Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c51.s1.1

v4.c51.s1.1

The old Maratha method of fighting is usually called guerilla warfare; but it was quite different from the tactics followed by the Spanish guerrilleros against Napoleon's troops in the famous Peninsular War. Indeed, the Maratha fighters are best described by their Persian title of "predatory light horse" (*ghanimi fauj*.) Their chief characteristics were that they moved in large bodies—"myriads of horse" as Munro wrote to Wellington,—and they could cover long distances very quickly, being unencumbered with artillery, baggage, munitions and even food supplies, as they and their ponies lived on the country. But unlike the Spanish guerillas they had no muskets and could effect no ambuscade by small parties, such as terrorised the French armies in Spain. When forced into a battle in the open, their plan was to ride down the enemy by a tumultuous charge, enveloping him from all sides at once. Hence it followed that against artillery and walled posts held by trained musketeers, the Deccani light cavalry was powerless. No doubt, they did incalculable economic damage and in a single week's raid could destroy, like a locust swarm, the crops and trees and industrial plant of a whole district. It took a generation to fully repair the ravage of a single raid of the Marathas and to restore production to its former condition.