Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c44.s2: § 3. Why Sindhia ultimately failed
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c44.s2
- Language
- English
§ 3. Why Sindhia ultimately failed
v4.c44.s2.1
The British victories at Aligarh and Delhi in 1803 were immediately followed by the establishment of a generally acknowledged British overlordship and normal civil administration in Agra, Delhi and the Doāb. But though Mahādji Sindhia gained equally brilliant victories at Agra, Patan and Mertā in 1788-1790, the conquests of his troops could not be consolidated into a stable Maratha province in the same regions. And with the withdrawal of the master from the scene of his triumph in January 1792, even the temporary recognition of Maratha hegemony ceased, military occupation could not solidify into orderly civil administration, and anarchy again raised its head. Thus Mahādji Sindhia's work was undone even before he closed his eyes.
v4.c44.s2.2
∗ The representatives of Nānā Fadnis in Mahādji's camp reported this again and again. *HP.* 517, 535-540, 552, 554, 557, 602. *Aiti Tipné*, iv. 13, p. 19. *PRC.* i. 266, 244.
v4.c44.s2.3
The Maratha recovery in Northern India after Ghulām Qādir's downfall had no natural basis. The economic and administrative foundations of a stable paramount authority could not even be started by Mahādji Sindhia or his successor. Let not the brilliant victories of DeBoigne's trained battalions over every anti-Maratha army they met with, hide this fact from us.
v4.c44.s2.4
Stable peace and acknowledged sovereignty alone could have enabled the Marathas to organise a new administration, and create a competent and honest civil service, in the conquered provinces of Hindustan and Central India. These alone could have given permanence to the Maratha paramountcy and enabled it to increase the wealth and happiness of the people in a few years, and the growing revenue from good administration would have met the cost of defence and thus doubly ensured the imperial peace. That was the achievement of the British as regents of Delhi; the Marathas failed in this task.
v4.c44.s2.5
§ 4. Mahādji in Mathurā, clash with Himmat Bahādur Gosain and Ali Bahādur.
v4.c44.s2.6
Delhi having been won and Ghulām Qādir caught before the year 1788 ended, Mahādji Sindhia was at last free to undertake his plan of work in Hindustan. Setting Mirzā Ismail Beg and Najaf Quli Khan to fight for the same jāgir (Rewāri-Nārnaul) and thus neutralise each other for a time, Sindhia turned his leisure at Mathurā to securing his special objects. One of these tasks was to carry out the order of the Punā Government to get the holy places of Mathurā transferred to the Peshwā’s administration by an imperial rescript. But Mathurā City and its satellite village of Vrindāvan did not between them make up all the shrines in the Vaishnavs’ Holy Land. The whole district, called Braja, was dotted with countless scenes of the Divine Cowherd’s antics ; and devout pilgrims make it a point to visit all the spots in this area of about 200 square miles. The district was interlaced with the jāgirs of several former Mughal grantees, and it took Mahādji years to persuade the imperial Chancellory to transfer the whole of the district to the Peshwā’s agents. The formal grant for it actually reached Mahādji’s hands in January 1791. (H.P. 588.)
v4.c44.s2.7
But Mahādji’s more immediate concern in Mathurā was a personal quest. He had gained power and fame beyond the dreams of ambition, but Providence had denied him a son, and a stranger would, therefore, enjoy all his life’s earnings after him. In September 1784 he had cherished the hope of getting an heir, but that hope had been dashed down to the ground when his rani Gangā Bāi brought forth a daughter. (Ch. 32 § 18.) And now, back in Mathurā, Sindhia began to woo the gods for the gift of a son. For this he made large gifts to the temples and the Brāhmans, and did worship in person, composing Hindi hymns in praise of his deity.
v4.c44.s2.8
Thus the first two months of 1789 wore on. At last he received a sharp letter from Shah Alam II telling him that if he did not extract Ghulām Qādir’s eyes, the Emperor would abdicate the throne and retire to Mecca in a beggar’s garb. Mahādji, with equal humanity and policy, had been so long pampering and humouring Ghulām Qādir in order to induce him to reveal the hiding-places of his Delhi loot ; but now that plan had to be given up. So, on 3rd March the Ruhela's eyes were dug out and sent in a casket to Shah Alam, whose revenge was gratified as the blind old man fumbled the contents of the casket and felt that his wronger had been paid back in his own coin. Islam is a by-product of Judaism. The Mosaic law of an eye for an eye was thus fulfilled. (Ibrat, iii. 296; DY. i. 378.)
v4.c44.s2.9
Immediately afterwards, as all people believed, the curse of Ghulām Qādir's mother began to work on the Maratha Chief. His malady started in the form of a slight fever, which was at first neglected. Then it grew into a swelling of the face, neck and chest. No medicine had any effect. On the 8th of June he censured his Hindu and Arabic physicians for their ill-success, and threatened to call in a European doctor. But though the help of the British Residency surgeon, Mr. Cochrane, was offered to him he would not trust a foreigner with his life.
v4.c44.s2.10
His disease was really "painful eruptions", or a malignant form of the summer boils of Mathurā. For three weeks after 20th June, Sindhia was in great pain and danger. Suppuration had set in and the slough was falling away, and nothing could give him any relief.
v4.c44.s2.11
A conference of physicians was held and they decided that as the best medicines known to their science had been employed in vain, the disease was not a bodily but an unearthly attack. A syndicate of learned astrologers confirmed the doctors' finding. A search was then set on foot for the workers of the diabolical conspiracy. Where evidence is so eagerly sought, it is always found. On 14th July spies reported that a woman of Vrindāvan had been boasting to her cronies that Sindhia's illness was the triumph of her witchcraft, and that she had practised it at the instigation of Gosain Himmat Bahādur's agents. She was brought before Sindhia, when she admitted her guilt. Later she identified the two servants of Himmat Bahādur (one disciple and one eunuch) who had paid her money and supplied the necessary materials for her infernal art. On being plied with promises of high reward, she performed then and there magical rites for counteracting the mischief already done, and lo! it had immediate effect in decreasing Sindhia's pain. Thus the charge was publicly proved true.
