack of a consistent far-sighted policy and of the practical give and take spirit, and above all the total diplomatic failure,—in one word, the want of statesmanship,—on the part of the master at Punā who dictated, and the doomed agent near Delhi who carried out, his North-Indian policy.