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Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c58: Chapter L. The Defeat of Sindhia in the South

Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c58

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Chapter L. The Defeat of Sindhia in the South

§ 1. Generals Lake and Wellesley in contrasted positions

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In the north General Lake had destroyed Sindhia’s disciplined armies and taken all his great forts by the 1st of November. In the south Arthur Wellesley had, no doubt, struck the first blow three weeks earlier than Lake, but he was two months behind his northern rival in bringing Sindhia and Bhonslé down on their knees. This difference is explained by the difference in terrain and population between the two theatres of war, Lake in 1803 fought in a level country with a compact area accustomed to one administration; but Arthur Wellesley’s campaigns ranged over a very much wider and more dispersed region, in a broken country divided into many separate dominions. The sudden fall of Perron brought a crowd of Hindustani chiefs competing for Lake’s favour to rise against the oppression and avarice of their late rulers, the Marathas and their French agents.* Thus, Lake could always count on a plentiful supply of provisions by local traders and friendly chiefs all along his route. Wellesley had to live in a war-wasted, famine-stricken country, where his provisions had usually to be carried by himself on the march from his depots. Lake operated in a region where every Maratha was an alien; Arthur Wellesley fought in the Marātha homeland, among a population naturally hostile to the English intruders, his only helpers being a number of petty Muslim jāgirdārs.*

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∗ Popular ill feeling against the French officers in the Doab, noticed by Heber. ii. 343. MM. iii. 641, 612.

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† Subhān Khan of Partur, Salābat Kh. the jāgirdār of Ellichpur, [Gurwood, iii. 274, 264, 178 &c.] Mir Kh. Pathan was also seduced. (Ibid. 228.) In the village of Dewalghāt, below Buldānā, a Muslim landholder showed me letters signed by Arthur Wellesley thanking his ancestor for help rendered in this campaign.

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Lake could get prompt and correct intelligence of his enemy's doings from his local allies, such as the Bharatpur and Alwar Rajas, while Arthur Wellesley had the greatest difficulty in scouting for news in a Marātha country. As he wrote, "The enemy horse were so numerous that without an army (for escort) their position could not be reconnoitred by an European officer ; and even the (experienced) harkārās in our own service cannot be employed here, as being natives of the Karnātak they are as well-known as Europeans." [S.D. iv. 210.]

§ 2. Arthur Wellesley's forces and plan of war

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The force appointed to oppose Sindhia in the Deccan consisted of two divisions ; the first, directly under the supreme commander, Major General Arthur Wellesley, was 11,153 strong, out of whom 2,164 were British and 8,989 were sepoys, the Indian element being a little over four to one. The other division was made up of the Haidarabad Subsidiary Force, under Colonel James Stevenson, subordinate to Wellesley, and contained 9,459 men out of whom the Europeans were only one-tenth (or 890 against 8,569 sepoys.) This latter force had no European cavalry with it, and its strength in regular horse was only 1,022, against Wellesley's 2,172 sabres.* A body of the Nizām's irregular cavalry and rabble infantry under Sakho Rudra followed Wellesley, but more as a distraction than a help, because of their frequent desertion during the campaign. The General complained, "The Nizām's horse are very useless," and again, "The Nizām's troops behave so ill," &c. He was troubled also by treachery (fitur) among their officers. [Gurwood, ed. of 1837, ii. 302, 303. Kharé, xiv. 6693. Sup. D. iv. 173.]

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Arthur Wellesley had thought out a clear plan for fighting the Marathas, in anticipation of the war. He had solved the problem of ensuring the regular supply of food and munitions on which the speed and effectiveness of his troops depended, by trial and error during his long chase of Dhundiā Wāgh in 1800. The essence of his strategy was never to let the Maratha raiders remain undisturbed at any place long enough to plunder it and feed themselves.* This implied that his own troops should be always ready to set out at a moment's notice and drive the enemy about without being compelled to halt anywhere by the lack of provisions. His primary object was to keep his marching troops self-sufficient in respect of their food and stores, while the enemy's predatory horse was weakened by the necessity of living on the country and thus antagonising the local people.

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∗ The above figures are taken from Fortescue's Hist. of Br. Army, v. 15. To arrive at his total this author adds one-eight to the bayonet and sabre strength for "officers, sergeants &c."

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To secure this self-sufficiency, General Wellesley required a fortified depot for his food, munitions, and replacements of transport,—and even cattle fodder,—not far from his marching army, so as to avoid dependence on the base at Haidarabad, 500 miles away, or the one at Bombay, the path from which was most difficult and insecure. The providing of escorts for such long lines of transport would have greatly reduced his fighting strength and the speed of his movements. He solved this problem by capturing Ahmadnagar. With such an impregnable base close behind and his famous Mysore bullocks well fed, he could march 23 miles a day in excellent fighting condition, and thus counter the noted mobility of the Maratha horse. His practically-designed basket-boats (coracles) and pontoons of copper-sheet barrels carried on bullock-carts, enabled him to ferry his army over the rivers and overtake the enemy at will.

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On 8th August, General Wellesley started from his camp at Wālki, eight miles south of Ahmadnagar. Next day after a three hours' assault he captured the walled city lying outside the fort of Ahmadnagar. Three days later he completed his task when he gained possession of that famous fortress itself by opening a severe bombardment and at the same time seducing the garrison by granting them very liberal terms for surrender. In this safe and central base, he planted his main depot and hospital. Then he faced his problem of guarding both the Punā district on his west and the Nizām’s territory on his east and north from the enemy’s raids.*

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∗ Gurwood, ii. 203, 239, 251. Fortescue, Hist. of Br. Army, v. 8, 19. Sup. Desp. iv. 97-98, 73, 109.

