The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c12: Chapter VIII: The Maratha Army on the March
The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c12
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Chapter VIII: The Maratha Army on the March
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SHIVAJI relied for his success on the secrecy and quick execution of his plans. His army was kept in constant readiness to cover the longest distance at the shortest notice. Speed and personal comfort could not very well be contrived together in those days. Shivaji and his men, therefore, had to accustom themselves to ‘Fare Hard and Journey Fast’. They must have slept under the stars on their way to Surat in 1673, for they had no tents with them. During the Karnatak expedition the army carried only two small tents. These afforded shelter and some comfort to Shivaji and his principal officers,¹ but his men must have been left to shift for themselves as best they could. They did not burden themselves with anything above the barest necessities and these were very few. But even the iron physique of the hardy Maratha leader demanded at times some relaxation, and when he was not pressed for time he would change his horse for a palanquin, in which comfortable conveyance his officers also occasionally indulged.¹ This is all that we know about his marches. Lightly equipped, without any tent, without any camp equipage, unencumbered by field artillery, he and his men moved from place to place with such incredible speed that his bewildered victims credited him with the knowledge of the black art.²
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¹ *Indian Historical Records Commission, Proceedings of Meetings*, Vol. VI, p. 25. Paul Kaeppelin, *La Compagnie des Indes Orientales et Francois Martin*, p. 163.
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¹ Factory Records, Surat, Vol. 88, fols. 45-8. In April 1675, the English Factors met Shivaji while he was returning from one of his expeditions; he had, we are told, about 150 palanquin with him. The use of palanquin, as a more comfortable conveyance, was continued as late as 1792. See Moor, *A Narrative of the Operations of Captain Little’s Detachment*, p. 81.
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² Cosme da Guarda writes. ‘The question is still unsolved whether he substituted others for himself, or he was a magician or the devil was in his place’ (*Vida do celebre Sevagy*, p. 10.). He tries to give a rational explanation of Shivaji’s supposed presence at different places at the same moment. Oxinden wrote on 26 June 1664, ‘Sevagy is soe famously infamous for his notorious thefts that report hath made him an airy body and added wings; or else it were impossible hee could be at soe many places as hee is said to bee at, all at one time. Sometimes hee is certainly believed to be in one, and in a day or two in another place, and soe in half a dozen remote one from another; and there burns and plunders without controule.’ Sir William Foster, *English Factories in India, 1660-1664*, p. 345.
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From the brief account of Sambhaji’s and Rajaram’s campaigns that has come down to us, it appears that they had not much deviated from their father’s ways so far as personal comforts went during a military expedition. Born and bred in the mountains of Maharashtra, they were not accustomed to the pomp and splendour of their Mughal enemies. But Shahu had cultivated different tastes. He was brought up in a Mughal camp, where not only comforts but luxuries were provided, and the grandeur of the Mughal army was reflected, though faintly, in the pomp of the only expedition that Shahu led in person. He was more accustomed to ease and comfort than his father and grandfather, and he could afford to proceed on his journey slowly. He was not in a hurry like them.
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Shahu’s march resembled more a ceremonial procession than a military expedition. He preferred the more stately elephant to the martial steed, and behind him followed the ladies of his seraglio, similarly mounted. Then followed forty or fifty elephants carrying the great nobles according to their official precedence. Immediately before the Raja was placed the artillery, and next came the imperial banners, surrounded by the guards, musketeers and cavalry. In front of all marched the Biniwala who had charge of the van. Immediately behind the flags and the banners marched the regiments of the nobles placed in the van, behind them the attendants and the military band, followed by elephants, horses, chariots and camels. Behind these animals were placed the lancers, spearmen and rocket-eers; and between the King and the artillery were the arms-bearers and mace-bearers, musicians and other personal attendants. The road was carefully sprinkled with water to prevent dust. When so much care was taken to provide for their personal comforts the King and his courtiers could not expect to accomplish a long march, and it was decided that no more than three or four kosses¹ should be attempted in a single day. Malhar Ramrao Chitnis hints that Shahu was deliberately copying the Mughal customs. He was accompanied by the principal officers of the State and a place was assigned to each of them according to his rank and station. The Sena Dhurandhar and the Sena Saheb Subhe were placed in the van. The Pratinidhi, the Peshwa, the Amatya, the Sachiv, and the Mantri were stationed on the right wing, while the Senapati and the cavalry commanders were placed on the left. The Panditrao and the Nyaya-dhish, two civilians whose presence in the camp was probably demanded by the formalities of the court alone, also had their stations with the Sumanta on the left. The Chitnis, the Potnis, and the clerical staff occupied a place near the treasury as their official duties demanded. The Fadnis and the officers of the secretariat were placed on the left near the stores. The rear was guarded by the Sar-laskar and the chiefs under his command, and every arrangement was made for the comforts of the King in advance by the tents department.