v4.c44.s2.12
The Maratha Chief was justly indignant with Himmat Bahādur. He had overlooked the Gosain's repeated acts of disloyal intrigue and even his open rebellion during the rise of Ghulām Qādir, and given him estates for maintaining himself and his contingent. But the recent agonies of his disease made him vow vengeance on such an implacable enemy. He sent some officers to call Himmat Bahādur to his darbār. On the way the Gosain slipped away and riding into Ali Bahādur's camp, took sanctuary under the Peshwā's flag.
v4.c44.s2.13
When Mahādji sent his minister to demand the surrender of his escaped criminal, Ali Bahādur replied that he had neither invited the offender nor was detaining him, and that Sindhia might come and take him away. But the backs of the officers of the Punā contingent under Ali Bahādur were now up; they cried out that as the Gosain had sought asylum under the Peshwā's zari patkā, the honour of their master demanded that he should be protected with their own lives. For three days (21st to 24th July) Sindhia's troops invested Ali Bahādur's camp, the latter's men stood to arms, and a civil war between the two servants of the Peshwā seemed imminent. But again Rānā Khan's moderate counsels prevailed and Mahādji was induced to recall his troops and after long wrangling finally to refer the dispute to the Peshwā for decision.
v4.c44.s2.14
The immediate effect of this incident was to ruin Mahādji's prestige in Hindustan. Ali Bahādur had come to the North as the Peshwā's representative, but up to now he had appeared to the public as a mere child under the guardianship of Sindhia, because he had no money, no strong force or position of authority, and every one used to look up to Sindhia alone. But now their relative position was reversed: "by this injudicious effort of Sindhia the superiority of Ali Bahādur, which was regarded as merely nominal, has been proved to be real and substantial”, as Resident Palmer was quick to notice. Sindhia was clearly shown to be a mere servant and Ali Bahādur, by virtue of his position as their common master’s Vicar-General on the spot, his superior. [PRC. i. 251-252.]
v4.c44.s2.15
A more material injury soon followed. Like a vulture who sees a dying cow from afar, Tukoji Holkar who had been hovering close to the Mathurā border without coming to Mahādji’s side in spite of orders from Punā, now hastened to that city in order to stiffen Ali Bahādur’s defiance of Sindhia’s authority. Fully two years earlier, immediately after his reverse at Lālsot, Mahādji had sent urgent appeals to Punā for armed aid. Nānā Fadnis, after long and fruitless palavers, had ordered Tukoji Holkar and Ali Bahādur to march to Mahādji’s side as soon as possible. But the two generals delayed, and started from Punā only in the December of that year (1787). Then they idled away six months at Indore, after which, instead of proceeding to Mathurā, they diverted their course to Rajputana, where Tukoji continued for twelve months squeezing the Rajput Rajas. At last, when the pressure from Punā became too strong, he detached Ali Bahādur alone with a small force to Mathurā in October 1788, but himself lingered in Rajputana. In the first week of June 1789 he was at Brahmanābās, only 80 miles west of Mathurā, but did not stir from that place for a month and a half, till he heard of Mahādji’s open discomfiture in the attempt to cut Himmat Bahādur out of Ali Bahādur’s camp. He now hastened to Mathurā and had his first, formal interview with Sindhia on 31st July. He immediately demanded an equal sharing of the Maratha territorial gains and spoils between the two houses, as arranged by the Peshwā in the days of their fathers. Mahādji replied that his gains were more nominal than real, and his inflated army bill had swallowed up all his income from the North-Indian conquests and still left him owing 34 months’ salary to his troops. Moreover, these districts were too unsettled by war and too much desolated by drought to yield more than a tenth of their standard revenue. But Holkar would not listen, he insisted on an immediate partition on paper, and joined the other malcontent, Ali Bahādur. Mahādji had the whip hand of Ali Bahādur, as the latter enjoyed no independent source of income, but depended entirely on Mahādji’s favour for the expenses of his household and troops. He demanded a vast jāgir and a large cash payment, and on Mahādji’s making a much lower offer, he went away and joined his forces with Tukoji Holkar’s.
v4.c44.s2.16
This open breach between the two highest servants of the Peshwā’s Government in Hindustan utterly undid Sindhia’s great work in crushing Ghulām Qādir and neutralising Ismail Beg, and made the restored Maratha empire of the North totter for a fall. The following chapters will show how such a calamity was averted only by Mahādji’s cool and far-sighted diplomacy and the valour of his New Model army (in 1790). This assertion of his indisputable supremacy was effected only on the field of Lakheri, in June 1793.
v4.c44.s2.17
We may conveniently conclude the story of Himmat Bahādur here. Ali Bahādur steadily refused to surrender the Gosain to Sindhia even on the assurance that his life would be spared. From Punā Nānā Fadnis proposed early in September 1789, that the Gosain should be held in honourable detention in Jhānsi fort, his estates and contingent kept intact and administered by the State (and not by Mahādji), and the final decision of the Gosain’s fate would depend upon his future conduct. This letter threw Mahādji into a rage, and he replied to Nānā, “Your orders are issued in compliance with Ali Bahādur’s suggestions, and you pay no heed to my repeated letters. This man had practised diabolic arts on my life, and kept me in the agony of disease for two or three months. And yet you cherish him. This is indeed worthy of the brotherhood which you profess for me!” (HP. 561.) Ali Bahādur continued to keep the Gosain with himself. At last his own want of funds and Holkar’s failure to give him the promised subsidy, drove Ali Bahādur to blame the Gosain as the sole cause of his misery; he started negotiations with Mahādji in January 1790 for handing the Gosain over to him.
