Part 2 (2/2)
Having concluded these operations, the invader retired into cantonments at Anupshahar, on the Ganges, and there proceeded to parcel out the Empire among such of the Indian chiefs as he delighted to honour. He then appointed Najib to the office of Amir-ul-umra, an office which involved the personal charge of the Palace and its inmates; and departed to his own country, from which he had lately received some unsatisfactory intelligence.
The Emperor endeavoured to engage his influence to bring about a marriage which he desired to contract with a daughter of the penultimate Emperor, Muhammad Shah: but the Abdali, on his attention being drawn to the young lady, resolved upon espousing her himself. He at the same time married his son Timur Shah to the daughter of the heir apparent, and, having left that son in charge of the Panjab, retired with the bulk of his army to Kandahar.
Relieved for the present from his anxieties, the Minister gave sway to that morbid cruelty which detracted from the general sagacity of his character. He protected himself against his numerous enemies by subsidizing a vast body-guard of Mahratta mercenaries, to pay whom he was led to the most merciless exactions from the immediate subjects of the Empire. He easily expelled Najib (who since his elevation must be distinguished by his honorific name of Najib ud daula, ”Hero of the State”): he destroyed or kept in close confinement the n.o.bles who favoured the Emperor, and even sought to lay hands upon the heir apparent, Ali Gohar.
This prince was now in his seven-and-thirtieth year, and exhibited all those generous qualities which we find in the men of his race as long as they are not enervated by the voluptuous repose of the Palace. He had been for some time residing in a kind of open arrest in the house of Ali Mardan Khan, a fortified building on the banks of the river. Here he learned that the Minister contemplated transferring him to the close captivity of Salim Garh, the state prison which stood within the precincts of the Palace. Upon this he consulted with his companions, Rajah Ramnath and a Musalman gentleman, Saiyid Ali, who with four private troopers agreed to join in the hazardous enterprise of forcing their way through the bands which by this time invested the premises. Early the following morning they descended to the courtyard and mounted their horses in silence.
There was no time to spare. Already the bolder of the a.s.sailants had climbed upon the neighbouring roofs, from which they began to fire upon the little garrison, while their main forces guarded the gateway. But it so happened that there was a breach in the wall upon the river side, at the rear of the premises. By this the Prince and his friends galloped out, and without a moment's hesitation plunged their horses into the broad Jamna. One alone, Saiyid Ali, stayed behind, and single-handed held the pursuers at bay until the prince had made good his escape. The loyal follower paid for his loyalty with his life. The fugitives found their way to Sikandra, which was the centre of Najib's new fief; and the Prince, after staying some time under the protection of the Amir-ul-Umra, ultimately reached Lucknow, where, after a vain attempt to procure the co-operation of the new Viceroy in an attack upon the British, he was eventually obliged to seek the protection of that alien power.
Ahmad the Abdali being informed of these things by letters from Dehli, prepared a fresh incursion; the rather that Adina Beg, with the help of the Mahrattas had at the same time chased his son, Timur Shah, from Lahor; while with another force they had expelled Najib from his new territory, and forced him to seek safety in his forts in the Bawani Mahal. The new Viceroy of Audh raised the Rohillas and his own immediate followers in the Abdali's name; the Mahrattas were driven out of Rohilkand; and the Afghans, crossing the Jamna in Najib's territory to the north of Dehli, arrived once more at Anupshahar about September, 1759, whence they were enabled to hold uninterrupted communication with Audh.
The ruthless Ghazi was now almost at the end of his resources. He therefore resolved to play his last card, and either win all by the terror of his monstrous crime, or lose all, and retire from the game.
The harmless Emperor, amongst his numerous foibles, cherished the pardonable weakness of a respect for the religious mendicants, who form one of the chronic plagues of Asiatic society. Taking advantage of this, a Kashmirian in the interest of the Minister took occasion to mention to Alamgir that a hermit of peculiar sanct.i.ty had recently taken up his abode in the ruined fort of Firozabad, some two miles south of the city, and (in those days) upon the right bank of the Jamna, which river has now receded to a considerable distance. The helpless devotee resolved to consult with this holy man, and repaired to the ruins in his palanquin.
Arrived at the door of the room, which was in the N.E. corner of the palace of Firoz Shah, he was relieved of his arms by the Kashmirian, who admitted him, and closed the entrance. A cry for aid being presently heard was gallantly responded to by Mirza Babar, the emperor's son-in-law, who attacked and wounded the sentry, but was overpowered and sent to Salim Garh in the Emperor's litter. The latter meanwhile was seized by a savage Uzbek, named Balabash, who had been stationed within, and who sawed off the defenceless monarch's head with a knife. Then stripping off the rich robe he cast the headless trunk out of the window, where it lay for some hours upon the sands until the Kashmirian ordered its removal. The date of this tragic event is between the 10th and 30th of November, 1759 (the latter being the day given by Dowson, vol. viii. p. 243). The late Minister, Intizam-ud-Daula, had been murdered by order of his successor three days earlier. A grandson of Kam Bakhsh (the unfortunate son of Aurangzeb) was then taken out of the Salim Garh and proclaimed Emperor by the sonorous t.i.tle of ”Shah Jahan II.” But he is not recognised on the list of emperors, and his reign - such as it was - lasted but a moment. Ghazi - (or Shahab) ud-din attempted to reproduce the policy of the Sayyids by governing behind this puppet; but the son of the murdered emperor proclaimed himself in Bihar (v. inf.), and Ahmad the Abdali moved against Ghazi, as we shall see in the next chapter. Discretion was the only part of valour left, and the young and unscrupulous politician fled to Bhartpur, where he found a temporary asylum with Suraj Mal.