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§ 3. Daulat Rao Sindhia's plans and first movements, August 1803

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Daulat Rao had declared war against the English on 1st August, and yet for more than three weeks he made no use of his undoubtedly superior strength. In fact, his counsellors only talked and waited. Their plan was to persuade Jaswant Rao Holkar to join them, after which the three sardārs would march together to Punā with the consent of the Peshwā, and induce him to discharge his English protectors and call a conference of all his feudatories which would restore the Marātha empire to its normal condition as before the death of Tukoji Holkar. This nice scheme depended for its success on two conditions: first, that Jaswant Rao Holkar would heartily join Daulat Rao without being guaranteed the old absolute parity of their two houses, and secondly, that the Peshwā would prefer Jaswant or Daulat Rao to the English as his protectors. The utter hollowness of these hopes was proved by the panic which seized Punā at the mere report that their three highest sardārs intended to visit their master’s capital as loyal servants: the citizens began to arrange for flight to the villages, the English erected sand-bag batteries for defending the approaches to Punā, and the Peshwā contemplated a return “to his former place of asylum”, i.e., Bassein! [Kharé, xiv. 6692.]

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∗ Fortescue, v. 12, 16-18. Sup. Des. iv. 100 (Ahm. had, in June, 1000 sepoys, 1000 Arabs, and 3 French mestizo officers,—outside the fort). "In Ahm. fort there was an Englishman in Sindhia's paltan; he turned traitor and delivered the fort to Wellesley. The qiladar Mallhār Kulkarni of Chambhargonda, made terms to save his own property." "The two battalions in the garrison turned disloyal. The English seduced the artillerymen, hence there was treachery." Kharé, xiv, 6683, 6685. Curious story of the capture of the peth by firing smoke-filled shells. Ibid. 6682.

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Daulat Rao and Raghuji Bhonslé waited and waited for the coming of Jaswant Rao Holkar, which was promised on 30th August; but he never came, and merely sent a force of his predatory horse to join Sindhia, while he himself retired to the north of the Tapti after getting possession of his nephew, the child Khandé Rao II. Thus, the time for striking the first blow was lost.

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Sindhiā was roused out of his stupor by the news that General Wellesley had seized his great arsenal and treasure-house at Ahmadnagar and also hanged the revenue-collector of his ancestral village Jāmgāon. So, he sent a force of 10,000 horse under Gopāl Bhāu, with a large Pindhāri horde to cross the Nizām’s frontier and plunder his district of Aurangabad (c. 18 Aug.). The approach of this force to the Godāvari was a direct threat to Punā. [Kharé, xiv. 6665.]

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Sindhia did not fully show his hand till near the end of this month, when he reached Jālnā with his cavalry only, after leaving his trained battalions beyond the Ajantā pass to follow later. An envoy from Sindhia and Bhonslé reached Punā on 31st August, and delivered to the Peshwā their request that he should dismiss his English protectors, summon all his feudatory nobles to his capital and let this Council of Notables decide how to restore the independent government of the Marātha empire as it was in the good old days. The coming of the envoy threw the Peshwā’s court and the Punā public into consternation. It was only natural to expect that the coming of all the three sardārs with their armies would repeat in a threefold form the horrors of Jaswant Holkar’s invasion of last year, the memory of which was not yet ten months old.

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Wellesley was waiting to receive into Ahmadnagar two very large convoys of money, grain, stores and munitions, which were coming to him from Haidarabad and Mysore for filling his magazines adequately for a long campaign. He had therefore to keep one eye on his left to guard the road to Punā, and another eye on his right to watch the road from Haidarabad to the Godāvari, lest the enemy's myriads of light horse should slip across that river and cut off these convoys. This double-headed threat was countered by Wellesley taking post at Tokā and throwing a pontoon-bridge over the Godāvari there, so as to be able to march to the defence of either of the two regions as soon as it was threatened by the enemy. He advanced from his new base at Ahmadnagar to the Godāvari at Kāyegāon-Tokā, 32 miles upstream of Paithān, on 21st August. Stevenson had been already detached to guard the Nizām's district of Aurangabad, east of the Godāvari.

§ 4. The war in the Godāvari valley, September 1-10

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On 1st September, Sindhiā and Bhonslé themselves came from Jālnā southwards to Paithān on the Godāvari, with their cavalry only. This revived the threat to Punā. But Arthur Wellesley had crossed that river on the 24th and reached Aurangabad on the 29th of the preceding month. Thus the two divisions of the British army were now operating in the same district, but apart. For the British operations during the first ten days of September, it will be enough to say that their alert and quick marches kept the enemy ever on the run, without the Maratha light horse being able to do any harm to the Nizām's districts. The two Rajas' cavalry were so much distressed by scarcity and shaken by fear of British surprises that "they swore that they would not serve unless supported by the infantry and the guns." [Gurwood, ii. 287.]

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Stevenson's campaign need not be described in detail. Though General Wellesley censured him, and the historian Sir John Fortescue concurs in the censure, Colonel Stevenson had done work not without value inspite of his weaker force and poorer grain supply compared with his superior's. Up to 24th August he had kept the enemy out of the Nizām's territory, and when they did come after that date, he had kept them on the run, in accordance with Wellesley’s strategy. On 2nd September he stormed Sindhia’s fort of Jālnā after a severe fight. Thereafter he made rapid marches and beat up the camps of Sindhia’s Pindhārī horse by night-attacks on the 6th, 7th, and 9th, though an earlier attempt at surprise at the end of August had failed because his guides missed the way and he arrived at his objective after sunrise, when Gopāl Bhāu was on the alert and gave him a bloody repulse. [Kharé, xiv. 6678, 6692, 6693. Gurwood, ii. 286-288.]