v4.c44.s2.18
Himmat Bahādur told Ali Bahādur, “Send me to Punā or keep me with yourself. If you try to send me elsewhere (as a prisoner in the fort of Jhānsi), which Mahādji is demanding, I shall kill myself rather than be dishonoured.” There were some three hundred armed retainers with the Gosain himself and an equal number with his concubines and children whom Mahādji detained as prisoners in his camp. These were all desperate fighters, being Naga monks of the Rājendragiri type (Ch. 11 § 17.) Hence Sindhia did not venture to press the question to a decision by force. The case therefore dragged on for months. At last near the end of January 1790, Tukoji and Ali Bahādur warned Mahādji to make a settlement with the Gosain without further delay, for (they argued) “if the Peshwa now sends a robe of honour to Himmat Bahādur, what face would be left to Sindhia?” Mahādji softened, and agreed to pardon the Gosain if he was brought to his tent. But Himmat Bahādur held out in his proud defiant attitude, he replied that he was prepared to be the servant of the Peshwā or of the Peshwā’s local agent Ali Bahādur, but would never appear before Mahādji as a suppliant. So, Mahādji had to climb down: On 6th February 1790, he paid a visit to Ali Bahādur’s tent, where the Gosain was introduced to him by Ali Bahādur. Sindhia gave Himmat Bahādur a robe of honour in sign of amity, declared that he had pardoned all his offences, presented a horse and an elephant to him, and withdrew his piquet from around the family of the Gosain detained in his camp. [Kalé Akh.]
v4.c44.s2.19
At last in Aug. 1791, Ali Bahādur was sent away by Sindhia who paid him some money and set him to carve out a principality for himself in Bundelkhand, where the old Maratha claims had been long disregarded. So, crossing the Chambal on 1st September 1791, Ali Bahādur marched into Danghāi, carrying Himmat Bahādur with himself The Gossain raised fresh troops for him and in the end Ali Bahādur established himself as the Nawāb of Bandā, and gave Himmat Bahādur a jāgir there. Ali Bahādur died on 28th August 1802; his son Shamsher Bahādur fought the English in the Anglo-Maratha War of 1803, was defeated and forced to become a British vassal, residing at Bandā on a pension of four lakhs a year. Himmat Bahādur sided with the English in this war and thus preserved and enlarged his vast jāgir (worth 20 lakhs). On his death without legitimate issue in 1804, his jāgir as held on military tenure, lapsed to Government. The line of the Nawābs of Bandā was extinguished for rebellion during the Mutiny of 1857. (Satara, i. 300, 308. Thorn's Memoir of the War, 240-245. Kaye & Malleson's Indian Mutiny, Cabinet ed., Vols. V. & VI., Atkinson's N.W.P.G., i. 31-41, 130-132.)
v4.c44.s2.20
§ 5. Ismail Beg fights Najaf Quli (1788-89) and at last breaks with Sindhia (1790).
v4.c44.s2.21
On being commissioned by Sindhia to expel Najaf Quli Khan from his newly-built jāgir, Ismail Beg started from Delhi (c. 10th Oct. 1788) and took Gurgāon city after an investment of eight days, levied a contribution from the people, and placed his own outpost there. He next seized Beri, 13 miles south of Rohtak town and taking ransom from it, proceeded to Rewāri, which submitted to him. Placing his father Munim Beg in the fort of Gokulgarh (two miles north of Rewāri town), with orders to repair its neglected walls and turn it into a base and refuge for himself, the invader advanced further west. Meantime, Najaf Quli Khan, on hearing of this invasion of his jāgir, had come out of his fort of Kanud, and now gave battle. After two days' exchange of gun-fire in which several officers were wounded, Ismail Beg dashed forward carrying his artillery before him, and Najaf Quli was routed with the loss of 10 guns, some elephants and baggage and about 200 men, (early in November).
v4.c44.s2.22
Ismail Beg, instead of pursuing his vanquished rival to his stronghold of Kanud, began to take possession of the district and set up his own collectors and outposts there. Then for several months there was desultory fighting between small parties on the two sides, but no more pitched battles. In December we find Ismail Beg occupying Kosli (midway between Rewāri and Dādri), while Najaf Quli held Dādri (20 miles north-west of Ismail’s position), but keeping his family and treasures in the stronghold of Kanud (24 miles south of Dādri). The stalemate in the war was due to both sides having increased their armed forces far beyond their means of paying them, and in consequence the starving soldiers, as soon as their plunder was exhausted, began to rise in mutiny against their bankrupt employers or desert them for a more alluring offer.
v4.c44.s2.23
Towards the end of March 1789, Ismail Beg drove back Najaf Quli’s forces and advanced to Dādri. Najaf Quli, leaving a subordinate to defend Dādri, himself took refuge in Kanud, whither his rival followed him, after appointing Shaikh Haidar with two battalions to invest Dādri. Kanud is situated in the midst of a sterile waterless country of sand hills. The natural difficulties of the terrain were increased by Najaf Quli having sealed all the wells within 8 miles of the fort.
v4.c44.s2.24
Ismail Beg contented himself with subjecting Kanud to a sort of blockade from a distance of 15 or 16 miles, so as to stop its food-supply, while he employed his captains more profitably in conquering as much of Shekhāwati and Tonwār-wati in the west and south-west and Hariānā in the north of Rewāri as they could. In this way Nārnaul, Kot Putli and Rohtak were occupied by his agents. Patan was attacked; but its chieftain (a kinsman of the Rajah of Jaipur), offered a long resistance and at last an accommodation was arranged and Ismail’s men withdrew from that town.
