Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c54.s9.6

v4.c54.s9.6

The Peshwā’s detachment encamped at Jalgāon, seven miles west of Bārāmati, when Māné reached Medad six miles to their east. Purandaré, leaving his camp standing, advanced with all his forces against him, on 8th October. Māné sent word to ask, “I am going on a pilgrimage to Jejuri and do not intend any hostility to you. My master has forbidden me to fight the Peshwā’s troops. Tell me what you mean.” Purandaré answered, “The Peshwā has ordered me to punish you.” So saying, he opened fire on Māné. The Holkar general told his troops that the Peshwā’s banner represented their sovereign, and they must not attack it before 50 shots had been fired from under that banner. After the 50th discharge from Purandaré’s guns had been counted, Māné opened his own fire and set his horsemen to the gallop. The military bubble from Punā immediately burst. “When Māné advanced, none of our men drew their arms, they all broke and fled away,” as a writer from Punā reported. The Chitpāvan commander-in-chief, the hereditary friend and supporter of the house of the Peshwās, was the first in the race for safety; abandoning his guns, abandoning the golden banner solemnly entrusted to his keeping, Nānā Purandaré, galloped away with his bare life. The second in command, Pāndoji Kunjar ran so blindly in his flight, that for three days after he could not be traced, to the intense grief of his worthy father Bāloji, the favourite pimp of Bāji Rao. The soldiers were worthy of such leaders. “All who had horses escaped, those on foot were seized and plundered of all their belongings”. Only one man, Māloji Ghorpadé, with his small personal contingent, made a stand round the Peshwā’s banner and fought for an hour against hopeless odds, to check the enemy’s advance, but he fell down from his horse after he had received five wounds and his charger had been speared.