Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c54.s8: § 4. Jaswant's tactics—Sindhiā's detachment push their way north of Punā, October
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c54.s8
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§ 4. Jaswant's tactics—Sindhiā's detachment push their way north of Punā, October
v4.c54.s8.1
The theatre of the campaign that followed can be roughly described as an inverted triangle with a 72-mile long base from Ahmadnagar south-westwards to Punā, and its apex at Pandhārpur, 106 miles due south of Ahmadnagar, while the third side, 116 miles in length, joined Pandhārpur to Punā in a north-westernly slant. Up to now Jaswant had campaigned north of the straight line from Ahmadnagar to Punā, and his lighter force enabled him to manoeuvre south of this line and back again to the north at will. Sindhia's slow-moving battalions and artillery had to make their way down this straight road from Ahmadnagar to Punā, obstructed by Jaswant's mobile cavalry at every pass and ferry on the way.
v4.c54.s8.2
Jaswant's tactics were to disperse for plunder and combine for battle. His forces, formed into three separate divisions, spread out like fans and combed the entire country for food and spoils. A famine was raging throughout the Deccan and Central India, caused by widespread predatory war following a year of drought. Traders of grain ceased to move on the roads, which were infested by the brutal Pindhāri bands of the rival armies. The villages where grain used to be stored had been sacked and now lay deserted. Marāthi newsletters tell one monotonous tale of the people's suffering: "The Pindhāris, sparing Punā city only, have made the country on all sides up to the Ghātmāthā in the west, a lampless desolation:" "Holkar's disturbances have devastated the Punā district; all the people have fled away; the scarcity is extreme." Only the widest dispersion and extreme rapidity in changing ground enabled Holkar's immense host to live on the country; and for such tactics, his indigenous cavalry, then known to be the best in India, was eminently suited.
v4.c54.s8.3
It would, however, be a mistake to think that Jaswant at this stage was exactly repeating the tactics of his great ancestor, Malhar Holkar I, as he had done in Mālwā in 1801. On the contrary, the myriads of light forayers spreading out before his army, formed only the probing knife of his attack. But the core of his army combined both the new and the old instruments of war; he now brought into the Deccan a large corps of trained infantry under highly competent European officers like Hardinge, Armstrong and Vickers, with their powerful artillery and Mir Khan's tough Pathān fighters, both horse and foot. This infantry moved rather slowly and was put to use only in pitched battles, when all the branches of the Holkar army were united for action.
v4.c54.s8.4
Happier in this respect than Daulat Rao, the Holkar chief was making war pay for war. Being the first to raid a virgin field like Khāndesh or Mahārāshtra, he sucked the country dry of its wealth and food, so that nothing was left for Sindhiā's troops who came after. In Khāndesh, he collected 20 lakhs of Rupees during three weeks of May, and these resources enabled him to pay his cavalry and greatly increase the strength and efficiency of his European-trained infantry. (Mohan S. 106 a.)
v4.c54.s8.5
With the strong Sindhian force at Nārāyangāon blocking the road to Punā, Jaswant Holkar decided to launch a two-pronged attack on the Peshwā's capital; he himself with Shahāmat Khan would move from Alé-Belhā and Junnar and engage this enemy column in the north, while in the south Fath Singh Māné would advance at the same time from Pandhārpur north-westwards up the Nirā valley to Bārāmati and Jejuri and threaten Punā from its south-east, (beginning of October).
v4.c54.s8.6
Before this Shahāmat Khan had been plundering and burning the Junnar region for a week, and his roving bands had penetrated as far as Ganesh-Khind, (the present northern suburb of Punā). He now attacked the Sindhian column, between Nārāyangāon and Utur. On the first day (c. 5 Oct.), the Sindhian horsemen, marching several miles ahead of their infantry support, were driven back by the superior Pathān cavalry with the loss of some guns and baggage, and took refuge in the infantry encampment. That evening Jaswant himself arrived in the field. Next day the attack was pressed home, but Sindhia's firepower was incomparably superior, and after a close fight in which Shahāmat received a wound and a horse was shot under Jaswant, the Holkar force was driven back for six miles to Ojhār (5 miles s.e. of Junnar), abandoning three of its guns and one flag. Holkar then decided to break off the engagement and fall back eastwards (6 Oct.)* As a reporter in Sindhia’s camp wrote—"Holkar cannot advance before our guns, but Sindhia’s army, too, cannot pursue him on account of his superiority in cavalry".