The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c23.17

c23.17

As to the distinctive difference between Moghul cavalry and that of European armies in their methods of fighting, Colonel Blacker has some judicious remarks ("War", 189). First of all, to show how formidable such solid but irregular bodies of cavalry seemed, he quotes Orme — "whosoever has seen a body of ten thousand horse advancing on the full gallop all together will acknowledge with the Marechals Villars and Saxe that their appearance is tremendous, be their courage or discipline what it will". Yet a few European squadrons could ride them down and disperse them. There was a want of sympathy between the parts, and this prevented one part depending upon the assistance of another. Owing to its size, an army of Moghul horse could, for the moment, meet the attack of a small compact body by a portion only of its total strength, and since as against disciplined cavalry an equal front of an irregular body of troops can never stand the shock of an attack, the Moghuls were bound to give way. The whole being thus broken up into parts, the parts avoided exposure to the brunt of the action; the part actually attacked fled, but the parts not menaced did not combine to fall on the rear of the pursuers. On the other hand, the disciplined troops divided, reassembled, charged and halted on a single trumpet-call, and threatened each single part in turn. But if the drilled cavalry tried skirmishing, it was soon found that the Moghul horse, apparently so despicable, were most formidable in detail. Wilks, iii, 392, is also of opinion that in single combat a European seldom equalled the address of a native horseman.