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But the scarcity of grain caused indescribable suffering in Stevenson’s corps.* The iron control of Arthur Wellesley reserved his provision supply for fully rationing his fighting forces and transport service, but the camp-followers were left to fend for themselves. The auxiliary force too was told to live as best they could in that famine-stricken district.

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Arthur Wellesley’s policy of keeping the enemy on the run, instead of rushing headlong into a regular battle, made his constant marching and countermarching seem erratic and hesitating to the Marāthas. In the pride of ignorance, they reported, “General Wellesley’s spirit has been damped on seeing the vastness of the Maratha forces, and he is deliberating what to do.” It would have taken something more than mere numbers to freeze the heart of “the great world-conqueror’s conqueror” of the days to come, and Daulat Rao knew it. Hence a later report from Punā tells us, “The two sardārs (Daulat Rao and Raghuji) were near Paithān (on 1st September), when news came that the Sea-dwellers would make a surprise attack on them; so both Chiefs went away towards Bir (3rd September.)”† They were at Partur on the 3rd and 4th. Stevenson's night attacks on their Pindhāris frightened them still more. But soon afterwards their regular infantry and guns began to come up the Ajantā pass and join them, and after some more puzzled and futile movements the two Rajas set their faces back to the Ajanta pass, and even thought of returning to Burhānpur. We find them near Badnāpur, north-west of Jālnā, on the 12th.

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∗ Stevenson was an old officer of the E. I. Co. whose health had broken down during long years of service in India. Sindhia recovered Jālnā from the English about 10th September after Stevenson had marched away from that battered fort, leaving a weak garrison in it. Kharé, xiv. 6702, 6711, 6717. “I think it capital that you should have played their own game upon the Marathas and should have been the first to cut off supplies going to their camp.” A. W. to Stevenson, on 26 Aug. (Gur. ii. 243).

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† Kharé, xiv. 6695 and 6708. Partur is on the Dudnā (a feeder of the Godā), 30 m. s.e. of Jalna.

§ 5. The lull in the war, 11-21 September

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Thus after the daily movements and rapid changes of direction during the last fortnight, came ten quiet days (11-20 September), as the rival hosts receded northwards from the bank of the Godāvari.* During this period all the thirteen battalions and artillery of the two Confederates joined them and the entire Marātha army was assembled in a long line of camps from Bhokardan to Jafarabad. On the English side, too, the last of the anxiously waited for convoys from Mysore, under Major Hill, reached Wellesley on the 18th. The British commander-in-chief, having no longer to watch the Haidarabad road, now felt himself free to strike the decisive blow.

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On the 19th, Wellesley wrote to Stevenson to move eastwards, while he himself would march northwards, so that the two divisions might meet together on the 21st and form a joint plan of action. They approached each other between Jālnā and Badnāpur, on the 21st, when Wellesley rode out to Stevenson's corps and it was settled that the latter should march northwards skirting the western side of the hills separating Badnāpur-Jālnā from Ajantā, while Wellesley would advance along the eastern edge of these hills towards the Badāoli and Lakanwārā passes, and that on the 24th after reaching the open ground at the end, the two generals should turn towards each other and crush the enemy between them. Sindhia was reported to be posted in Bhokardan town and west of it.

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∗ General Wellesley rightly boasted, in a letter of 10th Sept., "I have given the enemy a turn. By a few rapid marches to the southward I have shown them that they could not go alone to Haidarabad, and I have consequently forced them to return to the northward." And again, six days later, "The enemy are quiet to the northward. We are all in tranquillity in this quarter. But I propose to disturb the general tranquillity in a day or two, as soon as I shall be joined by Hill." (Gurwood, ii. 287, 309.)

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Leaving Jālnā on the 21st, Wellesley’s army slowly defiled through the narrow passes and broken country and reached Pangri, 10 air-miles northwards on the 22nd. Next morning the march was resumed, and Nālni, 12 miles onwards, was reached at 11 o’clock. Here he learnt that the enemy were not fourteen miles away to the west of Bhokardan and therefore close to Stevenson, as reported by spies before, but only six miles from Nālni, at Assaye, a good deal east of Bhokardan.

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In addition to gaining this correct knowledge of the enemy’s position, Arthur Wellesley here received news as cheering as that which had greeted Lake on the eve of the battle of Delhi. Collins had bribed a clerk of Daulat Rao Sindhia when living in his camp as Resident, and this traitor had contacted Wellesley at that General’s request. The British Commander heard at Nālni that the Confederated armies were bent on retreat to Ajanta and that there was daily mutiny among their unpaid starving soldiery who were threatening Sindhia’s diwān with violence (dharnā.)*

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§ 6. General Wellesley advances to Assaye, 23rd September

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Hearing that the Maratha cavalry had already moved off the ground and their infantry was about to follow, the British General at once changed his original plan in order to take full advantage of the new situation. He knew that Sindhia’s cavalry force was weak in number and poor in quality, but his strength lay in his trained infantry and guns.† [Gurwood, ii. 285.]

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∗ A. W. to Resident Collins, “You mentioned that you had had a secret communication with one of Sindhia’s munshis. It would be very desirable to renew this communication during the war.” Sup. Des. iv.

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¹⁷⁵ Dharnā in Kharé, 6734. Threat to diwān, Gulgulé D., 15 Oct.