v4.c44.s2.25
At this point Ismail Beg’s operations were interrupted by a domestic trouble. Najaf Ali Khan (the son of the late Muhammad Beg Hamadāni) was so long a refugee in Jaipur. In concert with Najaf Quli, he now made an attempt to disturb Ismail Beg’s recent conquests, but was repulsed at Nasirpur (two miles from Nārnaul) and driven back with the loss of his artillery, munitions etc. Ismail Beg gave chase and on 30th July severely defeated him outside Kanud, capturing forty guns and all his camp and baggage, munition carts, elephants, horses, etc. Najaf Ali and his patron Najaf Quli were now shut up in the fort of Kanud, while the city below that fort passed into Ismail Beg’s possession. For this signal success, the victor received a dress of honour from the Emperor, on 6th September, 1789 (Ibrat, iii. 330-337).
v4.c44.s2.26
The so-called siege of Kanud continued languidly for three months more, and was finally abandoned on 27th November, owing to a change on the political chess-board, which will be now described.
v4.c44.s2.27
After the overthrow of Ghulām Qādir the financial difficulties of Sindhia could no longer be evaded; they at last overwhelmed him. So he was driven to raise money by every possible means and also to break his promise of giving aid to his subordinates, such as Ismail Beg. His first fiscal measure was to demand revenue from the jāgirs of his captains on behalf of the Delhi Emperor. In March 1789, it was ordered that out of the collections made in the jāgir lands, one-third must be paid to the State and only two-thirds to the assignees, and settlement officers were sent from the Central Government to every village to carry out this order. In a land devastated by war and brigandage for over a generation, this meant a sudden impoverishment of the grantees, the Hindusthani military officers, whom it was impossible to pay in cash (DY. Sup. 49).
v4.c44.s2.28
In addition to this, Ismail Beg had some personal grievances too. Towards the end of 1789, Sindhia had sent Tukoji Holkar’s contingent to hold Mewat (the west Delhi country) against Sikh raids, but Holkar’s men wrongfully seized one of Ismail Beg’s *thānahs* (Nuh-nimaksar) situated there. A protest to Mahādji brought no remedy as Holkar’s men did not recognise Sindhia’s authority. So, Ismail Beg had to send a force from his own army which quickly drove out the usurpers. This heightened his anger and distrust of Maratha good faith.*
v4.c44.s2.29
Ismail had secured from Mahādji Sindhia a promise to assist him with troops in gaining the fort of Kishangarh, which he proposed to convert into the stronghold of his new dominion for keeping his family and treasures in. Throughout 1789 he kept urging Mahādji for the supply of money and troops to effect this conquest, but Sindhia was in no position to send him either kind of aid. Indeed, it would have been clearly against his best interests to see a man of Ismail Beg’s ambition, ability and doubtful loyalty lodged in security on the border of the Jaipur State, from which advantageous position he could most easily join the hostile Rajput princes and either raid the Delhi territory or rob the loyal Rajah of Macheri. The broken promise further exasperated Ismail Beg.
v4.c44.s2.30
Ismail abandoned the siege of Kanud on 27th November 1789; his rupture with Sindhia took place early in March 1790. The intervening three months were filled with confusing intrigues and changes of policy among all the parties concerned. Mahādji could always play off Ismail Beg and Najaf Quli against each other, while Ismail in the last resort could always throw up Sindhia and close with the Jaipur and Jodhpur Rajahs in an anti-Maratha league, a thing which actually happened at the end of this period of uncertain relations. The Rajah of Mācheri, ever in fear of his former suzerain the Jaipur Rajah, clung to Mahādji, though he was never entirely free from fear of his protector being driven by bankruptcy to squeeze money out of him, or of Holkar’s men robbing him of his frontier villages. In the end, Ismail Beg’s uncertainty ended, the balance was tilted in favour of the party that could pay down money to enable Ismail Beg to keep his starving troops together under his banner; and this money came from Jaipur.
v4.c44.s2.31
∗ In the settlement which Mahādji proposed to Tukoji in November 1789, he demanded that as Mewat and the Panjab [*i.e.*, Panipat] fell to Holkar’s share, the latter should occupy those districts now. So, Kashi Rao Holkar was detached from Mathurā northwards to Mewat. His agent Gopāl Hari, the *thānahdār* of Nuh (25 m. s. of Gurgaon City), advanced to seize the adjoining mahal of Nimaksar, but was killed by Ismail’s men who then occupied Nuh. After this Ismail wrote to Mahādji censuring him for his duplicity,—“If you want to dismiss me, say so, and I shall go elsewhere for service. If you want to fight me, come on. But do not set other people against me.” [Kalé *Akh.* DY. i. 371. HP. 570 and 571.] Ismail Beg had recently married the daughter of his uncle Md. Beg Hamadāni.
v4.c44.s2.32
Ismail Beg’s Rajput alliance was formed (in February 1790) on the following terms: The Rajahs of Jodhpur and Jaipur agreed to pay him seven and five lakhs of rupees respectively, out of which two lakhs were to be advanced immediately and the balance after the war with Sindhia had actually commenced. As a security for the Mirzā’s good faith, his family would be lodged in Jaipur. A Rajput contingent of five thousand men, horse and foot, was to be supplied from Jaipur. The Mirzā’s own strength consisted of 15 battalions of trained sepoys, five battalions of Najibs, and 3500 cavalry with 300 guns.* But his captains were always on the verge of desertion owing to his inability to pay them; they only waited to be sure that their new employer would be a better paymaster.
v4.c44.s2.33
§ 6. Sindhia goes to war against Ismail Beg and the Rajput coalition, 1790.
v4.c44.s2.34
We shall now study the policy of the Jaipur State from the battle of Tungā to the final triumph of Mahādji Sindhia’s arms in Rajputana three years later. After the Maratha retreat from Lālsot, the Jaipur Rajah forbade any pursuit of the enemy. Later when Ismail Beg and other Mughalia captains urged him to attack Sindhia’s stronghold of Agra fort and drive the Deccanis beyond the Narmadā, Pratāp Singh restrained them by saying that he would maintain these Muslim mercenaries for the defence of his own realm only, but would not undertake any adventure outside his frontiers, unless commanded by the Emperor and supported by imperial troops. (Ch. 36, § 2). The Jaipur Rajah’s first task was to recover the old territories of his house on the eastern border, which had been usurped by his vassal, the chief of Macheri (Alwar), during twenty years of successful aggression. But this he could not do with his unaided resources.