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¹ koss = 2 miles
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As Shahu wanted to earn the good opinion of his subjects, for it was through his own dominions that he was marching, he laid down that his soldiers should obtain all their necessities by fair purchase and should not cause the least trouble to the peasants. Any breach in this respect was to be punished with the loss of limbs. How far these orders were obeyed by the privates we do not know, but as Shahu was really making a peaceful demonstration of his power, the cultivators probably suffered less than usual on this occasion.¹
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¹ Malhar Ramrao Chitnis, *Thorle Shahu Maharaj Hyanchen Charitra*, pp. 92-4.
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Shahu was the last King to play the military head of the State. This function after his death was invariably exercised by the Peshwa, except during the minority of the second Madhav Rao. During the Peshwa period the army was divided into three great bodies during the march, as we learn from William Henry Tone. The vanguard (or aghadi), which included the whole infantry, was called sadi fauj (Tone's 'cherry fodge') or light troops and was commanded by the holder of the Jari Patka, the imperial banner, a little swallow-tailed flag worked in gold and scarlet, and hoisted on a very high staff. The centre division was called the bich laskar and was considered as a body of reserve. It was not encumbered with any unnecessary equipment or artillery. The Peshwa himself commanded the rear, and the grand park, called the jinsa, as well as the baggage of the whole army were placed in the rear which was called bunga, according to Tone.²
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² Tone, *Illustrations of some Institutions of the Mahratta People*, pp. 35-6.
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It was the Biniwala or Quartermaster-General who circulated the Peshwa's decision about the camping ground.³ On his arrival at the selected site the Biniwala hoisted a little flag to indicate the place for the Peshwa's tent. In front of this tent met the bazar or the market of the camp. The Banias accompanying the army fixed their little tents or pals, which consisted of a single blanket supported on a few sticks. Each of the Sardars then fixed his tent according to his own convenience and hoisted his flag to indicate his whereabouts to his followers. No order was followed. Each private shifted for himself, but the different Sardars had each his own bazar which met in the immediate neighbourhood of his tent. While a private had often nothing better than a pal, and sometimes the shadow of his mount or a shrub or a tree was considered sufficient shelter for his repose,¹ the officers were much better provided. The principal chiefs had not only comfortable but quite spacious and costly camp equipage. James Forbes, who accompanied Raghoba on his marches, writes: ‘The magnificence of the Indian tents, pavillions, and summinianas, or canopy, far exceeds anything of the king in Europe, especially among the Moguls. These accommodations are the more necessary where their women and children accompany them to the field. The Mahrattas seem to prefer their tents to house, and enjoy more pleasure in a camp than in a city.’² In fact a Maratha camp in the later Peshwa days much resembled a city where commercial transactions of considerable volume were daily contracted.
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³ The Biniwala's decision was circulated by beggars accompanying the army; for this service they enjoyed some small perquisites from the shopkeepers of the camp. See Moor, *A Narrative of the Operations of Captain Little's Detachment*, p. 79, and Peshwa's Diaries, Vol. III, p. 182.
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¹ *Instruccao do Ex-mo Vice-Rey, Marquez de Alorna, ao seu successor*, ed. F. N. Xavier, 3rd edition, p. 49.