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† The Marāthi despatches speak of the battle of Assaye as a chhāpā or surprise, and admit that when the English attack opened, Sindhia was off his guard (be-fām) and his troops quite unprepared and

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Therefore, if these regular battalions could be crushed, the defeat of Bhonslé would be an easy task, as the victorious English would then be free to invade Bhonslé’s Berar territory and force the Raja to hasten back for its defence. The problem for Wellesley was how to overtake Sindhia’s disciplined infantry before it could run away with its powerful artillery. If he had put the battle off to the 24th as originally planned for the joint attack, then the enemy were sure to have given him the slip in the day’s respite thus gained, or at least concentrated all their forces for presenting a united front. The success of Wellesley’s plan depended entirely on its being a surprise for the Marathas. As he writes, “In all military operations, but particularly in India, *time is everything*.” [MM. v. Mar. War, 328.]

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There was besides, a secret reason for General Wellesley’s confidence in at once hastening with his own small force to give battle to the myriads of the full Maratha army. The far-sighted diplomacy of the Governor General had contrived that Begam Samru’s five battalions, now with Sindhia in the Deccan, would come over to the English as soon as they could separate themselves from him with safety. The shock and confusion of a British attack on one part of the Maratha camp would give the Sardhana contingent this opportunity and cripple Sindhia’s strength for the future, even if the Maratha army was not fully defeated. Pohlmann, who led one full brigade at Assaye, had also made up his mind to desert Sindhia and share the Governor-General’s very liberal promise of bounty.[*] Thus it

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without any plan. Kharé, xiv. 6749, 6734. Gulgulé D., letter of 15 Oct.

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∗ On 18th July Marquess Wellesley sent orders to Col. Scott in the Deccan, to see that “means might be contrived to enable four of Begam Samru’s battalions then with Sindhia in the Deccan, to join General Wellesley.” (MM. iii. 192.) “Colonel Pohlmann received intelligence from General Perron on the 12th Sept. that the English officers [of Sindhia] had gone to the British settlements.” (Arthur W. Sup. D. iv. 207.) The Marāthi despatches report,—“Samru’s [four] battalions could not get ready [to join in the battle]. Our Brigade (i.e., Mahādji’s First Campoo), four battalions of Michel Felose, and one battalion of Samru were on advanced guard duty, and these alone met the English. . . . The five battalions slew many men on the British side. Three battalions of M. Felose abandoned their guns, and one bat. was totally destroyed or wounded.” *Gul. D. and Kharé, xiv. 6720. A. W. in Gur. ii. 434 and 456.*

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happened that Wellington “with his fiery few did *not* clash against the myriads at Assaye,” but only against a small section of the bloated Maratha army; in the actual clash of arms only five battalions of Sindhia stood up against the English.

§ 7. The Maratha armies at Assaye

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Leaving his infantry and baggage behind General Wellesley rode out from Nālni with his cavalry only to reconnoitre. Reaching the crest of a hillock about four miles ahead at noon, he beheld the armies of the two Rajas spread out before him beyond the Khelna river, flowing a mile north of him. They filled the entire parallelogram, eight miles in length west to east, between Bhokardan and Assaye, and two miles north to south between the Juah *nālā* and the Khelna river. Sindhia with his cavalry lay at their extreme right, close to the town of Bhokardan; Bhonslé with his horse and foot in the centre; and last of all, the telescope revealed Sindhia’s regular infantry and their artillery at the extreme left of their line, which ended before the village of Assaye on the south side of the Juah. A mile and a half downstream from this village the two rivulets met together in a triangle.

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At the first view the camping ground of the Marathas seemed to be covered by a moving mass of men and horses in disorder. That morning the soldiers had staged a *dharnā* or coercive demonstration against their employers for their due pay and rations, and Daulat Rao had ridden from his tent over to Raghuji Bhonslé’s camp some four miles east of himself, for consultation, that is to talk and talk helplessly. No battle was expected, nor had they any news of the close approach of the English army. Here, in their camp, everyone was unready and off his guard; the gun bullocks had been sent out in the morning to graze; the soldiers were dispersed, each caste cooking its own food in a separate place. Only a small force of advanced guards (or picquets as they would be called in the English army) was on duty at Assaye, with the campoo guns. Thus it happened, that when the battle opened, the supreme head of Sindhia’s army was six miles in the rear of the point of attack, with a moving mass of men and materials between them. [Kharé, xiv. 6734, 6749. Gulgulé D. 15 Oct.]

§ 8. Assaye,—Wellesley’s plan of battle, why it was upset

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Wellesley’s rule of war was never to attack the Marāthas when holding a well-chosen and strongly defended position, but to force them on to move and strike them when thrown into disorder by marching. There was a ford over the Khelnā at Lingwāri a mile west of Wellesley’s first point of observation, and hordes of Maratha irregular cavalry were seen to stand on both sides of it, but they took no part in the battle. Nearly three miles further down the river there was an unguarded ford at Pipalgāon-Warud. The British General planned to keep to the south bank of the Khelnā for two miles, then cross the river at this second ford and roll up the enemy’s left wing south of Assaye.

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The British army advanced eastwards, their own cavalry riding on their left to screen their infantry in the centre from the enemy’s observation on the opposite bank. They crossed the Khelnā at the ford chosen and marched into the delta to form their battle order, in a north to south line from Assaye to the Khelnā bank. The fork of the two rivulets which united a mile below the ford, served as a natural cover for both the flanks and rear of the British battle line against any attack by the myriads of Maratha light horse.