v4.c44.s2.35
∗ Ibrat, iii. 347. But Hingané’s letter (DY. ii. 2) gives “12,000 paltan and 7,000 cavalry (Mughalia and others); in addition he is enlisting new men as sebandi.”
v4.c44.s2.36
The Lālsot campaign brought no final deliverance to the Rājputs. It was public knowledge that Mahādji when retreating from that place, had turned his face back to the country and sworn, “If I live I shall reduce Jaipur and Jodhpur to ashes.” On 29th December 1787, the Maratha envoy at Delhi wrote to Punā, “Patil Bābā’s determination is to sell everything he has, and punish the Rajahs of Jaipur and Jodhpur, and administer the Delhi Empire as Regent.” Therefore, the Rajput States had every reason to expect his vengeance if ever he recovered his position in Hindustan. (Akhbarat. DY. I. 234).
v4.c44.s2.37
When Ghulām Qādir fell, Bijay Singh of Mārwar wrote to the Jaipur Rajah, “Ghulām Qādir has been captured. You should now be on your guard and muster your troops for the protection of your realm. Patil Bābā is himself again; therefore be heedful.” Throughout 1789 Pratāp Singh kept intriguing with Ismail Beg, but without success. At last in March 1790 a rupture took place between Sindhia and Ismail Beg, and soon afterwards envoys from Jodhpur and Jaipur paid some money and promised more to Ismail Beg and thus built up a new anti-Maratha alliance. We shall now see how it was completely shattered by the new army which De Boigne had created for Sindhia.
v4.c44.s2.38
Meantime, Mahādji had very early realised that Ismail Beg was an incorrigible enemy who must be crushed before he could repeat the feat of Ghulām Qādir. For the coming trial of strength he made adequate preparations, concentrated his forces near Mathurā by calling in all the dispersed detachments; above all, he liberally provided Colonel De Boigne with funds for raising thirteen battalions of trained sepoys with sixty pieces of modern artillery, and this work was completed and the new troops efficiently drilled in the course of six months.*
v4.c44.s2.39
The campaign opened in May 1790. The main army under Gopāl Bhāu as commander-in-chief, supported by Jivā Dādā Bakhshi and Col. De Boigne, marched into the Rewāri district, by way of Hodal, Palwal and Pataudi. Another division, led by Ambāji Inglé, advanced through Alwar and effected a junction with Gopāl Bhāu. Holkar sent a contingent of about 4,000 horse and Ali Bahādur another thousand. Najaf Quli Khan was won over by the restoration of his jāgirs lately usurped by Ismail Beg, and he joined with a small body of about 2,000 cavalry; so also did a small contingent of the Macheri Rajah.
v4.c44.s2.40
Gopāl Bhāu advanced from Pataudi, 12 miles westwards to Rewāri, took that town from Ismail's officers and established his own rule there. Then, after blockading Imail Beg's father Munim Beg in Gokulgarh fort (two miles north of Rewāri), he set out westwards seeking the enemy. When his advanced division reached Kānti (12 miles east of Nārnaul), Ismail Beg, on 13th May, beat a hurried retreat from his last base Nārnaul, and ran to Patan, about 19 miles further south. The Maratha army promptly followed him there.
v4.c44.s2.41
∗ The exact dates and details are given in the Kalé Akhbarat. In August 1789, Sindhia commissioned De Boigne to raise a brigade (campoo), but the Savoyard did not personally undertake the work, leaving it to his agent in Sindhia's camp,—evidently because he was not sure of funds being provided. In October De Boigne came from Farrukhabad to Sindhia (at Mathura) and evidently secured adequate advances of money. The battalions raised and trained by him [at Agra] were marched to Mathura at the beginning of January 1790, when Mahādji frequently witnessed their parade and supplied the general with plenty of money and also his own guns brought from Gwalior, besides the new guns which De Boigne cast with the help of Sangster (a Scots man formerly of Rene Madec's corps). In January 1790 the brigade had 12 European and 7 Indian commandants.
v4.c44.s2.42
§ 7. Maratha army faces Rajput coalition at Patan.
v4.c44.s2.43
Sindhia's generals encamped about eight miles east of Patan city, in the spacious well-watered plain lying between Bhopatpurā and Narerā, outside the pass through which the road from Patan runs to Kot-Putli. The Rajput Mughaliā armies encamped about a mile or two to the east of the city of Patan, in a long line stretching from north to south, with the rugged and crooked range of hills behind them. There was no unity of command, nor any union of hearts between the Rajputs and their mercenary allies, nor even between the two sections of the Muslim troops, namely Ismail Beg's personal retainers and the hired battalions. The Rajputs suspected the fidelity of Ismail Beg, and with good reason in view of his past acts of selfish treachery. Within the Muslim force, too, there was all but declared civil war. Ismail Beg's boundless arrogance, cruelty and harshness of speech had set his captains against him, and his insolvency had driven them to starvation and desperation. Besides, he was known to be planning the treacherous arrest and murder of his battalion commandants, as he had already murdered one of them, Muhammad Yār Khan. Hence, Abdul Matlab Khan, the chief of the sepoy and artillery portion of his army, pitched his tents at a safe distance from Ismail's own troops, and a body of Rāthor cavalry had to be stationed between these two divisions to prevent them from fighting each other! (Ibrat. iii. 359; DY. S. 26, ii. 11.)
v4.c44.s2.44
Gopāl Bhāu's first plan was to block the enemy force among the hills of Patan and cut off its supplies by sacking the villages around and attacking grain convoys on the way. But under Mahādji's orders he tried to seek a speedier decision by fighting. On 22nd May, he sent De Boigne's disciplined infantry and artillery as his vanguard and centre inside the pass to attempt to break the enemy's line. As this force moved into the open valley, the Rajput and Mughalia big guns planted on a higher ground on the hill side, struck down many of the assailants, but could not themselves be reached by De Boigne's lighter guns. So, at midday he abandoned the attempt after losing about two hundred men, and achieving nothing.