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² Forbes, *Oriental Memoirs*, Vol. I, p. 341.
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The camp *bazars* not only supplied the needs of the army but formed a fruitful source of income to the Maratha chiefs. Every shopkeeper paid a fixed tax, and every man who plied his profession there had to pay for his license. The four *bazars* in Sindhia’s camp, as Major Broughton informs us,³ yielded no less than 14,000 Rupees in *palpatti* or tent-tax alone. ‘The bajar, or market-place belonging to his (Raghoba’s) own division’, says Forbes, ‘and to the principal generals, contained many thousand tents, where every trade and profession was carried on with as much regularity as in a city. Goldsmiths, jewellers, bankers, drapers, druggists, confectioners, carpenters, tailors, tent-makers, corn-grinders, and farriers, found full employment; as did the whole rows of silver, iron, and copper-smiths; but those in the greatest and most contant requisition, seem to be cooks, confectioners and farriers.’⁴ Nor was the camp unprovided with places of worship. Raghoba had a special tent for his idols, and Forbes tells us that ‘in the different divisions was a temporary dewal, or tent, consecrated to religious duties, where Brahmins regularly officiated, and prayer and sacrifices were offered to the deities with the same ceremonies as in the Hindoo temples’.¹
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³ Broughton, *Letters from a Mahratta Camp*, pp. 112-13.
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⁴ Forbes, *Oriental Memoirs*, Vol. I, p. 345.
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¹ Ibid, p. 345.
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Like Shahu the Peshwas were accompanied in all their expeditions by a staff of civilian officers, and the ordinary works of administration were punctually attended to in the camp. Civil and criminal justice was daily administered, petitions were regularly heard and audience was granted to the poorest man who might seek it. The camp was provided with all the necessities, with all the conveniences, with all the comforts of life then known in India. The days of Shivaji were forgotten. The Peshwas and their chiefs emulated the splendours of the Muhammadan nobility of the North, and this new taste for comfort and ease led to the slackening of the rigid discipline Shivaji had insisted on.
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Shivaji did not permit any women to accompany his forces, but the Peshwa’s camp was generally full of them. When exactly this innovation or lapse first occurred we do not know. Probably when Baji Rao I began to enliven the tedium of his leisure hours in the company of the fair Mastani, his followers also began to seek similar relief and similar relaxation. Gopika Bai sometimes accompanied her lord on his expeditions; and at Panipat the presence of the wives and mothers of his comrades caused Sadashiv Rao no little embarrassment and anxiety. Parvati Bai, his wife, was safely conducted home, but Nana Fadnavis lost his mother. The experience of Panipat, however, proved no deterrent, for Forbes, Broughton and Moor, who wrote from personal knowledge, all testify to the presence of a large number of women and non-combatants in the camps of Raghoba, Daulat Rao Sindhia and Parashram Bhau Patwardhan.² Moor says that ‘the number of women with this (Patwardhan’s) army, could they be at all accurately computed, would not be believed; our estimate so far exceeds the bounds of probability, at least strangers would deem it so, that we are afraid to give it’.³
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² Ibid, pp. 349-51; Moor, *A Narrative of the Operations of Captain Little’s Detachment*, p. 87; Tone, *Illustrations of some Institutions of the Mahratta People*, p. 58.
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³ Moor, *A Narrative of the Operations of Captain Little’s Detachment*, p. 29.
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The privates and their officers had with them their wives and concubines, and dancing girls, jugglers and other women of doubtful character frequented the camp as a place most suitable for their profession. Nor did the *bazar* lack wine stalls and *arrack* shops, so that the votaries of Comus could spend their evenings in a manner most congenial to them but not conducive to discipline in a camp where it was particularly slack.¹
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¹ Broughton, *Letters from a Mahratta Camp*, p. 21.
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The private had perhaps some justification in bringing his wife with him, for the camp attendants were few and generally the halt was brief.² So, while he looked after the needs of his horse, his wife could cook his food and administer to his comforts. But whatever the excuse for bringing them, women and children are encumbrances which an army can hardly afford, at least during a season of active operations.