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The Marathas, at the first sight of Wellesley’s force at noon, broke up camp and drew their infantry in a long line facing the Khelnā, and parallel to the two rivers. But as soon as they saw him crossing the Pipalgāon ford, they rapidly wheeled a quarter circle to their left and drew up with their first line north to south at right angles to the two rivers, barring Wellesley's path of attack on their left flank. Their second line was formed west to east along the south bank of the Juah nālā, meeting their first line at the village of Assaye, both lines pivoting upon that village. Assaye was also the hinge of the British line. The field over which the battle was fought was a quarter-circle or half-opened fan. Wellesley's plan was to work with his own left along the circumference of this quarter-circle, from the south to the west, strike the enemy's right on the Juah nālā, and roll their entire line eastwards back upon Assaye, whose trenches and powerful guns would then be abandoned by an enemy defeated all along their front. Therefore, his left wing would have to cover four times as much ground as his right and also to keep out of the range of the enemy's heavy guns in Assaye during the first stage of this tactical operation.

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But in the actual execution the General's plan was mangled, a needless slaughter of the British right wing followed, and a disaster to the British army which would have led to the suicide* of Wellington was averted only by the heroism and endurance of the British Dragoons and the shameful cowardice of the Marātha cavalry. When brought face to face with the enemy's lines, Wellesley had to change his battle plan immediately. As the enemy's infantry and line of guns greatly outflanked his first line on both hands, he ordered it to be lengthened by bringing the second line within the first, and forming one long line with the two Highland Regiments (the 78th Ross-shire Buffs and the 74th Campbells) at the two extremes and the five Madras Sepoy battalions in the centre. At the same time, his cavalry instead of being kept back as a reserve or third line, was pushed on to the rear of his extreme right, in order to guard that flank up to the Juah nālā. His first misfortune was that the fighting started before this second formation could be completed. Next, all his guns had to be left behind by reason of their bullocks and drivers being killed by the superior Maratha artillery, so that the British fought all the later stages of this battle without any artillery assistance of their own. And worst of all the General’s plan was wrecked by the folly of Colonel Orrock, who commanded the picquets in the extreme right and whose troops were to act as the battalion of direction in the advance upon the enemy’s line.

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∗ Arthur Wellesley said to Elphinstone after the battle, "So-and-so would have happened if we had been beat, and then I should just have made a gallows of my ridge-pole and hanged myself." Elph., i. 80.

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§ 9. Battle of Assaye—first stage, disaster to the British right wing.

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Orrock had been ordered not to approach Assaye at his extreme right, but carefully keep outside the range of the big guns at that fortified village. But “from habits of dissipation and idleness he had become incapable of giving attention to an order to find out its meaning”, as Wellesley complained to Elphinstone. He marched his corps nearer and nearer to Assaye and on being assailed by its guns, continued to press on in the same direction without trying to incline to the planned route of advance. Thus a wide gap was formed between him and the sepoy battalions on his left. His wrong movement also masked the fire of the 74th Highlanders who were moving up from the second line in order to take post on the right of Orrock, as ordered by Wellesley to complete his new line.

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A storm of fire burst upon these two isolated corps from Assaye and the Maratha line outside it; all their own guns had now been thrown out of action by the enemy’s artillery. Orrock’s advance stopped, still Wellesley sent him an urgent order to move on without any gun. The advancing British line was mown down by the fire of a hundred guns, well posted and rapidly served. The havoc was severest in the right wing, where the picquets lost one third of their number. Assailed in front and flank, unable to match gun to gun, Orrock’s men at last broke and ran back in confusion upon the 74th marching behind them. Just then these Highlanders had lost their order in crossing some cactus hedges. Seizing this opportunity, the Household cavalry (*huzurāt*) of Sindhia charged, cutting down the soldiers.* The cavalry horde swept through the British right and charged back through them to its own place. Thereafter one of their leaders (Jādo Rao Bhāskar) "lounged his horse about near the 74th and every now and then dashed forward and killed a European." [Elph. i. 76.]

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The 74th were reduced to a quarter of their strength (having lost 401 men out of 565), but with Highland tenacity the remnant of the regiment still stood round their colours in the bloody field. On their left hand the British centre was broken, while their supreme commander leading the left wing of the line was hidden from view. But they were not destined to be lost. Suddenly on their right rear the bugle sounded the charge, a loud hurrah was heard, and the Greek helmets of the 19th Dragoons with their leopard skin front covers and dancing red tassels on the crest burst through the smoke and dust. The blue coats, mounted on superb horses, and followed by the 4th Madras cavalry, charged the Maratha troopers and drove them back to the Juah *nālā* and beyond it.

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The iron tempest that had overwhelmed the British right had also broken their centre, consisting of two battalions of native infantry. These Telingas, unable to advance or stand against such a fire, without the power of reply, swerved away from the enemy, and crowded in upon the 78th Highlanders on the extreme left. "In many cases the sepoys sheltered themselves from the deadly shower in hollows in the ground, and even in some few instances, not all the endeavours of their officers could persuade them to move forward." "Several sepoys who were either wounded or pretended to be so, crouched down with their backs to the enemy, in such a manner that their knapsacks completely sheltered them from everything but round shot." Nor did the terror altogether spare the whites; Elphinstone reports that "two of the European officers were vehemently accused of skulking in a *nālā*."* But the main body of the sepoys in the centre were at last rallied by their officers and led on to join Wellesley's new line parallel to the Juah, completed by the addition of the other two sepoy battalions from the original second line.

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∗ According to the *Amirnāmah* of Basawan Lal (my ms. 227) Sindhia himself took part in this charge, "he pierced the English line and beating them reached their rear, whence he charged back and regained his own troops." The leader of this attack, I believe, was Jādo Rao Bhāskar, his dīwān, leading the *Huzurāt* or Household Cavalry of the Raja. His feat was noticed, and it was also noted that this Maratha hero was shot by the 19th in the Juah *nālā*. Now, we know that Jādo Rao was the only leader shot in the *nālā*. No common Maratha trooper's death in the *nālā* would have been noticed by the English. Anand Rao Nimbālkar was another captain of Sindhia who fell among the cavalry. Gulgulé, 15 Oct., Kharé, xiv. 6749.

