Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c49: Appendix C. Origin of the Holkar Myth
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c49
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Appendix C. Origin of the Holkar Myth
v4.c49.2
In the battle of Patan, De Boigne's brigade, after carrying the line of enemy guns in the centre by storm and putting the Rajput army in that sector to the rout, did not halt to secure the guns, but swept on to crush the enemy wings on their right and left, and after the victory had been completed returned to their camp at night. Holkar's cavalry, which had done nothing in their sector, came upon the guns after the brigade had left, and finding them unguarded, claimed them with shouts of ignorant exultation as the spoil of their own arms. Next day, when they tried to drag these guns away to their own camp, De Boigne's sepoys sent to them to say that if they did not wish to be thrashed, they must not touch the guns which the brigade had really won. Holkar's men gave up the guns in anger and humiliation. This was their first grievance, an example of Sindhia's failure to divide the gains of war in exactly equal proportion with Holkar.
v4.c49.3
Sulking over this discomfiture, Holkar's contingent (working hand in glove with Ali Bahādur's one thousand to 1200 horsemen), in the next battle, at Mertā, did not unite with Sindhia's force, but stood in angry isolation one mile in the rear of Mahādji's cavalry and therefore fully two miles behind De Boigne's battle-front. In the first stage of that battle when his right wing was separated from the rest of the brigade owing to Captain Rohan's tactical blunder in advancing too far alone, and that wing was scattered by a Rajput charge, the news quickly reached the Holkar cavalry that the campoo had been broken; they could even see the fleeing sepoys and the pursuing Rajputs straight in their distant front.
v4.c49.4
Immediately after this stroke, the whole body of the Rāthor cavalry by a tumultuous charge encircled the brigade on all sides, and then advancing against Sindhiā's horse behind the trained infantry, drove them back for miles. Thus what Bāpu Holkar saw from his position in the extreme right rear, was a cloud of enemy cavalry which completely hid De Boigne's *campoo* from his eyes, and myriads of flying Maratha horsemen. He could not possibly notice that De Boigne had already formed his infantry into a square and was shooting down the Rajput cavalry swarming round him. Hence, Bāpu Holkar naturally concluded that Sindhiā's entire army had been broken and the day already lost.
v4.c49.5
But by this time the ranks of the charging Rāthors had been woefully thinned by De Boigne's rapid grape-shot and their horses were blown by their gallop for six miles from their own lines. So, when Bāpu Holkar faced them with his fresh horsemen, the Rajputs after a little sword-play were checked and forced to retreat. To this extent it is true that the Rajput advance was first halted and turned back by the bold stand of the Holkar horse, and if the victors had been Greeks, they would have set up their trophy or pillar of victory in front of the Holkar contingent's position.
v4.c49.6
But this theory does not take into note the fact that Holkar's squadrons had no artillery, which Sindhiā's force alone possessed and which drained away the life blood of the Rāthor assailants; and secondly that the final and desperate attack of 3,000 saffron-robed Rāthors, vowed to victory or death, was annihilated by De Boigne alone, without the help of a single sabre from Holkar’s side.
v4.c49.7
From what Bāpu Holkar saw from his position in the first stage of the fighting, arose the myth that the battle of Mertā had been won entirely by the Holkar cavalry after De Boigne had lost the day. This story, as developed in their camp-fire gossip, finds its most fantastic form in the Holkar Family Chronicle written 26 years after the event, which runs thus: —
v4.c49.8
“The Rāthor horse charged, cut the chains of Sindhiā’s line of guns, attacked the gunners with their swords and fell upon the guns. The line of infantry fled away without uttering one word. Gopāl Rao and Jivā Dādā turned back for six miles. Then De Boigne in terror came to Kāshi Rao and Bāpu Holkar, who were standing erect in the field, dashed his hat (down to the ground) and entreated, “Don’t let disgrace and loss fall upon me. You are Sardārs, do what is proper.” Then Bāpu attacked with his 4000 horsemen and in hand to hand fighting killed all the four hundred Rāthors who engaged them.” (Hol. Kaifiyat, p. 56.)
v4.c49.9
After the battle of Patan, the Holkar contingent had angrily separated itself from Sindhiā’s army, at not getting an exactly equal share of the guns captured there. This complaint of injustice by their “ally” (Sohbyā in their Marathi despatches) was repeated after the battle of Mertā. And consistently with this spirit, Holkar’s general Dudrenec withdrew from Sindhiā’s army after the battle of Mālpurā (1800) as a protest at half the captured cannon not being given to him, though in this battle his corps had contributed nothing to the victory but owed their life to the Sindhian campoo’s prompt reinforcement of them.