v4.c44.s2.45
This failure of the Maratha centre was not redeemed by their left and right wings (under Gopāl Bhāu and Bāpu Holkar respectively) which were repulsed by Ismail Beg and the Nāgā musketeers of Jaipur. Towards evening both sides gave up the useless slaughter and retired. Ismail Beg too lost about 200 men killed and a proportion wounded.
v4.c44.s2.46
This probing attack having failed, Gopāl Bhāu spent the next four weeks in trying to starve the enemy out. But a stinging letter of reproof from Sindhia roused him out of his Fabian strategy and he gave battle on 20th June. The interval was used in inducing Abdul Matlab's corps, for a bribe of 1½ lakhs of rupees, to agree to desert to the Maratha side in the next battle.
v4.c44.s2.47
The rival armies were arranged in two long lines running from south to north and facing each other. Ismail Beg's own contingent formed the right wing or extreme south of the confederates, then came a small body of Rathor horse, next Abdul Matlab's battalions, and thereafter the centre where the bulk of the Rajput cavalry was massed, and finally (at the north end) the left wing under the Jaipur Nāgā monks. There were also three rows of artillery in this army,—one before Ismail Beg, another before Abdul Matlab, and the third in the trenches of the Nāgās, a total of over 125 pieces.
v4.c44.s2.48
The Maratha army was thus drawn up: De Boigne's disciplined brigade and quick-firing guns formed the spearhead of the Maratha attack, and occupied the van in front of the centre; Ambāji Inglé and Bālāji Inglé commanded the left wing (opposite Ismail Beg); Gopāl Bhāu and Jivā Dādā with the main body of the Deccan horse formed the centre (opposite the Rāthor cavalry); and Holkar’s contingent led by Kāshi Rao and Bāpu Holkar, with some minor captains, constituted the right wing, which faced the Jaipur Nāgās. On the Maratha side the only artillery was that of De Boigne’s brigade, whose superior mobility and greater accuracy and speed of fire, more than compensated for their smaller number.
v4.c44.s2.49
§ 8. *Battle of Patan, 20th June 1790.*
v4.c44.s2.50
On the 20th of June neither side was in haste to come to grips. After the two battle lines had advanced to their respective positions about 9 A.M., there was no actual fighting for six hours afterwards. “For one quarter of the day, not a shot or bullet was fired by either side; only the Muslim troopers of both the armies galloped into the field between them and retreated after every such demonstration.” The battle of Patan was not fought by means of a general attack along the entire front, which was customary in Indian warfare, but began sporadically at some points only and developed into a general engagement near the close of the day. Hence, in the actual clash of arms, Sindhia’s army, had the advantages of surprise and initiative, for which De Boigne’s eagle eye and rapid decision must be given the sole credit.
v4.c44.s2.51
When the sun began to decline from the meridian, the Rajputs and their Muslim allies retired to their respective camps, undressed, and engaged in cooking their meals and recovering from the heat. The Maratha army held its ground near the mouth of the pass, its generals Gopāl Bhāu and De Boigne sat on a hillock behind the line of their troops, keeping watch on the field and the enemy entrenchments in the distant west. The real battle was precipitated in the evening by an unforeseen skirmish. About three hours before sunset, some Pindharis* from the left wing of the Maratha army, after a detour to Ismail Beg’s rear, seized the transport animals of that general as they were coming back from pasture. A Muslim force hurried out to the rescue of the cattle, and then Bālāji Inglé with 2,000 horsemen fell on the newcomers, and a severe confused fight raged for an hour. Next Ismail Beg, in spite of his fever, which had been doubled by the sun’s heat, took horse, headed a charge and drove the Marathas out of the allied lines, by his reckless personal bravery.
v4.c44.s2.52
∗ Kalé Akhbārāt gives a different account,—De Boigne rode out for battle. Mirzā Ismail, accepting his challenge, came out of the pass of Patan with the Rajput army. [The contingents sent by] Najaf Quli and Rao Pratap S. Macheriwala, 15,000 horsemen, reached the rear of
v4.c44.s2.53
A general fire was now opened on Sindhia’s army by all the confederate artillery, but it did little execution on account of the long range. Next Gopāl Bhāu sent some squadrons to skirmish against the Rāthors in the centre. These Deccani masters of Parthian tactics, after a little demonstration, pretended to give way. The Rāthors followed in reckless pursuit at full gallop with loud cries of victory, leaving their sheltered position on the heights. As soon as they descended into the plain and came within range, the artillery of De Boigne opened a deadly fire, mowing down hundreds among the dense Rajput masses. The remnant fled back to the hills. De Boigne followed up this success by advancing at the head of his battalions and seizing the artillery of Abdul Matlab, which was completely taken by surprise and could offer no resistance.
v4.c44.s2.54
During the confusion of this life and death struggle in the centre, Ismail Beg with his Mughalia horse and sepoy battalions had moved up against the Maratha left wing (under Ambāji) and at first carried everything before him. But De Boigne, immediately after worsting the Rāthor
v4.c44.s2.55
Ismail’s camp and seeing the field bare of troops, engaged in plunder. Ismail sent against them two battalions from the brigade of Hemraj [Bakhshi], which was confronting De Boigne. On seeing this untimely movement, D.B. ascribed it to panic among the enemy, and made a sudden assault, and routed the paltans, seizing their 25 guns. . . . Jivā Bakhshi with 20,000 cavalry delivered a charge and fell in a tumultu us body on the Mirzā. The Rajputs came to the defence of Ismail and fought well, but De Boigne showered so many shot that many of them were slain. . . . At last it came to hand to hand fighting. The chief sardar of the Rathors was slain and this in the end became the cause of the Rajput defeat.
