Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s7.1

v2.c27.s7.1

There was boundless exultation in the Peshwā's camp at Ahmadnagar in the night of 13th February 1760. His recent campaign against the ruler of Haidarabad had met with the completest success. The Nizām had been hemmed round during his advance from Udgir, defeated with heavy loss, and brought to an absolute standstill at Ausā on 3rd February, when still forty miles short of his refuge at Dhārur. He could save himself from annihilation only by agreeing to cede to the Marathas territories worth 45 lakhs of Rupees a year, with an additional 15 lakhs as *chauth* for his dominions, and transfer to the victors the two strongest forts in Mughal Deccan (Daulatābād and Āsir) and two cities (Burhānpur and Bijāpur) each of which was the capital of an imperial province, as well as Mulher, the chief fort of Baglānā. Ahmadnagar, the capital of a third Deccan subah and the largest depot of arms and munitions in the South, had been gained by bribery on the 9th November before, and the Peshwā had entered it with due pomp on the 29th of that month. On 11th February the Nizām had signed formal orders to his local officers to hand these places over to the Peshwā's agents. The result of this campaign is best summarized in the words of a learned Muslim protégé of the first Nizām-ul-mulk, "The descendants of Asaf Jāh retained nothing more than the subah of Haidarabad, some portions of the Bijāpur province, and a little of Bidar, and that too on condition of paying the Marathas one-fourth of their revenues." [Azad Bilgrami.] The Peshwā's courtiers burst into the wildest panegyrics,—"His Highness was born under the same natal star as Alexander the Great. Wherever he casts his angry glance, his enemies are crushed into atoms. He has attained to the height of glory." It was, indeed, the *apogee* of Maratha expansion.