Advait wrote:"They had better horses/chariots" is not a valid excuse. It's not like they had F-22 and we had MiG-21
onlee.
Horses are very important factor. Kindly visit Airavat ji's blog for description of various horse breeds.
Lets discuss the war strategy of Panipat 3.0
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 5#p1010945
I am very bad at making images and I have used phata chappal MS paint to make these very crude sketches. Please to indulge me.
1. the left flank of Marathas was Semi european styled Artillery guarded by musketeers, archers, auxiliary cavalry to defend the attacks and marks men.
Maratha artillery was heavy artillery. They used to dig approximately 6 feet deep trenches around the cannons for the reason that the men firing the canon (after lighting the charge) used to jump in those trenches filled with water to save their ears (very big bang). The positions around artillery are fortified to make enemy cavalry charge difficult. this is to be expected.
One has to imagine the way lines moved ahead. there was huge contingent of laborers who had to go ahead, dig and entrenchments, push the artillery ahead by means of bullocks and elephants, ferry them safely back, dig the water trenches around each cannon for the artillery men to jump. this is when the artillery was ready to fire again. till this time, it was vulnerable and was duty of auxiliary cavalry, musketeers, archers, pikemen to defend the artillery when they were in motion.
2. The personal guard of Peshwa known as "Huzuraat" (I think it was 15000 strong contingent, I will have to check the figures). This was made up of elite arabian horses. This contingent was highly disciplined, trained and most loyal and feared contingent of Maratha army. They were maintained by Peshwa himself out of his own purse and were provided with best of weapons, armor available then in India. The other cavalry contingents were maintained by various sardars of different statures. Not all of them could afford expensive arabian horses and maintain them accordingly.
The height of "deccani" horse is less than that of arabic or central asian horses. Naturally, the distance covered by taller horse in one gallop is more than distance covered by a shorter horse in one gallop. Furthermore, the stamina of Deccani horses was bit less than other breeds of horses. When the lines advance, this distance can increase thereby creating a gap in the advancing cavalry lines. This can be avoided by drilling all horses to charge in unison on mutually acceptable speeds and distances. Such small things accumulate to big errors which swing the battles. Distance of effective charge is also different. Most of the Deccani horses of Marathas were half starved (so were men) and were exhausted when they crossed 2 km of battle field and dashed against lines of Abdali.
For that, there has to be an effective command and control sequence which needs to be clear to every last soldier and non-fighting unit of army. This sequence of commands were evolved in India for cavalry based warfare. But aligning it with artillery is a trick.
Few pages ago, Airavatji has discussed about time taken by the contemporary artillery to reload and be ready to fire. This was about 90 minutes during Babar's era. I will have to search for documents regarding the time for reloading in Maratha era, but lets assume after 200 years of progress, the time reduced to 30 minutes. After an opening salvo by artillery, musketeers and pikemen had to defend the line while the role of cavalry is to charge when morale of enemy is about to waver an then drive them off, killing as many as possible during enemy column's flight. However they should not go too far and should return back to the safe-zone before 30 minutes. If they venture too far and/or linger too long, they may come under friendly fire. (This is what happened. Ibrahim khan had to stop firing because along with pathans, Marathas too came under his range.)
This is where the efficacy of horse shows up. If there is proper command and control sequence, the differential capabilities of different horses are used differently. This is the concept of 19th century napoleonic wars which happened 40 years later. But at that time, it was still evolving. The Most trusted general of Bhau, Balwantrao died in sneak pathan attack few days earlier. He was the main adviser and together with him, Bhau was in process of make these factions (old school favouring cavalry based warfare [Shinde Holkar and old stalwarts of army] and new school favouring pitch battle with artillery and infantry as centre [Bhau and Ibrahim khan]) work together.
The strategy worked fine until about late afternoon after which two three effects started showing up their presence. The Uttarayan effect of sun (battle was faught on Makar Sankranti of 1761, thus making it very inauspicious festival for Maharashtrians henceforth), the sunlight in early dusk (15:00 hours onwards) started falling on eyes of Marathas. Vishwasrao was killed by a sneak cannon ball (Jamburiya). The Right flank (Shindes) were not making any progress. Holkar did not fight at all. Left flank of Marathas had destroyed right flank of Abdali. Maratha Centre (Peshwa and his Huzuraat) had destroyed the Vazir and Shah wali (centre of Abdali). But Abdali left was not falling and Shindes were struggling. When you check the figures in the link I have cited, Maratha centre (Bhau) had come in firing range of Maratha artillery. So the most effective regiment of Marathas was silenced by their own lack of coordination.
Meanwhile the 10,000 reserve of Abdali came to rescue of Pathans and rest is history.
The overenthusiasm of sardars like Vinchurkar, gaikwad when they pursued the enemy too far and lingered in the firing zone for too long showed the initial chinks in maratha armor. The ego was hurt too (Muslim Ibrahim khan seen as more successful than Hindu Marathas). which prompted them to show "more bravery" than Ibrahimkhan. Of course, in artillery-infantry based pitched battles, things don't work this way. Napoleon beautifully amalgamated these two, but that was 40 years later in different space and time.
tsarkar wrote:A better strategy would have been a dual leadership with Raghunath Rao as military leader and Sadashiv Rao as adminstrator. Ofcourse, given the one-upmanship between them, it wouldnt have worked well.
