The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c27.9

c27.9

Similar comments are to be found in the chapter on war in R. Orme's paper on the government and people of Indostan ("Hist. Frag." 417—420). In short, excepting want of personal courage, every other fault in the list of military vices may be attributed to the degenerate Moghuls: indiscipline, want of cohesion, luxurious habits, inactivity, bad commissariat, and cumbrous equipment. In fact, Mountstuart Elphinstone, in his "History", 579, gives us succintly the conclusion of the whole matter, "They formed a cavalry admirably fitted to prance in a procession, and not ill-adapted to a charge in a pitched battle, but not capable of any long exertion, and still less of any continuance of fatigue and hardship".