§ 10. Assaye—second stage of battle, the advance to the Juah

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It was Wellesley himself, leading the British left, who turned the tide of the battle. At a quarter to three P.M. the word was given to advance and the 78th Buffs and two sepoy battalions marched in quick time upon the enemy, without firing a shot. On coming within 150 yards of the enemy's line, they stopped for a moment to prepare for charging. The campoo opposite them fired a volley, "and about the same time some European officers in the enemy's service were observed to mount their horses and ride off. The 78th instantly redoubled its pace, and the enemy's infantry, deserted by its officers, broke and ran. The 78th overtook and bayoneted a few individuals. The gunners, however, held firm to their guns, many being killed in the act of loading...... and none quitted their posts until the bayonets were at their breasts."†

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∗ Telingas crouch, Fortescue, v. 28. Elphin. i. 67. Blackiston, i. 164 and 174. White officers skulk, Elphin. i. 76.

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† Macveigh, Hist. Records of 78th Highlanders (1887), p. 53. "Pohlmann, whose conduct throughout the day bears strong marks of treachery to his master, seized the opportunity to retreat." Fortescue, v. 31. "Their infantry fought well, and stood by their guns to the last.... Their cavalry did us but little mischief." (A. W. in Gurwood, ii. 327.)

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The new British line that faced the Maratha position parallel to the Juah was a very thin one, and the battle had yet to be won. The English army had covered the quarter-circle from the south to the west by forcing its way onwards, but had had no time to conquer the enemy posts within this area. The whole field between their first and second positions was dotted with enemy pockets from which Wellesley's new line was being fired upon in the rear. Many of the Maratha gunners had concealed themselves under their gun-carriages, and several of the campoo infantrymen had fallen down feigning death, in order to escape the advancing British bayonets. The concentration of Sindhia's reserve and guns at the corner of Assaye still stood intact. And beyond Wellesley's extreme left, the full force of Sindhia's best infantry under Pohlmann (four thousand strong) had halted in a menacing posture, with their arms and munitions not yet spent.

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But while the British line, without a single gun of its own, stood anxiously exposed to fire from front rear and right, deliverance again came from its cavalry. The 19th Light Dragoons, only 360 strong, followed by the 4th Madras Cavalry, seeing that the enemy horse pushed back by their charge had crossed the Juah and were making off, themselves crossed that nālā by a ford a little east of Assaye and cut up these fugitives. With the arrival of the British line opposite to them, the enemy's infantry, from their position south of the Juah, began to retreat across the stream in increasing numbers. The intense anxiety of Wellesley's hard pressed infantry found relief in loud huzzahs as they saw their own cavalry under Maxwell dress their ranks on the opposite bank and sweep the enemy crowds on that side from end to end, cutting down the fugitives and destroying their formation. Then they recrossed the Juah and drew up on the left of Wellesley's line.

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The sight took the heart out of the campoo infantry. The 19th Light Dragoons during their 24 years' service in south India had created for themselves a name of terror by their toughness and vigour. They had cut off 500 men of Tipu Sultan’s choice Body Guard by driving them into a bound hedge and there killing every one of them with the sword and lance. No Indian horse or foot could face them. The right wing of the Maratha second line was dissolved. [Biddulph, 73.]

§ 11. Assaye—end of the battle

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Wellesley’s battalions at last marched in force upon the Maratha reserve in front of Assaye, but the campoo did not wait for the attack ; the men crossed the Juah behind them and retreated in good order.

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All this time there were many dispersed knots of the enemy’s artillery-men and infantry in the field behind Wellesley. That General therefore turned a full circle from the Juah and marched southwards mopping up these enemy pockets by hard fighting and taking possession of their guns. And then the battle ended about sunset, after three hours of strenuous fighting. The last action of the day was an abortive charge of the 19th upon Pohlmann’s unbroken column, which was not pressed home, as Maxwell fell down shot dead just before the moment of impact and his men retired in confusion. Pohlmann marched away from the field with his force intact. Raghuji Bhonslé had fled away very early without striking one blow. Daulat Rao Sindhia too had taken to flight, but after delivering one attack on the 74th. His diwān Jādo Bhāskar had fallen fighting in the Juah nālā, and sixteen hundred dead warriors strewed the plain or choked the ravine as silent witnesses of the future Duke of Wellington’s first victory.*

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But there was no pursuit. Throughout the day, the British cavalry had been employed to do the work of infantry and again and again to attack unbroken formations without any fire support. Men and horses had been worked off their feet, after a twenty mile ride to the field without rest or food, before going into action.

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∗ 198 Europeans and 230 Telingas killed on the English side; 1200 sepoys, mostly Purbias, with one or two hundred Marathas by race killed on Sindhia’s side. The wounded were three or four times as many. With Jādo Rao, Ananda Rao Nimbālkar also fell. Kharé, xiv. 6749.

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Thus ended the battle of Assaye. "Success was only gained by the most extraordinary exertions on the part of every man in the field . . . Every man, British or native, played his part with superlative gallantry. First and foremost, Wellesley himself was throughout, in the hottest of the fray, calm, cool, and collected as if at a field day. Two horses were killed under him; of his staff eight out of ten sustained wounds to themselves or their horses . . . The Sepoys showed not less bravery; and Wellesley confessed that they astonished him." [Fortescue, V. 32.]

