Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56.s25.11

v4.c56.s25.11

In their tactics, the campoo had become obsessed with the belief that fire-power was everything in war, and that battles were won by mere superiority in the number of guns and the supply of munitions. This lesson had been impressed on them by their European trainers again and again.* They had never been prepared for the manly test of the push of the pike or the crossing of bayonets; and therefore, when their guns failed to check the British advance, the infantrymen could make no stand before the line of glittering steel in the hands of British musketeers and even of British-led sepoys. The campoo’s guns fell undefended into the hands of the charging British lines, who cut down such gunners as stood by their pieces, while their own infantry guards made no stand before the on-rushing foe.