Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s3.21

v2.c27.s3.21

This arrangement was completed on 22nd December, and Dattājī immediately advanced from Kunjpurā to seek the enemy out, while Jankoji with the baggage took the road to Karnāl.* The Afghan vanguard was 20,000 strong, but their movements were completely hidden by a wide-spread screen of skirmishers. After some preliminary brushes between the rival scouts, the first battle was fought on 24th December. The scene of this encounter was not far from the historic plain of Tarāori (south-east of Thāneshwar) where six centuries earlier the Hindu chivalry of Delhi had first confronted the invader from Afghanistan. The most advanced troops of the Marathas were 5,000 horse under Bhoité with a thousand Turkish auxiliaries from the wazir's contingent led by Md. Said Khan Qipchāq. They charged and swept back the hundred front skirmishers of Abdāli's army. The practised Afghan horsemen fell back fighting, while the Marathas, in the pride of ignorance, pursued them shouting in tumultuous disorder. At the first news of the conflict, Abdali had pushed up 4,000 horsemen from his vanguard under Shah Pasand Khan, and "at the sight of that famous general's banner, the Mughalia [i.e., Central Asian] troops of the wazir, who had often beheld battles with the Durrānis, slipped away." Shah Pasand opened a hot fire with his flint-locks in front, while a second squadron detached by Abdāli took the Marathas in flank. Bhoité was out-numbered outgeneralled and outclassed in weapons, and fled away utterly broken, after giving up four hundred of his men to slaughter. Their heads were severed and carried away to Abdāli, as the first fruits of his victory. Dattāji himself then rode up to the battlefield, and saw the headless trunks of his soldiers strewing the ground. But by this time the short winter day had come to a close, the battle which had lasted a little over two hours could not be renewed, and each side fell back on its own camp with twenty miles between. It was the first clear defeat of the Marathas in an open engagement.