Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56.s23: § 11. Laswari, first battle, British cavalry attack, 1 November
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56.s23
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§ 11. Laswari, first battle, British cavalry attack, 1 November
v4.c56.s23.1
The Sindhian army that General Lake was trying to catch had only 14 hours' start of him. Leaving Katumbar in the morning of the 31st of October, they had reached Laswari in the evening. Next morning they were breaking camp and marching northwards into Mewat when they learnt that the British cavalry was close on their heels. As usual in Maratha campaigns, their cavalry and transport carts had already set out on the march a few hours earlier, nine battalions had begun marching after them, and only four battalions of infantry were left on the site to bring up the rear. It was this tail of the Maratha army that Lake discovered through the dust and turmoil two miles ahead of him, when he stood on the bank of the rivulet at Laswari.
v4.c56.s23.2
∗ Williams, in his Historical Account of the Bengal Native Infantry (1817), p. 292, confirms this racial composition of Sindhia's disciplined infantry.
v4.c56.s23.3
At the first sight of the British host, Sarwar Khan with remarkable tactical skill and rapidity of movement made the best possible disposition of the four battalions he had then at hand. Facing round from the west to the east, he set up a defensive line in front of the village of Mālpur and extended it south-eastwards from Mālpur to Laswari,* so that his right now became his left, and the riverside route westwards from Laswari, which could have turned his own centre and base in the village of Mālpur, was denied to his enemy.
v4.c56.s23.4
To reach Laswari the rivulet has to be forded a mile east of it, at Hasaoli, on the opposite bank. Here the Marāthas had cut the dam of a large tank and flooded the road to impede the march of the British cavalry. Even after Lake had crossed over to the northern bank, the exact dispositions of the enemy were at first concealed from his eyes by the cloud of dust raised by the movements of the Maratha horde and the thick jungle-grass, twelve to fifteen feet high, along their entire front.
v4.c56.s23.5
Lake’s advance force of cavalry in three brigades (8 regiments,—three of them British Dragoons and five Bengal Native Cavalry) had to ford the Baraki *nālā* slowly in a series of thin columns. Arrived on the north bank, the commander-in-chief lost no time in pursuing his plan of keeping the enemy engaged by a light cavalry attack, so as to give them no time to make an orderly retreat, while his own infantry was still toiling far behind. The First Brigade (under Colonel T. P. Vandeleur) being first on the scene, was immediately launched against the enemy’s guns at the extreme left of their line, in front of the village of Mālpur. This task was most gallantly carried out by the 8th Light Dragoons and two sepoy regiments of cavalry charging stirrup to stirrup. In the face of a tremendous fire from Sindhia’s numerous artillery and muskets, Lake’s horsemen broke through the Maratha line, drove the gunners from their pieces, and penetrated to the village behind. But they were devastated by the Maratha fire, to which they could not reply. Their leader, Col. T. P. Vandeleur was shot down when cheering his men to charge behind him, and many other officers and men fell,—83 officers and men besides 191 horses in these three regiments alone. So, Lake called them back out of cannon-range.
v4.c56.s23.6
∗ Lake in his despatch to the Governor-General invariably uses the name Laswari wrongly for Mālpur. The Maratha front was about 3,000 yards, namely 2,000 from Laswari to the angle s.e. of Mālpur and some 1,000 yards along the eastern side of Mālpur. Two thousand infantry (four battalions) were deployed to hold this length of ground, which was therefore thinly manned.
v4.c56.s23.7
The Third Cavalry Brigade (under Col. Macan) which was next in the marching column was sent to turn the enemy’s extreme right, in front of the village of Laswari. “Macan crossed the ravine with his two regiments (one British and one Bengal cavalry) under a heavy cannonade, wheeled into line in the face of a still heavier fire, and galloped down upon the guns as if he had been at a review. Nothing could be seen through the long grass; and the Maratha gunners, holding their fire until the horses were within 20 yards, poured upon them a storm of grape and chain shot. Yet still the squadrons galloped on, passed through the batteries, although the cannon were fastened by chains from axle-tree to axle-tree, and rallied on the other side. But already the Maratha gunners, who had crept under their guns when the cavalry came upon them, were serving them again; while the infantry entrenched behind their waggons and carts, showered on the assembling squadrons a hail of bullets. Nothing daunted, Macan charged back through the line with the same irresistible gallantry and the same result; repeated the charge a third time,—after which he was recalled by Lake’s order, and withdrawn out of range. [Fortescue, History of the British Army, v. 60.] The Second Brigade forming the rear of the column on the march, arrived too late to share in this part of the struggle.
v4.c56.s23.8
Lake had failed to break the enemy and had been forced to retire. But the Marathas had no cause for triumph either. Their boasted artillery had failed to stop the British cavalry, which had pierced their line and retired at pleasure. The campoo infantry knew only how to fight on the defensive, and could not utilise the four hours’ lull in the battle before the arrival of the British infantry and guns, by making a counter-charge and hurling Lake’s cavalry back into destruction in the river. Evidently they had lost the skill and their leaders the spirit taught by De Boigne a decade earlier.