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² See the opinion of Major Dirom quoted in Moor, *A Narrative of the Operations of Captain Little’s Detachment*, pp. 85-6.
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Besides the women and children the army was further encumbered by a large number of animals. ‘The number and variety of cattle necessarily attendant on an Asiatic army’, write Forbes, ‘is astonishing; the expense of feeding these animals, as also the difficulty of procuring provender, is very great; and their distress for water in a parched country and sultry climate, often fatal. Exclusive of the Mahratta cavalry trained to war, were many thousand horses belonging to the camp-followers; the bazar alone required twenty thousand bullocks to convey the commodities of the shopkeepers, besides a number of small horses and asses. Some thousand camels were employed to carry the tents and baggage; but the elephants, proud of their distinguished elevation, were appropriated to some honourable service, or, covered with caparisons of embroidered velvets and scarlet cloth, decorated with gold and silver fringe, were destined to carry the houdahs of Ragobah and his chief officers.’³
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³ Forbes, *Oriental Memoirs*, Vol. I, p. 351.
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However useful these animals might prove for transport and other services, their feeding was not the only problem with which the army was confronted. There was no separate place for herding and stabling the beasts, and sometimes lack of care and underfeeding told so heavily on their health that the poor animals proved a source of infection. Broughton says that he and his companions always camped at least a mile away from Sindhia’s army to avoid the disagreeable ‘stench arising from carcases of horse, bullocks, and camels, which no one takes the trouble to remove’.¹ The men in the Maratha army often lived pell-mell with their mounts, and this insanitary condition sometimes led to the outbreak of epidemic when the distress of the poor sufferers knew no bounds. For although the camp was well supplied with druggists and quacks, there were but few qualified physicians, and hospital arrangements were either unknown or deemed unnecessary.²
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¹ Broughton, *Letters from a Mahratta Camp*, p. 22.
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² *Itihas Sangraha*, *Aitihasik Kirkol Prakaranen*, p. 6. Also *Aitihasik Tipanen*, Pt II, pp. 94-5.
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The Maratha generals had no commissariat department. For their supplies they depended entirely on the enterprise of their foragers and the Brinjaras. The Brinjaras were mostly Hindus by religion and Jats by race. A hardy tribe of nomads, they travelled in large bands called *tandahs* and had their own headmen and peculiar organisation. They travelled throughout the country and were well capable of defending themselves in war and peace, but their service was most in demand during the wars, when they transported a large quantity of provisions laden on bullocks to the war zone from peaceful settlements and trading centres. As traders they were honest, but sometimes they did not hesitate to obtain their merchandise by force. Railways and quicker methods of transport have today rendered it difficult for us to appreciate the service rendered by the Brinjara hordes to the belligerents in India, and their number seems almost incredible now. Wellington says that there were no less than 10,000 Brinjaras with Dundhia Vagh, the notorious robber chief, who infested the frontier of Mysore and Southern Maratha districts.³ Although this might have been an unusually large band, companies of three to five thousand were by no means uncommon. On 20 August 1800, Wellington wrote from Hubli : ‘I have 1200 loads in the grain departments, and 1500 full brinjarries in the camp; I am told that I have 5000 between the Werdah and Malpoorba; and as the headman has not deceived me lately, I believe it. Besides that, 3000 brinjarries left me at Kittoor on the 5th, in order to fill along the borders of Soonda, Savanore, and Darwar. There are 5000 brinjarries full, who are following Nizam’s camp.¹ Wellington regarded the Brinjaras as public servants and regulated the sale of their grains to keep his army well supplied,² but we have no evidence of any Maratha general ever exercising such wise and far-sighted control over the food supply. Besides the Brinjaras, the Marathas could count upon the Pendharis accompanying them. Those marauders and freebooters had an uncanny genius for discovering the secret stores of the villagers. Whatever they found, they brought to the camp and sold at a price much below the current rate. The lack of supervision of such sales, however, sometimes led to hardships after a few days of plenty, as the Maratha army experienced during the second Mysore war. But, generally, a Maratha private and his mount were both accustomed to subsist on very little food and fodder.³
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³ Gurwood, *Dispatches of Wellington*, Vol. I, p. 71.