v4.c44.s2.56
horse, turned his guns upon Ismail and raked him with a flank fire, from Abdul Matlab’s captured guns, now served by De Boigne’s own artillerymen. The Persian’s artillery was silenced; his followers fell fast or fled away before a murderous fire to which he could not reply. At last he admitted the inevitable, flung away his blood-stained sword, and galloped back to his tent in hopeless defeat. His commandants, Abdul Matlab and Ala Yār Beg sought their own safety, abandoning their sepoys to their fate.
v4.c44.s2.57
Only in one sector of the battle front there had been no fighting worth speaking of. On the Maratha right Holkar’s contingent (about 4,000 strong) were attacked by the Rāthors, but were saved by reinforcements hurried up to them by Gopāl Bhāu. Then they “remained standing still” before the trenches of the Jaipur Nāgās. But De Boigne had already told off two battalions to keep the Nāgās in check, and now, freed from the struggle in his centre and left, he turned all his forces against the Nāgās and routed them by a sudden onset. It was already 9 P.M. and the last trace of resistance died out.
v4.c44.s2.58
§ 9. Maratha victory and gains at Patan.
v4.c44.s2.59
All that night and for the whole of the next day, a relentless pursuit was kept up by the Maratha horse, and the famished, thirsty, and tired Rajput fugitives were butchered unresisting. The enemy’s trained battalions did not share the flight of the Rajput horse, but took refuge in Patan city, only to put their surrender off by a day.
v4.c44.s2.60
No victory could be more complete. All the property guns and arms of the confederates left in the field or in their camps were captured. Next morning De Boigne went with some guns to the gate of Patan city and threatened bombardment; the Rajah Sampat Singh was powerless to resist. The city surrendered, and of the common soldiers nearly 2,000 cavalry and 10,000 sepoys grounded arms and were sent away with only the dress they stood in. De Boigne next laid siege to the fort of Patan, which capitulated in the course of six hours, and all the vast enemy property deposited in these two places fell into the hands of the victors.
v4.c44.s2.61
The spoils of victory amounted to 105 pieces of artillery, twenty-one elephants, 8,000 flintlocks, 1,300 camels, 300 horses, besides other kinds of property worth many lakhs. (DY. S. 29. HP. 575. Ibrat. iii. 375, gives 6,500 horses, 5,300 camels, 3,200 oxen &c., but I doubt these inflated round numbers.) The casualties on the side of the vanquished were five battalions and 3,000 Rāthor horsemen destroyed; but Ismail Beg's fine army was practically annihilated, it ceased to exist as a military unit and lost all its arms and equipment, tents, baggage and even cooking pots. On Sindhia's side, in the Household cavalry (huzurāt silehdār) 52 men were slain and 309 wounded (of these 188 by firearms), and 69 horses were killed and 104 wounded. No chief fell on either side.
v4.c44.s2.62
Patan was a decisive battle: as the result of it Jaipur was knocked out of the ring and did not attempt to challenge Sindhia's power for ten years afterwards.
v4.c44.s2.63
It cannot be denied that the decisive part in this very decisive victory was contributed by De Boigne. His French biographer rightly praises his cool and alert generalship during the swaying tides of the combat:
v4.c44.s2.64
"The coolness of the General and the excellent discipline of his troops prevented any disorder, even when Ismail Beg's horsemen broke his line and sabred his gunners at their pieces. The ranks were dressed anew, the line was formed again as soon as it was broken, and his conserved and well-directed fire repelled that vigorous attack. . . . Leaving his cannon in charge of the reserve, he put himself at the head of one of his battalions and ordering the others to follow, threw himself, sword in hand on the batteries of the enemy, and seized the first immediately; he was master of the second at 8 P.M., and the enemy were found in complete rout at 9 P.M." (Mémoire, p. 85.)
v4.c44.s2.65
The Marathas were jealous of the greater fame and favour which this foreigner enjoyed, but even their despatch-writers are constrained to admit his brilliant achievement. (H.P. 574.)
v4.c44.s2.66
§ 10. Sindhia's army invades Marwar; reaches Mertā; rival armies described.
v4.c44.s2.67
The battle of Patan had not really put an end to the Kachhwā-Rāthor combination. From that fatal field the vanquished general Mirzā Ismail Beg and most of his soldiers and captains escaped, though at the sacrifice of all their guns and property. And now from his refuge in Jodhpur territory he began to assemble a new army by calling together his scattered followers. A national levy of the Marwar kingdom was ordered by its Rajah. Money only was wanted to equip Ismail Beg and make him as great a danger to the Marathas as before Patan. The Marātha cause was further weakened by the incurable quarrel between Sindhia and Holkar, and their failure to collect enough war indemnity for meeting the daily cost of their inflated army.
v4.c44.s2.68
So, Sindhia's generals, after making some little money collection in the Shekhāwati district, by-passed Jaipur and laid siege to Ajmer fort (on 21st August). At the same time Mahādji Sindhia, by a master stroke of strategy, terrified and neutralised the Rajah of Jaipur by pushing a large detachment from his camp in Mathurā, on to Bhusāwar (15th Aug.), on the eastern frontier of the Jaipur State, in readiness to invade that country if its troops marched west to aid the Marwar army then defending Ajmer. Finally in order to strike even greater terror, he announced that he would join the campaign in person, and as an earnest of it, he left his cantonments in Mathurā (28th Aug.) and entered his "marching tents" outside that holy city, and a few days later advanced to Shāntanu-kund.
v4.c44.s2.69
The Rajah of Jodhpur set himself to collecting an army under the brilliant leadership of Mirzā Ismail Beg for raising the siege of Ajmer and expelling the Marathas from his territory. It was a question of life and death to Mahādji Sindhia to strike the first blow.
