Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56.s22: § 10. The rival armies at Laswari
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56.s22
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§ 10. The rival armies at Laswari
v4.c56.s22.1
Sindhia's army was made up of 13 good battalions of European-trained infantry, now commanded by Sarwar Khan, some twelve hundred Deccani horse under Gulāb Rāi Kadam, and 72 guns. Their supreme commander was Ambāji Inglé.
v4.c56.s22.2
There was not a single man of the Maratha race in the Sindhian infantry and artillery that fought General Lake at Laswari. It was entirely a battle between Hindustanis on both sides. Sindhia's battalions were formed exclusively by natives of Oudh and the Doab,—a very large proportion of them being Rajputs and Brahmans, the *Pandeys* of the Sepoy Mutiny, with some Pathans of Rohilkhand and the Doab. His artillery was manned by the same races, but the Muslims formed at least half of this arm, with a fair number of black Christians and some "poor white" gun-layers. The only soldiers of the Maratha race present at Laswari were some 1,200 to 1,300 Deccani cavalry under Gulāb Rai Kadam; but they made only a theatrical show by shouting and brandishing their swords from a safe distance and fled away before the British advance without striking one blow in support of their infantry brethren. Three French officers (mere gun-layers) were captured by the 29th Light Dragoons after this battle, and Skinner speaks of some Eurasian lads as serving in the same artillery. These Marātha warriors could save themselves only because they were mounted and left the field very early, abandoning their master's battalions to be butchered by the English.
v4.c56.s22.3
Thus there were members of the same clan and district, and even of the same family on the two sides that fought at Laswari, as well as Patparganj. Military service being the hereditary profession of these Purbias (Oudh men), when some brothers or cousins enlisted in the British army, others who were rejected joined De Boigne's corps. Dismissed sepoys and deserters from the E. I. Co's army were always welcome to De Boigne's campoo commanders as "ready-made soldiers". Grant Duff knew it; he writes thus of the Sindhian infantry at Laswari, "Few, if any of these men were natives of Maharashtra; they were chiefly from Oudh, Rohilkhand and the Doab, for except Shivaji's Māwalis, and men trained in the ranks of the [Company's] Bombay sepoys, the native Marāthas have never made good infantry." [iii. 256.]*