The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c8.1

c8.1

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.”