The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c8: Chapter VI
The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c8
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Chapter VI
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Although in writing this essay I think it better to retain the divisions of the original authorities, who distribute the army into *manṣabdārs* (with their *tābinān*), *aḥadīs*, and *aḥshām*, it is quite true that, as Dr. Horn says, p. 11, the Moghul army consisted of cavalry, infantry, and artillery. But the second and third branches held a very subordinate position towards the first. The army was essentially an army of horsemen. The Moghuls from beyond the Oxus were accustomed to fight on horseback only; the foot-soldier they despised; and in artillery they never became very proficient. Until the middle of the eighteenth century, when the French and English had demonstrated the vast superiority of disciplined infantry, the Indian foot-soldier was little more than a night-watchman, and guardian over baggage, either in camp or on the line of march. Under the Moghuls, as Orme justly says “Hist. Frag.,” 4to, p. 418, the strain of all war rested upon the numbers and goodness of the horse which were found in an army. Their preference for hand to hand fighting and cavalry charges is well illustrated by the remarks attributed to Prince A‘zam Shāh in 1707 by Bhīm Sen, *Nuskhah-i-dilkushā*, fol. 162*a*, that “to fight with artillery was a stripling’s pastime, the only true weapon was the sword.”
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There was no division into regiments. Single troopers, as we have already said, enlisted under the banner of some man a little richer or better known than themselves. These inferior leaders again joined greater commanders, and thus, by successive aggregations of groups, a great noble's division was gathered together. But from the highest to the lowest rank, the officer or soldier looked first to his immediate leader and followed his fortunes, studying his interests rather than those of the army as a whole.¹ It was not till quite the end of the period that, under the influence of European example, and also partly in imitation of the Persian invaders, it became usual for the great nobles to raise and equip at their own expense whole regiments without the intervention of petty chiefs. In Audh, Ṣafdar Jang and Shujāʿ-ud-Daulah had such regiments, as, for instance, the Qizzilbāsh, the *Sher-bachah*, and others, which were all clad alike, and apparently were mounted and equipped by the Nawāb himself.
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¹ For remarks to the same general effect, see W. Erskine, "History," ii, 540.
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When Akbar first introduced the *manṣab* system, which ranked his officers according to the number of men supposed to be under the command of each, these figures had possibly some connection with the number of men present under those officers' orders, and actually serving in the army (Horn, 39). But it is tolerably certain that this connection between the two things did not endure very long: it was, I should say, quite at an end by the reign of Shāhjahān (1627—58). Indeed, if the totals of all the personal (*zāt*) *manṣabs* in existence at one time were added together, we should arrive at so huge an army that it would have been impossible for the country, however heavily taxed, to meet such an expense. If paid in cash, the army would have been absorbed all the revenue; if paid by assignments, all the land revenue would have gone direct into the hands of the soldiery, leaving next to nothing to maintain the Court or meet the expenses of the other branches of the government. The inference I wish to draw is, that from the grant of rank it does not follow that the soldiers implied by such rank were really added to the army. The system required that a man's rank should be stated in terms of so many soldiers;
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but there is abundant testimony in the later historians that *manṣab* and the number of men in the ranks of the army had ceased to have any close correspondence.
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Thus it seems to me a hopeless task to attempt, as Dr. Horn does, p. 39, following Blochmann (*Āīn*, i, 244—7), to build up the total strength of the army from the figures giving the personal (*zāt*) rank of the officers (*manṣabdārs*). The difficulty would still exist, even if we had sufficiently reliable accounts of the number of such officers on the list at any one time. For we must remember that the number of men kept up by any officer was incessantly varying. On a campaign, or on active employment in one of the provinces, either as its governor or in a subordinate position, an officer kept up a large force, generally as many as, if not more than, he could find pay for. On the other hand, while attached to the Court at Dihli, his chief or only duty might be to attend the emperor's public audience twice a day (a duty which was very sharply enforced), and take his turn in mounting guard at the palace. For duties of this sort a much smaller number of men would suffice. If we reckoned the number of men in the *suwār* rank, for whom allowances at so much per man were given by the State to the *manṣabdār*, we might obtain a safer estimate of the probable strength of the army. But for this also materials fail, and in spite of musterings and brandings, we may safely assume that very few *manṣabdārs* kept up at full strength even the quota of horsemen (*tābinān*) for which they received separate pay. In these matters the difference between one noble and another was very great. While one man maintained his troops at their full number, all efficiently mounted and equipped, another would evade the duty altogether. As, for instance, one writer, Khūshḥāl Chand, in his *Nādir-uz-zamānī* (B.M. Or. 1844, fol. 140*a*) says: Lutfullah Khān Ṣādiq, although he held the rank of 7,000, "never entertained even seven asses, much less horses or riders on horses." In Muḥammad Shāh's reign he lived quietly at home at Pānīpat, 30 or 40 miles from Dihli, his attention engrossed by his efforts to get hold of all the land for many miles round that town, and passing his days, in spite of his great nominal rank, like a mere villager.