However, successful campaigns have military and administrative leaders work hand in hand. Man Singh captured territories for Akbar while Todar Mal implemented administrative reforms. They didnt have any conflict of interest.
To recover money, Marathas levied Chauth and Sardeshmukhi on Rajputs earning their ire. Malhar Rao Holkar had earlier attempted to storm Bharatpur leading to his son being killed and had sworn revenge on Suraj Mal. Malhar being an advisor to Sadashivrao didnt endear Suraj Mal.
I am no fan of Raghunath Rao, given what he did to his nephew in his lust of power, but "dogs of war" like him could certainly be better used. Keeping him in the frontier fighting wars would have also kept the peace at Maratha heartlands.
Raghoba did not have brain of his own. His negligence squandered off all the goodwill that his father Bajirao-1 had earned. He worked on advice of his Sardars. Furthermore, I refuse to think of him as a good soldier too. 2 years after Panipat, in battle of Rakshasbhuvan in 1763 between Peshwa and Nizam, he foolishly let himself get trapped. He was completely encircled and was about to be killed by Nizam army.
true to his nature, Malharrao Holkar advised 15 year old Madhavrao-1 Peshwa to retreat from a "lost cause", just like he has "retreated" from Panipat. 15 year old Madhavrao scolded this 60 year old "veteran" ordered him to stay put and not abandon the field and took his personal bodyguard of 200 horses and led such a charge that it changed the fortunes of the battle. The loosing battle was won by the heavy charge of 200 horses under this young peshwa and aftermaths were so humiliating for Nizam that there was peace between Nizam and Marathas for next 30 years (1795, battle of Kharda, last united stand of Marathas).
This shows the ineptness of raghoba and brazen honourless character of Malharrao. While this stand had given them victory during their expansive stage, the nature of world was changing. Such fleeing tactics are of no use for an empire with ambition to establish pax-indica. They have to stay put and be seen as "just" protectors. This is what Bhau and Madhavrao were trying to prove.
On Panipat, marathas were lost, but the "idea" of India re-emerged victorious after 800 years of hibernation. "India" ruled by "Indians" was the mantra of Bhau, time and again. There are numerous letters from him, Peshwa and Raghoba suggesting the same. And that "India" started from "Kabul river" and not Sutlaj. Raghoba lacked the stern character to make such principled stand. He lacked imagination too, to plan and execute intensive campaigns. It was only stern rationing of Bhau which convinced eased the starving of maratha army. the indulgence of Raghoba would have spelt doom much early.
Regarding jats and Sikhs please read it
here. To summarize, Shuja was better choice than Surajmal. Better equipped, better financed and whose long term goals were not inconsistent with Marathas. Sikhs had not yet organized into misls. The region was ravaged recently by Abdali and was not in position to support and maintain the column of million living beings (men, horses, elephants, bullocks, cows etc) for such extended duration. Sikhs did help Marathas in their Attock campaign (Alasingh accompanied Raghoba with his men).
Rajput maratha relations are interesting. By 16tth-17th century, Rajputs had been intricately networked with Mughals. The Islamic rebellion of 1580s was quelled by Akbar using rajputs (as Airavat ji had shown). They were linked to Mughals and their other networks by means of marital alliances as well. Thus, for all practical purposes, 18th century Rajputs were extensions of Mughals (so some extent, there are notable exceptions, but that will be out of scope here. Airavat ji can illustrate on this better). For Marathas who were new to this politics of north, there were too many undercurrents which they took time to understand.
Bajirao-1 had kept amicable relations with Rajputana states by far and large. After his death, the empire became so heavily entangled in politics of North and South (Kaveri basin and south of Krishna-Tungabhadra river) that it was very hectic for nanasaheb to maintain his personal presence everywhere. Furthermore, unlike his father, he was not a soldier by character. He was an armchair politician of excellent calibre.
Something akin to East-west division of Roman empire, the division of seat of Peshwa with one branch handling North and another handling south would have been the solution. This was the primary motivation of sending Raghoba to north. But he returned to Pune immediately. So nanasaheb sent the first officer of empire, Bhau to North. That ended in Panipat. After Panipat, the understanding between Madhavrao-1 and Nana Phadnavis and Mahadaji Shinde ensured this division of political responsibilities. they maintained excellent communication throughout with minor glitches, thus ensuring the policies of northern seat and southern seat were in coherence.
Panipat and earlier Attock was not meant to be a military campaign. It was meant to be a colonizing campaign to stablize North. With Bhau stablizing somewhere near Delhi, Peshwa would have been free to take care of Nizam, Hyder and southern kings of arcot and malabar, along with british. Shinde was already given the province of bengal and was on his way. Perhaps, Bhau would have seated at Gwalior or somewhere in Ganga valley (Western UP, strong hold of Ummah), close to Delhi after his stabilization.
siege of Barwada was much later in 1757. Almost decade after 1748 Japiur massacre. Madho singh is very shady character. 