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But the loss of the British was heavy, amounting to 644 Europeans and 940 Indians killed, wounded and missing. The 74th Highlanders had 401 men out of a total strength of 565 as their casualty. The two sepoy battalions on the right between them had 402 casualties. The cavalry brigade suffered 200 men and 715 horses in killed, wounded and missing. The Sindhian army left 1200 dead on the field, nearly all of them of the same race as the E. I. Co.'s Bengal Army sepoys,—and the wounded must have been four times as many. Sindhia's regular infantrymen fought well, and were described by Wellesley as the best troops in India next to the Company's sepoys. But they fought with the artillery only, as the British General repeatedly noticed. Their cavalry disgraced itself. The victors captured 120 guns in the field and the pursuit.

§ 12. Effect of the victory at Assaye

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Assaye cannot be called a decisive battle if it was expected to crush Sindhia's power by that one blow. At first he put a brave face on it, and argued that he had inflicted a thousand casualties on the English force and lost the day only through his unprepared state at the time of the attack, the cowardly flight of Raghuji Bhonslé, and the seduction of his own battalion commandants by the English. Untaught by the past, Daulat Rao talked of pursuing the traditional Marātha policy of sending predatory hordes into Haidarabad territory, Bengal and Punā, which had failed before Assaye.

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But the moral effect of Assaye was undeniable. No amount of bragging could conceal the fact that his French-trained campoo and indigenous cavalry alike had been signally beaten by a very much smaller British force, and no Marātha would thenceforth make a stand before the victors of Assaye in an open field. Worst of all, this battle caused a final breach between the two Confederated Rajas. The Marātha world blamed Raghuji Bhonslé for his selfish flight at Assaye, without giving his ally the least help. Sindhia therefore vowed to take his revenge by leaving Bhonslé’s troops in the lurch in their next encounter with the English, and this he did at Argāon (28th November), where Sindhia’s contingent stood still on one side and moved off as soon as the English advance began.

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The very large number of men and horses killed and wounded at Assaye, enforced a fortnight’s halt on General Wellesley for the relief of the sufferers. Then he launched his long cherished scheme of carrying the war into Bhonslé’s own territory by sending Stevenson on to invade Berar. At the same time for some weeks he had again to march rapidly, forward and backward, in order to head the enemy off from the Nizam’s territory and the Peshwa’s districts. But these threatened raids of Daulat Rao now ended in the same futility as before Assaye. And the English pressed on with their conquests, tightening their grip on the throats of Daulat Rao and Raghuji. Burhanpur and Asirgarh were captured by Stevenson on 16th and 21st October. Gawailgarh, where Bhonslé had stored his treasure, fell after a bloody assault on 14th December.

§ 13. Sindhia and Bhonslé make peace

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In the other theatres of the war, too, unrelieved disaster had overtaken the confederated Rajas. Bārabāti fort in Katak had been stormed by the English on 14th October, and the province of Orissa had come into English possession, thus allowing them to join their provinces of Bengal and Madras by an unbroken land route. In Gujrat Broach was stormed from Sindhia's garrison on 29th August, and the fort of Pāwāgarh and its town of Champaner fell on 17th September. So, too, in Bundelkhand, Shamsher Bahadur had been defeated on the Ken river (at Kapsā) on 10th October and Kalpi captured on 4th December, and that Maratha vassal forced to become an English pensioner by the end of the year. Ambāji Inglé had made a treaty of alliance with the English on 16th December, one result of which was the delivery of Sindhia's rock-fortress of Gwalior to the English (effected on 4th February 1804).

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Thus dense clouds of failure and loss completely encircled the two Rajas as the year 1803 approached its end. Raghuji Bhonslé was the first to recognise his own helplessness. On 17th December, he signed the Treaty of Deogāon, by which

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1. Raghuji Bhonslé ceded to the E. I. Co. the province of Orissa.

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2. Raghuji Bhonslé ceded to the British and the Nizām all the territory to the west of the Wardhā river and south of the hills on which Narnālā and Gawilgarh stand, but he retained some districts (with a revenue of four lakhs) south of these two forts.

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3. The Bhonslé Raja renounced all his claims in the territories ceded as above.

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4. In addition, the Bhonslé Raja agreed to submit all his disputes with any other Power, to British arbitration and also never to take or retain in his service the subject of any European or American Power or any British subject (whether European or Indian) without the consent of the British Government.

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5. Raghuji Bhonslé renounced his adherence to the confederacy lately formed by him with Daulat Rao Sindhia, and engaged himself not to assist any chiefs hostile to the English. [MM. iii. 633.]

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Daulat Rao Sindhia, too, at last saw reason. After some diplomatic shuffling and evasive talks, he signed the Treaty of Sarji Anjangaon, on 30th December 1803, on the following terms: —

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1. Sindhia ceded to the E. I. Co. and its allies, in perpetual sovereignty, all his forts, territories and rights in the Gangā-Jamunā Doab, and his rights and claims in the countries lying north of the Jaipur and Jodhpur kingdoms, and the Gohad Rana's territory.

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2. Sindhia ceded to the E. I. Co. in perpetual sovereignty the forts of Baroach and Ahmadnagar and their dependent territory, and also the lands lying south of the Ajanta hills.

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3. Sindhia renounced all claims of any kind in the above districts as well as claims of every description upon the British, the Nizam, the Peshwa and the Gaekwad.

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4. But Asir, Burhānpur, Pāvāgarh, and their dependencies were restored to Sindhia.

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5. Sindhia confirmed all the treaties made by the British Government with his feudatories.

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6. In his disputes with the Peshwa about their respective rights in Malwa and elsewhere, Sindhia agreed to abide by the decision of the E. I. Co.

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7. Sindhia renounced all claims upon the Emperor Shah Alam II and engaged to interfere no further in the affairs of His Majesty.

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8. Sindhia engaged never to take or retain in his service any European or American or British Indian subject, without the consent of the British. [M.M. iii. 634.]