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¹ Ibid, p. 64.
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² Ibid, pp. 64-5.
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³ Instruccao do Exmo Vice-Rey Marquez de Alorna, 3rd. edition, pp. 51-2.
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For their ordinary transport the Marathas employed asses, camels and bullocks, but transport across the rivers demanded other methods. While operating in Northern India this was performed by bridges of boats, as had been usual in the Mughal days. Boats were chained together and made to support a light platform of sticks and mud over which the men and the beasts passed with their arms and stores. But it does not appear that the Marathas themselves had ever undergone the trouble of constructing such bridges; they generally got some local men to build bridges for them,⁴ and, while operating in Southern India, they crossed the rivers in basket-boats according to the custom prevailing in the locality. Lt. Moor gives the following description of these peculiar baskets: ‘From the month of June to October, the river is not fordable, and in that time round baskets are used to convey passengers, goods, and cattle across; these baskets are made of all sizes, from three to fifteen feet diameter, constructed with split bamboos, and covered with half dressed hides. The method of constructing them is very simple: a number of pieces of split bamboo, twenty perhaps, are laid on the ground, crossing each other near the centre, and there fastened with thongs; the ends of the bamboo are raised by a proper number of people, and fixed by stakes at due distances from each other, in which situation they are bound by other long slips of bamboo, introduced alternately over and under the first crossed pieces, and tied at the intersections; this being completed, beginning from the bottom or centre, the parts above the intended height or depth of the basket are cut off, and it is liberated from the stakes, overset, and covered with hides sewed together by thongs. They are not more than three feet in depth, and will carry thirty men: we are inclined to think some of them will carry many more, for if we mistake not, the Bhow's heavy guns were transported over this river (the Tungabhadra) and the Kristna, in these baskets. When bullocks are to cross, they are tied to the basket, goaded in the proper direction, and they tow it over the river; at other times it is rowed over with paddles, and when the water is not too deep; pushed with long bamboos.¹ It is needless to say that the basket-boat was by no means a satisfactory conveyance, for when the current was strong, it was likely to be carried away. But though clumsy, it had some special advantage, for its construction needed little time and less labour. A Maratha general was compelled to provide himself with beasts of burden before he set out on his expedition, but he did not always take the precaution of providing himself with boats or baskets in advance. He relied so much on local supply that Wellington laid down that a war against the Marathas should be commenced in June, for they would be unable to cross the rivers and harass the movements of the English army, if the baskets were properly guarded. It should be noted that during the critical days of Abdali's invasion in 1759 the Marathas relied on the local chiefs for building their bridges and the consequent delay considerably hampered their military operations.
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⁴ Rajwade, Marathyanchya Itihasanchin Sadhanen, Vol. I, p. 338, Vol. III, p. 227.
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¹ Moor, *A Narrative of the Operations of Captain Little's Detachment*, p. 122.
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Before he started on an expedition a Maratha chief would invariably consult an astrologer to ascertain an auspicious moment for his intended journey. With all his practical wisdom even Shivaji could not rise above this common superstition, but while his efficient financial arrangement enabled him to start at the earliest possible moment, the chronic financial difficulties of the Peshwas and their chiefs rendered it most uncertain. Their first march was therefore only a nominal one, a tent was pitched just outside their headquarters, where they would go at the time fixed for their journey, but at this place they could be detained for several days by their soldiers clamouring for pay. Tukoji Holkar had to take elaborate precautions in 1794 to avoid the undesirable attention of his creditors and narrowly escaped the inconvenience and humiliation of a *dharna*.¹
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¹ *Itihas Sangraha*, *Maheshwar Darbarchin Batmi Patren*, Vol. II, p. 250.
