Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c35.s4: § 6. Battle before Barsana; Jat disaster. Fall of Kotban
Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c35.s4
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§ 6. Battle before Barsana; Jat disaster. Fall of Kotban
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After skirmishes for ten days, the decisive battle was fought on 30th October, midway between Sahar and Barsānā.* This was the first battle in Upper India (outside the Bengal Presidency) in which sepoy battalions drilled by Europeans and European-trained gunners were ranged on both sides. Hence the contest was prolonged and the mortality exceptionally heavy; the victors lost 2,300 men in killed and wounded, and the Jats about 2,000, but Sombre’s battalions were severely cut up. The Jat army was thus drawn up:—a strong force (probably 5,000) of Nāgā monks armed with muskets under Bālānanad Gosain on the left, Nawal Singh himself with his Jat clansmen in the centre, and nine battalions of sepoys under Sombre with their artillery on the right. The Jat Rajah’s own guns were ranged in front of the centre and chained together for breaking cavalry attacks. The imperial right was formed by Rahim-dād Khan and his 5,000 Ruhelas; in the centre Najaf Quli was placed with the Mughalia horse; on the left four battalions of disciplined sepoys under Razā Beg Khan and Rahim Beg, commandants; the artillery formed the first line. Like a modern general Mirzā Najaf deviated from the old Indian practice, and mounted a fleet horse instead of an elephant, so as to be able to gallop to any threatened point and push up succours wherever needed. On his own elephant he placed Masum
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∗ Battle.—Chahar Gulz. 493b. Ibrat. i. 236-240. G. Ali iii 40-44. DC. CPC. iv. 638. Sack of Chhata, G. Ali iii : 38.
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Ch. Gulz. 493a.) Sack of Mathura by Najaf Quli (Ch. Gulz. 494a.) Ibrat. names the battlefield Shāhpur, which I cannot find by local inquiry. (? Tatarpur).
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Ali Khan, who was naturally mistaken by the enemy for the generalissimo and paid for the false personation with his life. Between the rival forces a dense plantation of tall millets intervened.
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The battle began shortly after noon with an exchange of artillery fire which lasted for four hours. Then, with only one hour of sunlight remaining, the two sides closed together. The Ruhela infantry on the Mughal right charged the Nāgās, who fired volleys in succession; but the Ruhelas dodged the bullets by promptly falling down on the ground, then rising up and resuming their run, till they came up with the Nāgās before they could load again. After a bloody combat, the Nāgās broke with the loss of a thousand of their men. At the other end of the line the Emperor's sepoy battalions advanced against Sombre's. "The former had reserved their fire till they would come to close quarters, but fate did not give them the necessary time for it. The first salvo of Sombre's guns killed these two commandants, and their sepoys threw their muskets down and hid themselves among the tall crops." This was the crisis of the battle. But Najaf's superior generalship gave him the victory over the inert and timid Jat chief. The Mirzā, on seeing his left wing dissolved, galloped up to his centre and ordered that division (all cavalry) to charge the Jat centre. The Mughalia horse, cutting passages through the line of linked enemy guns in front, attacked Nawal Singh at the gallop.
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Here the Rajputs and Jats offered a desperate defence. But Nawal Singh's heart failed him as usual, he fled away, and his centre division ceased to struggle any longer.
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The victorious imperialists, including even their higher officers, at once dispersed for plunder, as the fabulously rich Jat royal camp was just behind the field of action. But the battle had not yet been won; Sombre maintained his position, forming his infantry into squares and working his guns in front. Under shelter of this disciplined force, Jodhrāj the Jat diwān formed his 500 horse ready for action. Najaf, mad with vexation at the disorderly conduct of his troops, with only a few personal attendants round him made a charge upon Jodhrāj's horse, carefully skirting Sombre's sepoys. He himself received a spear thrust which penetrated his armour and cut his left thigh open to the bone; but Jodhrāj was routed. Then only did Sombre withdraw from the field, his sepoys marching away with the utmost steadiness and order. They were saved by a splendid rearguard action fought by his French second-in-command, who coolly kept his place and repelled charge after charge of the Mughal horse by the discharge of his guns. At last Najaf Khan succeeded in hunting out a number of his plundering artillerymen and turned a gun upon the enemy, the second shot of which killed this gallant Frenchman. Then all resistance ceased; but there was no pursuit; discipline and European leadership saved Samru's sepoys even in the midst of such a complete defeat.
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The Mughal army now marched on to Nawal Singh's camp which had been left standing with its "wealth beyond imagination". The spoils included all the Jat artillery, elephants, horses and camels, besides money and apparel. The newly built city of Barsānā was sacked and reduced to a state of ruin which continued for more than a century. "The famished Mughalia troopers appeased their hunger no longer with the growing crops, but with good cooked meals." The imperialists halted at Barsānā for some days in order to attend to the many hundreds of their wounded comrades and to secure the unmanageably immense spoils of victory.
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In the strategic moves before this battle, the imperialists had marched southwards along the eastern route from Hodal by Chhata and Sahar, leaving Kotban untaken behind them. But after the utter wreck of the Jat field force at Barsānā, Mirzā Najaf's first care was to secure his rear by sending a detachment under Rahim-dād against Kotban which was held by Sitārām, the father-in-law of Nawal Singh. Strong reinforcements arrived under Najaf Quli to assist in the siege. The place was now completely invested and its provision supply cut off. After 19 days, Sitārām silently evacuated it one night (end of November), and next morning the imperialists gained possession of it with all its guns and "immense quantities of provisions powder and shot, tents, &c." [*Ibrat*, i. 240-'2. *Ch. Gulz.* 493b.]