Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c35.s8: § 12. Fort of Dig described
Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c35.s8
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§ 12. Fort of Dig described
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The fortified city of Dig,* which was the favourite residence of the Jat Rajahs at this time, stands eight miles west of Govardhan. Excluding its south-western off-shoot, the sharp salient called Shāhburj, it forms a rough pentagon 1½ miles across. It is surrounded by a rampart of beaten earth of a considerable width, rising to a height of nearly thirty feet. The entire northern and eastern and half the western faces are protected by a deep ditch. But the southern face does not need this artificial defence as it is naturally protected by a very wide morass, extending south-east for miles towards Govardhan. A few hundred feet west of it is a large and deep tank, running from the middle of the southern face of the fort for miles towards the south-west and skirted on its left by a range of low hills at the northernmost point of which stands the separate fort of Gopālgarh.
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∗ Thorn, Memoir of the War in India, 413-414. Pester, War and Sport in India, 369. A fine plan in Martin's Wellesley Despatches.
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This Shāhburj crowns a rocky height at the northern end of a ridge, and is joined to the south-west corner of Dig by prolongations of the southern and western walls of the fort, enclosing a long and narrow angle. The Shāhburj is almost a fortress in itself, with a small area of about 50 yards square on the inside, and presenting four lofty bastions facing the four cardinal points. About one-third of a mile south of the Shāhburj, at the other end of the same ridge stands Gopālgarh, another square mud-fort with round bastions at the four corners. Between these two works lie the extensive royal gardens with a profusion of shady trees, oranges, myrtles and mangoes. Inside the fort are the Rajah’s palace—“a very noble structure containing a fine hall of audience and other State apartments in a similar style of elegance,” and a large and beautiful tank full of protected fish, a romantic garden, besides the usual crypts for burying the royal treasure,—a square citadel (a quarter of a mile across) surrounded by high and thick ramparts, three bastions on each face and a deep ditch faced with masonry and massy gateways and towers of considerable height. There were also the mansions of nobles and rich men, and a crowded bazar (Jawāhir-ganj) necessary for supplying the needs of such a vast population.
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§ 13. Najaf Khan's siege of Dig.
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From its situation Dig could be attacked only from the plain south-west of it, as the English found out in 1804. Najaf Khan, anticipating Lord Lake's siege of exactly 29 years later, cut his first trenches in the same month and week as the British conqueror (the middle of December), opposite Gopālgarh and the Shāhburj.
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The Mughals were singularly inept in conducting sieges by sap and breaching, and "the bizarreness and ignorance displayed in the Delhi army's operations" justly moved the cultivated French captain to a sneer: when they asked for his opinion, Modave "frankly replied that if apes attacked each other they would undoubtedly construct such siege-works." Half the Mughal army faced the Shāhburj, and the other half (under the supreme General himself) the outwork Gopālgarh.
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A regular blockade of such a vast circle by his small force being impossible, Najaf Khan at first tried a *coup de main*. A body of Hindu warrior monks in the Jat service occupied the garden between the Shāhburj and Gopālgarh, from which position they used to make sallies, raid the siege-trenches or cut off grain convoys. Hence scarcity of provisions raged in the Mughal camp. One day Mirzā Najaf attacked them in person. After a long and obstinate fight, in which many imperialists (including Najaf’s favourite slave Khusrau Beg) were slain, these Nāgās were defeated. They removed themselves to within the fort, their deserted post was occupied by the Mughals, and Gopālgarh was thus isolated from the parent fort. “This victory struck such terror among the Jats that the garrison gave up coming out of the fort into the open country for bathing and other necessary purposes.”
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About the middle of January 1776 a night attack was attempted. René Madec was sent at midnight with seven companies of sepoys and three French officers to surprise a bastion flanking the Kāmā gate on the western face of the fort, north of the Shāhburj. Spies had reported to the Mughal general that this gate was negligently guarded by the defenders. A part of the assailants scaled the tower unperceived. But Gallic impetuosity and Persian lethargy robbed them of the promised success. Madec, without waiting for the rest of his detachment to ascend, fired a volley which was the pre-arranged signal for supports being pushed up to him from Najaf’s trenches. No ramp had been made in the escarpment of the bastion to enable the rest of the sepoys to mount in column formation and extend right and left on the ramparts, so as to secure a lodgement on the walls and hold them till the supports should arrive. “The defenders being thus wakened, crowded from all sides upon the men who had gained the bastion, killing and wounding most of them, while the rest leaped down from the ramparts. By the time Najaf Khan arrived below, the Sun had risen; the garrison, throwing open the Kāmā gate, rushed out in thousands and attacked the Mughals in their turn, while the fort guns created havoc among the imperialists crowded on the plain below. Men and horses began to fall fast, and the Mughals took to flight in groups in such panic that one pursuing Jat infantryman overcame ten fleeing Mughal cavaliers." [*Ibrat*, i. 281.] At this crisis, Sombre arrived "with lightning speed" at the head of one battalion and two guns and dispersing the exultant Jats by his accurate fire saved Najaf Khan who was standing alone, deserted by his own troops.
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Two other attempts at escalade also failed because the plans became known to the garrison beforehand and they concentrated heavy forces at the threatened points. As the siege dragged its weary length along without success seeming any nearer, Najaf Khan's position grew more intolerable day by day. He owed nine months' salary to his troops; the scarcity of provisions in his camp drove them to the verge of starvation; and they frequently broke out in mutiny against him or his officers, or refused to go out on the service ordered in the hope of thereby forcing him to pay them. At the same time, as difficulties thickened round him and he became more and more tied to Dig for the sake of his prestige, his enemies at the Delhi Court became more and more jubilant and active in weaving plots against him and raising a rival to his power by caressing Zābita Khan. But nothing could exceed the coolness and composure of mind of this Persian soldier-statesman; he pursued his operations without showing the least distraction or anxiety, as the French Count in his camp noted with admiration. On the other hand, there was no union, no leadership, no intelligent selfishness even, among the Jats. "There were many factions within the city, where the uncles of the Rajah disputed his authority, and on some occasions even made war on him...If the Jats had been united among themselves, I do not think that the Nawab would even have been in a condition to approach their capital, much less to lay siege to it." [Modave, 295.] The Jat Government as then conducted had not even the sense to employ a part of their vast wealth in retaining their tried mercenaries for defence.