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It seems to me equally hopeless to attempt a reconstruction of the force actually present at any particular battle by adding together the numerical rank held by the commanders who were at that battle. This Dr. Horn has tried to do on p. 67, without feeling satisfied with the results. But, as far as I can see, there was little, if any, connection between the two matters. The truth is that, like all things in Oriental countries, there existed no rules which were not broken in practice. A man of high rank would, no doubt, be selected for the command of a division. But it was quite an accident whether that division had more or fewer men in it than the number in his nominal rank. The strength of a division depended upon the total number of men available, and the extent of the contingents brought into the field by such subordinate leaders as might be put under the orders of its commander. It was altogether a matter of accident whether the number of men present corresponded or not to the rank of the commanders.
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Bernier, 43, has an excellent remark on the vague way that numbers were dealt with by historians: "Camp-followers and bazar-dealers . . . . I suspect, are often included in the number of combatants." Again, on p. 380, he seems to come to the conclusion that it would be a fair estimate to take the fighting men at about one-third of the total numbers in a Moghul camp. I have seen somewhere (I have lost the reference, but I think it was in Khāfī Khān) an admission that the gross number of a so-called "fauj" (army) was always reckoned as including no more than one-third or one-fourth that number of fighting men. I give below, for what it is worth, a tabular summary of Dr. Horn's figures (pp. 39—45) -- ESTIMATED NUMBERS OF MOGHUL ARMY.
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| PERIOD. | CAVALRY. | MATCHLOCKMEN AND INFANTRY. | ARTILLERY-MEN. | AUTHORITY. |
| Akbar | 12,000 | 12,000 | 1000 | Blochmann, i, 246. |
| Do. | 384,758 | 3,877,557 | — | *Āīn-i-Akbarī*.¹ |
| Shāhjahān | 200,000 | 40,000 | — | { *Bādshāhnāmah*, ii, 715; *Āīn*, i, 244. |
| Aurangzeb | 240,000 | 15,000 | — | Bernier. |
| Do. | 300,000 | 600,000 | — | Catrou. |
| Mḥd. Shāh | 200,000 | 800,000 | — | { *Tārīkh-i-Hindī* of Rustam ʿAlī. |
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¹ These include all the militia levies and zamindār’s retainers throughout the provinces, besides the army proper.
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NUMBERS PRESENT ON PARTICULAR OCCASIONS.
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| NAME OF BATTLE OR COMMANDER. | NUMBER OF IMPERIALISTS. | | | | NUMBER OF ENEMY. | | | | AUTHORITY. |
| | Cavalry. | Infantry. | Artillery. | Elephants. | Cavalry. | Infantry. | Artillery. | Elephants. | |
| Sarkhej . . . . . . Under Khān | 10,000 | — | — | 100 | 40,000 | 100,000 | — | — | *Akbarnāmah*, iii, 424. |
| ʿAzim . . . . . Under Khān | 10,000 | — | — | — | 30,000 | — | — | — | *Id.* iii, 593. |
| Khānān . . . | 1200 | — | — | — | 5000 | — | — | — | *Id.* iii, 608. |
| Ṣādiq Khān . . | 3000 | — | — | — | 8000 | — | — | 80 | *Id.* iii, 714. |
| Qandahār (1061 H.) . . . | 50,000 | 10,000 | — | 10 | — | — | — | — | Elliot, vii, 99. |
| Jahāngīr (1016 H.) . . . | 12,500 | 2000 | — | 60 | — | — | — | — | *Id.* vi, 318. |
| Aḥmad Abdālī (1174 H.) . . . | 60,000 | 20,000 | — | — | — | — | — | — | |