Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c57: Appendix E. The strength of the two armies at Laswari
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c57
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Appendix E. The strength of the two armies at Laswari
v4.c57.2
J. G. Duff (iii. 253) gives to Sindhia's army *twelve* battalions of which only 7 came from the Deccan and the rest were the remnants of Perron's northern armies,—1200 to 1500 good horse, and 75 guns. Lake's Quarter-Master John Pester repeatedly notes in his Diary (18th, 24th and 27th Oct.) that he learnt from spies returned from the enemy camp that their strength was *thirteen* battalions. Skinner (i. 304) gives Sarwar Kh. *fourteen* battalions. A Marathi letter (Kharé, xiv. p. 7938) says, “Gulāb Rai Kadam and others with 2000 Deccani troopers and *fifteen* battalions confronted the Red faces”,—(both figures as usual inflated.) Lake's despatches put the enemy's strength at *seventeen* battalions.
v4.c57.3
Sarwar Kh. is mentioned by Skinner as the chief commander (i. 304). The supreme head of Sindhia's forces in this battle is named *Abaji* in the English despatches, clearly a Persian scribe's miswriting of *Ambaji* by dropping the dot (*nuqta*) for *n*. This name puzzled Grant Duff, who writes (iii. 253*n*), “I have not ascertained who this officer was. . . . It was perhaps one of Ambāji Inglé's *carcoons*.” The Marathi records clearly state that Ambāji fought the English at Laswari (Kharé, xiv. pp. 7938 and 7919). No clerk (*karkun*), whose name is utterly unknown in Marātha history could have been commander-in-chief of Sindhia's choice brigades at Laswari.
v4.c57.4
Lake's own force is put by his biographer Col. Pearse, who has consulted all regimental records, as “a total of about 8000 men on the ground” (p. 241). In this campaign, General Lake was accompanied by a force of Jat, Alwar and Barech Pathan auxiliaries, about whom the English despatches are totally silent, but whose exact work we can learn from the Marathi letters, two contemporary Persian narratives by Hindu clerks preserved in the British Museum (Or. Ms. 190 and 1699), and Powlett's *Alwar Gazetteer* (pub. in 1880). Their total strength was about 2300. These indigenous troops, no doubt, took no part in the assaults by which the British Indian troops gained the victory; but they were not altogether useless. First, they brought intelligence of the enemy movements. Then, their very presence neutralised the weaker Deccani horse on Sindhia's side (say, 2300 against 1250). And finally, these allies, by plundering and burning the baggage and camp of the Southern army in the village of Mālpur, effected the utter break down of the enemy's resistance and the cohesion of their retreating battalions, at a time when Lake's own soldiers were too weary to take one step more.
v4.c57.5
That the Jat and Alwar troops gave Ambāji's force the coup de grace is admitted in the Marāthi letters,—"Finally the General Sāhib charged in person. Then Kadam and other Deccani horsemen fled away. Thereafter the Mācheriwāla Rao Raja and Bharatpur and other zamindars (i.e., their contingents) attacked the rear of the paltan. As the camp was plundered, thousands of our paltan were slain." (Kharé, xiv. No. 6788.)
v4.c57.6
Pandit Bhagwāndās Shiupuri writes in his Persian narrative: "During the fighting when nobody was able to make an advance, a fauj of the Rao Raja fell, all unawares, on the camp of the enemy in the rear, and did not spare themselves in plundering. The enemy, who had been so long firmly standing and bravely fighting, lost heart on being this attacked from two sides, . . . and most of them were slain." (Or. Ms. 1699, p. 40.) The ms. of Dhonkal Singh Munshi (of the Bharatpur service) states, that Lake had given these ragged auxiliaries the choice between scouting in advance of his army or guarding his camp from the enemy's predatory horse, and that they chose the latter. He also testifies to the Rao Raja's men plundering the campoo broken by the British attack. (Or. Ms. 190, ff. 24-25.) The reward given to the Macheri Raja's vakil after Laswari is an index to the value set upon his aid in this campaign by the British authorities. (Alwar Gaz., iii. 184.)