v4.c44.s2.70
No time was to be lost in breaking up the relieving Marwar army posted at Mertā before it could be doubled by the arrival of the reinforcements which were gathering at Nāgor, only 40 miles away. This strategic move was immediately put into execution by the Marathas. Leaving two thousand Deccani horse and a small body of trained musketeers to hold the siege trenches before Ajmer and prevent any succour from reaching the beleaguered fort, the main army of Sindhia under Gopāl Hari Raghunāth (popularly known as Gopāl Bhāu Chitnis) set out for Mertā on 4th September. The Marātha horse moved one march ahead, forming a screen before the more slowly moving guns and trained infantry under De Boigne, and arrived at Netāriā four miles east of Mertā, on the 7th. De Boigne had to take a more circuitous route, south of Ajmer, then west and finally north, by way of Pisāngāon and Govindgarh, to Alniāwās, on the southern bank of the Luni, and ploughed his way across the broad, sandy bed of that river on to the town of Riān, 15 miles south-east of Mertā, on the 8th. His arrangements were perfect; a large number of camels carried skins of water for his men over this dry region, and others transported his infantry to lessen their fatigue. At midnight between the 8th and the 9th, De Boigne resumed his march and next dawn arrived at the Marātha camp in Netāriā.
v4.c44.s2.71
A mile due east of Mertā city is the village of Dāngāwās, with two large tanks lying east of it. Three miles beyond Dāngāwās, in the same easterly direction lies another village, Netāriā, (11 miles north-west of Riān and the Luni river) with a similar water supply. This Netāriā, served as the base of Sindhia's army before the battle, and the fighting began with an attack upon the northernmost point (or the left extreme) of the Rajput trenches which extended from the tanks east of Dāngāwās westwards in a semi-circular line along the south side of Mertā city.
v4.c44.s2.72
Mertā has been rightly called the Gateway of Mārwār, and here every invader of the Rathor kingdom has been first opposed.
v4.c44.s2.73
A mutual cannonade began at 9 A.M. on the day of De Boigne's arrival (9th September), with no other result than the waste of munition, as was usually the case in those days. Gopāl Bhāu wished to attack immediately, but De Boigne wisely refused to employ his worn-out troops in the intense heat of the desert noon and also lose the chance of an effective pursuit by beginning the battle so late in the day. He spent that afternoon in reconnoitring the enemy's lines and planning his blow.
v4.c44.s2.74
Sindhia's army consisted of about 25,000 cavalry of his own with two auxiliary but detached bodies of 4,000 and 1,000 horse respectively supplied by Holkar and Ali Bahādur. De Boigne's division was made up of 12 infantry battalions (totalling about 6,500 rank and file), together with 50 pieces of choice artillery. The Jodhpur army was made up of about 26,000 cavalry and a body of irregular infantry not more than ten thousand strong, a few of whom were armed with matchlocks and the bulk with sword and spear only. Their artillery consisted of some 25 antique and almost useless guns. Sindhia's superiority in fire power was made tenfold of this numerical difference by the greater mobility, efficiency and rapidity of his brass guns, light 3 and 6 pounders, which were worked by highly trained Indian gun crews under one European gun-layer for each piece, and supplied with enormous quantities of powder and shot brought into the firing line by well-organized bullock transport. Thus it happened that within an hour of the commencement of the fight, the Jodhpur infantry was broken and driven out of the field, so that the rest of the battle, for two more hours, was a contest between cavalry armed with the sword on one side and disciplined infantry armed with modern flint-locks and bayonets and highly efficient artillery on the other. During this second stage the Marwari guns were silent. The Maratha cavalry made an advance only after the issue had been decided by De Boigne’s infantry and guns and the blown and battered remnant of the Rajput cavalry had fallen back to their own position.
v4.c44.s2.75
§ 11. Plan and tactics of the Jodhpur Army—Causes of their defeat.
v4.c44.s2.76
The battle of Patan, fought less than three months before this, had proved beyond doubt the futility of swords against cannon-balls. The Rathor tribal levy was entirely made up of tumultuous bands of horsemen, with a few rusty old cannon of position. Their national infantry was a despised arm and consisted of wild Nāgā monks, poorly armed and utterly ignorant of discipline, and some servants too poor to keep a horse. Therefore, before challenging Sindhia’s new model army again, the Jodhpur Government wisely decided to stiffen its national cavalry with the Mughalia matchlock-men and gunners of Mirzā Ismail Beg, who were semi-modernised and fully experienced in a life of fighting as a profession. Ismail Beg was timed to reach Nāgor, only 40 miles off, on 11th September.
v4.c44.s2.77
So, it was the interest of the Marwar army to lie on the defensive and gain the necessary three or four days respite for the junction of Ismail Beg’s army. Sindhia’s interest lay in not giving the enemy this time. And knowing the habits of the opium-eating Rajputs and the indolent unruly Nāgās, De Boigne decided that a surprise attack at peep of dawn would catch them at the greatest disadvantage.
v4.c44.s2.78
The Jodhpur army was distributed in a semi-circle round the southern side of Mertā city, from Dāngāwās westwards, each of its groups having taken post round one of the many tanks outside the city.
v4.c44.s2.79
In the actual battle of 10th September the Maratha army made an oblique approach, their front slanting 45 degrees towards the enemy line instead of moving upon it at right angles. Thus, the first impact of the day was between the Maratha right of vanguard and the enemy’s extreme left wing. The general engagement along the entire line took more than an hour to develop, on account of the initial distance between the Maratha left and the Rathor right wings opposed to each other, and the lazy habits of the Rajput cavaliers.
v4.c44.s2.80
Therefore, De Boigne's surprise attack was very quickly successful in crushing the isolated left wing of the Rajputs. This result spread confusion and some dispersion among the rest of their army. The Rathors, ordered to be solely on the defensive pending Ismail Beg's arrival, had formed no plan of action, no concert for the movement of the different limbs of their vast sprawling army; they had no supreme commander even who would be obeyed by all.