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The Maratha camp was the frequent scene of this extreme form of dunning which was seldom absolutely ineffective. No man, whatever his rank and position, was immune from it. Haripant Phadke, Sindhia, Holkar, and even the Peshwa had been subjected to this last recourse of desperate creditors;² and, as a Maratha chief was often indefinitely detained by the *dharna* of his soldiers, it will not be irrelevant here to explain this peculiar method of realising arrears, in the words of an English observer. Major Broughton writes: ‘This curious mode of enforcing a demand is in universal practice among the Mahrattas; Seendhiya himself not being exempt from it. The man who sits the *dhurna*, goes to the house or tent of him whom he wishes to bring to terms; and remains there till the affair is settled: during which time the one under restraint is confined to his apartment, and not suffered to communicate with any persons but those whom the other may approve of. The laws by which the *dhurna* is regulated are as well defined and understood as those of any other custom whatever. When it is meant to be very strict, the claimant carries a number of his followers, who surround the tent, sometimes even the bed, of his adversary, and deprive him altogether of food; in which case, however, etiquette prescribes the same abstinence to himself: the strongest stomach of course carries the day’. ³ Strange though it may seem, the victim, however powerful, did not dare to break the traditional rules and had to come to terms with his tormentors. Even Jaswant Rao Holkar and Amir Khan, the two most unscrupulous military leaders of their time, had to bear the penalties of this time-honoured custom with patience, though not forbearance.¹ Encumbered with innumerable women, tradesmen, children and cattle, disturbed by the constant wrangling of debtors and creditors, without order, without discipline as it was, the Maratha camp was not easy to surprise. The cavalry that furnished the picket were very alert and were kept on duty night and day. The Maratha chiefs, moreover, were served by very efficient scouts, and Colonel Tone was of opinion, that it would be next to impossible to surprise a Maratha camp.²
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² Many instances are given in Broughton’s *Letters from a Mahratta Camp*, Khare’s *Adhikar Yog*, and *Maheshwar Darbarchin Batmi Patren*.
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³ Broughton, *Letters from a Mahratta Camp*, pp. 31-2.
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¹ Prinsep, *Memoirs of the Pathan Soldier of Fortune*, p. 346 and p. 405.
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² Tone, *Illustrations of some Institutions of the Mahratta People*, p. 60.
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The scouts formed an old institution of the country. Shivaji had a separate department of *Jasuds* or scouts, and his chief scout, Bahirji Jadhav, was a man of exceptional ability. It was to Bahirji’s familiarity with the less known byways of the country that Shivaji was indebted for much of his success and not a little of his safety. The *Jasuds* maintained their reputation even during the Peshwa period, when they acted, not merely as scouts but also as mail bearers. When employed in the latter capacity, they generally went in pairs, for we always read of *Jasudjodi* and *Kasidjodi*.³ They travelled day and night, knew all the short cuts and byroads, and could cover the longest distance in a reasonably short time. On their way they could rely on the assistance of every village headman and district officer, and cottages and resthouses were provided for their use on the usual main route. While employed as scouts they had to use various disguises and their knowledge of the locality stood them in good stead. It does not appear that the *Jasuds* formed a separate department during the Peshwa days, but a number of them was usually attached to each army, the trained battalions not being excepted.
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³ *Itihas Sangraha*, Maheshwar Darbarchin Batmi Patren, Vol. I, pp. 21, 40, 47. Sometimes when they had to send an urgent message they employed camel riders. See ibid, p. 57.
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The damage committed by a Maratha force, while on the march, was enormous. No distinction was made between friend and foe, and the Peshwa’s Government had often to grant some remission of rent under the title of *Paymalli* to the cultivators of the district through which their army had passed. It is needless to say that this remission could not always be adequate to the loss caused by the irresponsible soldiery. Holkar’s forces probably enjoyed the greatest notoriety for their destructive propensities, for in this army the professional marauders or unpaid Pendharis outnumbered the ordinary *Bargir* and *Silhedar*. Lord Valentia says that the depredations of Jaswant Rao Holkar’s men caused a famine in the Peshwa’s territories,¹ and a popular Maratha ballad of the time presents a most horrible picture of the misdeeds for which these covetous and cruel mercenaries were responsible.² It runs as follows:
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¹ Valentia, *Voyages and Travels to India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia and Egypt*, Vol. II, p. 108.