§ 14. End of the Mughal Empire

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Marquess Wellesley took care not to sign any treaty or engagement with Shah Alam II. The blind old shadow on the throne of Akbar and Aurangzib placed himself unreservedly under British protection, asking only for his defence and sustenance. The Governor-General by an order issued on 23rd May 1805, made permanent provision for the support of the Emperor and his family in the following way: [MM. iv. 554.]*

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1. A specified portion of territory near the city of Delhi, on the right bank of the Jamunā was set apart, the revenue of which was reserved for the support of the imperial family. But regardless of the actual shortage in the collection, the Emperor and his family as well as two courtiers were to be paid by the English Rs. 90,000 in all every month. (This was raised to one lakh in 1809, and to one and a quarter lakhs monthly in 1833.)

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2. In the lands thus set apart, the Emperor would have no territorial jurisdiction, their revenue collection and civil and criminal justice were to be administered by the British Resident.

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3. Two courts of justice according to Muslim Law, were established for Delhi city and the assigned district outside it, under British authority, the Emperor only retaining the right of confirming any sentence of death passed by these courts.

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4. The Emperor retained exclusive civil and criminal jurisdiction within the walls of the palace-fort of Delhi.

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By the Treaty of Sarji Anjangaon, the Pādishāh of Delhi became a British subject. It is not true that this treaty merely transferred to the British Governor-General the status of Sindhia in the political frame-work of the Mughal Empire. Mahādji Sindhia had been a servant of the Delhi Emperor; he had been appointed Regent of the Empire by that sovereign, and every successor of Mahādji had to be formally appointed by the same sovereign before he could exercise the functions of his office. It is true that Shah Alam II when first investing Mahādji in the robes of Regent had promised to make that office hereditary in the Sindhia family. But a master who can appoint is also legally competent to dismiss. When on 14th November 1784, Mahadji Sindhia went to his first audience with Shah Alam, he prostrated himself before the throne and laid his head down on the Emperor's feet; he was then raised up and declared a son of the Emperor.

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∗ Development of the scheme, Kaye's Metcalfe, i. 218-223. Delhi Dist. Gazetteer, 22-23. How the revenue grew, from 4 lakhs in 1807 to 15 lakhs in 1813, and 30 lakhs in 1830, Kaye, i.

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³⁶⁵ E. Thompson's Life of Charles Lord Metcalfe, chap. viii. Brojendranath Banerji's Rammohun Roy's Mission to England, 55-63. For the crimes and squalor within the palace limits, Kaye, 343. Thompson, 141-143. [F. Wynne's] Sketches of India, pub. 1816, pp. 103-111.

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But on 16th September 1803, Shah Alam hailed the British as his saviours. No British Governor-General ever interviewed the Emperor of Delhi; none of them required his formal letter of appointment when entering on his office in any subah of the former Mughal Empire,* nor even did the successive British officers who administered the Delhi district and the Red Fort. In fact, the English were the guardian and protector of the emperor, while the pageant on the Delhi throne was a perpetual minor, under the protection and control of the British Government, without any volition or motion of his own. The British authorities also set their feet down on the immemorial practice of the Indian princes seeking confirmation of their succession to their States from the Emperor of Delhi. Even in the territory reserved for the Emperor's support, called the Delhi district or Crownland, as well as in the city of Delhi outside the Red Fort, the administration was conducted by the British Resident, as the supreme executive authority, exactly as in any district of the Company's possessions, though the revenue was ear-marked for the imperial family and that too, only up to a limit of Rs. 12 lakhs (1809), raised to 15 lakhs in 1833.

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Henceforth the Pādishāh was neither the suzerain of the English E. I. Company, nor the ally of the King of England and therefore his equal in international status. He was not even like one of the vassal princes who accepted British paramountcy and exercised internal sovereignty within well-defined territorial limits, while their foreign relations alone were subject to British control. Even in Delhi, "the authority of the Shah was to be a harmless fiction"; he had no revenue, law-courts or troops of his own. [Kaye's *Metcalfe*, i. 223.]

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∗ The Marquess of Hastings refused to visit the Emperor when he went to Delhi in January 1815, "because His Majesty expected the Governor-General's acquiescence in a ceremonial which was to imply His M. being the liege-lord of the British possessions. This dependent tenure could never be acknowledged by me." *Private Journal*, dated 22 Jan. 1815.

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Thus the Treaty of Sarji Anjangaon (30th December 1803) marks the true end of the Mughal Empire as a political institution.

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*Note on Sindhia's infantry at Assaye.*

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Arthur Wellesley wrote,—"Pohlmann's brigade of eight battalions was called the First [raised for Mahadji in 1790], which was destroyed on the 23rd Sept.; the other two brigades in that action . . . were four battalions of Begam Samru [but only one of B.S. actually fought,—J. S.] and four battalions of Dupont. The latter was formerly Filose's and was utterly destroyed by Holkar at Ujjain [18 July 1801]. It was raised [again] at Punā. . . . The only brigade that escaped on the 23rd Sept. was part of B. Samru's. They were with the baggage and got off in safety. On the day of action . . . I saw them go off. There may also have been one battalion of Pohlmann with the baggage. Dorsan was certainly killed, and the bodies of other Europeans, who did not belong to us, were seen [among the dead at Assaye].' Gurwood, ii. 456 and 434. This proves the truth of the Maratha reports that 4 battalions of Filose, one of Samru, and [one or two] battalions of Sindhia (i.e., the First Campoo) alone fought,—"the *five* battalions slew many men of the English"—"on our side 3 battalions were cut off, and the remainder, consisting of 15 or 16 battalions and the entire cavalry of both the Rajas retreated in safety."