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² Acworth, *Ballads of the Mahrattas*, pp. 96-8.
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‘They stayed not to weigh or to measure their spoil,
They stripp’d off the grain from the sheaves on the soil;
Not Chandi was safe, nor Gunputti the wise;
Nor Shiwa the ruler of destinies:
His Pindi was broken, then who could expect
That the pots of the housewife a god would protect?
No order was left, every rank was confus’d,
Preceptor and pupil were robb’d and abus’d;
Every villain, and traitor, and rebel came forth,
And stirr’d up revolt from the south to the north;
From the south to the north, from the east to the west,
From the sea to the Ganges the land they infest;
The gold of the rich, the rags of the poor
They strip, and the Brahmans they seize and secure;
They bind them in prison, and sentinels stand
Around them, and tramp on each road in the land.
No escape! from the wife of the peasant they tear
The pearl-studded jewel that fastens her hair;
From the peasant they wrest all his hoarded rupees,
The grain from his grain-pits, the food off his knees;
If any delays or refuses to give,
He tastes such a beating that scarce he will live.’
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The picture may or may not have been overdrawn, but it should be remembered that the offenders were the Pendharis and the Purvias, and not Marathas. These mercenaries were responsible for the worst crimes associated with the Maratha name. It was they who plundered and defiled the Sarada temple of Shri Shankaracharya of Shringeri during Parashram Bhau Patwardhan’s campaign against Tipu Sultan.¹ It was they again who harassed the Brahmans of the South when Sindhia’s trained battalions arrived in the Deccan to revive their master’s waning influence at Poona. The mercenaries of the North were accustomed to plunder their own camp even during the Mughal days, and the Maratha leaders alone should not be held responsible for the outrages committed by these myrmidons.²
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¹ Khare, *Aitihasik Lekha Sangraha*, Vol. IX, p. 4474.
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² Scott, *History of the Dekkan*, Vol. II, p. 203, refers to the plundering propensities of the Mughal soldiery in the following manner: ‘The ameer-al-amra was dangerously wounded . . . His remaining attendants brought him back . . . to the camp . . . where from a want of regularity and order, common in Hindustan, his tents, baggage and treasures had been wholly plundered by the soldiery and followers, on the supposition of his death’.
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War is normally expected to be destructive and it brings forth the worst tendencies of human nature. This is borne out by universal experience and no people and no country offers an exception. Only nine decades ago the federal army of the United States committed excesses that sound incredible even when reported in simple uncoloured prose. Mr. B. J. Hendrick, the biographer of Walter Heine Page, writes, ‘Part of the cavalry encamped in the Page yard; their horses ate the bark of the mimosa trees; an army corps built its camp fires under the great oaks, and cut their emblems on the trunks; the officers took possession of the house, a colonel making his headquarters in the parlour. Several looting cavalrymen ran their swords through the beds, probably looking for hidden silver; the hearth was torn up in the same feverish quest; angry at their failure, they emptied sacks of flour and scattered the contents in the bedrooms and on the stairs; for days the flour, intermingled with feathers from the bayonetted beds, formed a carpet all over the house’. ³ Soldiers, like children, are the same all over the world. It was not for their ruthlessness that the Marathas lost their empire. The cause must be sought elsewhere.
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³ *The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page*, Vol. I, p. 10.
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The Southern states soon forgot the war atrocities: ‘The mimosa bloomed, the cotton was planted again, and the peach trees blossomed; and the barnyard and the stable again became full of life.’ The same thing happened in Maharashtra when peace was re-established. The temples were repaired, the village walls were restored, the peasant again cultivated his lands and his wife became busy with her household duties. But here the parallel ends. In the meantime the Peshwa lost his empire, his feudatories acknowledged the supremacy of the British Government and the Maratha soldier changed his taste so completely that half a century later Lord Roberts classed the Marathas with the Madrasis and the Bengalees as a non-martial race.