As this restless criminal here closes his public life, it may be once for all mentioned that he reluctantly and slowly retired to Farukhabad, where he remained till Shall Alam came there in 1771 (inf. p. 98); that being driven from thence at the Restoration he once more became a wanderer, and spent the next twenty years of his life in disguise and total obscurity; till being accidentally discovered by the British police at Surat, about 1791, he was, by the Governor-General's orders, allowed to depart with a small sum of money to Mecca, the refuge of many a Mohamadan malcontent.
Returning thence he visited Kabul, where he joined one of the Dehli princes in an attempted invasion of India. The prince went mad at Multan, and Ghazi, leaving him there, went on to Bandelkhand, where he received a grant of land on which he chiefly pa.s.sed the remainder of his days. He died in 1800, and was buried at Pakpatan in the Panjab (v. Journal of the As. Soc.
of Bengal, No. CCXXVI. 1879, pp. 129, ff.)
The vengeance of the Abdali, therefore, fell upon the unoffending inhabitants of the capital - once more they were scourged with fire and sword. Leaving a garrison in the palace, the Abdali then quitted the almost depopulated city, and fell back on his old quarters at Anupshahar, where he entered into negotiations with the Rohillas, and with the Nawab of Audh, of which the result was a general combination of the Musalmans of Hindustan with a view of striking a decisive blow in defence of Islam. But these events will form the subject of a separate chapter.
CHAPTER VI.
The Campaign of Panipat.
THE Mahratta confederacy was in 1759 irresistible from the borders of Berar to the banks of the Ganges. On one side they were checked by the Nizam and Haidar, on the other by Shujaa-ud-daula, the young ruler of Audh. Between these limits they were practically paramount. To the westward a third Mohamadan power, the newly-formed Daurani empire, was no doubt a standing menace; but it is very possible that, with Ahmad Shah, as with the other Moslem chiefs, arrangements of a pacific nature might have been made. All turned upon the character and conduct of one man. That man was Sadasheo Rao, the cousin and minister of the Mahratta leader, the Peshwa, into whose hands had fallen the sway of Mahratta power. For their t.i.tular head, the descendant of Sivaji the original founder, was a puppet, almost a prisoner, such as we, not many years ago, considered the Mikado of j.a.pan.
The state of the country is thus described by a contemporary historian, quoted by Tod: - ”The people of Hindustan at this period thought only of personal safety and gratification. Misery was disregarded by those who escaped it; and man, centred solely in self, felt not for his kind. This selfishness, destructive of public, as of private, virtue, became universal in Hindustan after the invasion of Nadir Shah; nor have the people become more virtuous since, and consequently are neither happy nor more independent.”
Ahmad Khan (known as ”the Abdali”), whom we are now to recognise as Ahmad Shah, the Daurani emperor, returned to Hindustan (as stated in the last chapter) late in the summer, and marched to Dehli, when he heard of the murder of Alamgir II. The execrable Shahabuddin (or Ghazi-ud-din the younger) fled at his approach, taking refuge with the Jats. Mahratta troops, who had occupied some places of strength in the Panjab, were defeated and driven in. The capital was again occupied and plundered, after which the Shah retired to the territory of his ally Najib, and summoned to his standard the chiefs of the Rohillas. On the other hand the Mahrattas, inviting to their aid the leaders of the Rajputs and Jats, moved up from the South. They possessed themselves of the capital in December 1759.
The main force of the Mahrattas that left the Deccan consisted of 20,000 chosen horse, under the immediate command of the minister, Sadasheo, whom for convenience we may in future call by his t.i.tle of ”the Bhao.” He also took with him a powerful disciplined corps of 10,000 men, infantry and artillery, under a Mohamadan soldier of fortune, named Ibrahim Khan. This general had learned French discipline as commandant de la qarde to Bussy, and bore the t.i.tle, or nickname, of ”gardi,” a souvenir of his professional origin.
The Bhao's progress was joined by Mahratta forces under Holkar, Sindhia, the Gaikwar, Gobind Pant, and others. Many of the Rajput States contributed, and Suraj Mal brought a contingent of 20,000 hardy Jats. Hinduism was uniting for a grand effort; Islam was rallied into cohesion by the necessity of resistance. Each party was earnestly longing for the alliance of the s.h.i.+as under Shujaa, Viceroy of Audh, whose antecedents led men on both sides to look upon them as neutral.
The Bhao had much prestige. Hitherto always victorious, his personal reputation inspired great respect. His camp, enriched with the plunder of Hindustan, was on a scale of unwonted splendour. ”The lofty and s.p.a.cious tents,” says Grant-Duff, ”lined with silks and broadcloths, were surmounted by large gilded ornaments, conspicuous at a distance..... Vast numbers of elephants, flags of all descriptions, the finest horses, magnificently caparisoned .... seemed to be collected from every quarter .... it was an imitation of the more becoming and tasteful array of the Moghuls in the zenith of their glory.” Nor was this the only innovation. Hitherto the Mahrattas had been light hors.e.m.e.n, each man carrying his food, forage, bedding, head and heel ropes, as part of his accoutrements; marching fifty miles after a defeat, and then halting in complete readiness to ”fight another day.” Now, for the first time, they were to be supported by a regular park of artillery, and a regular force of drilled infantry. But all these seeming advantages only precipitated and rendered more complete and terrible their ultimate overthrow.
Holkar and Suraj Mal, true to the instincts of their old predatory experience, urged upon the Bhao, that regular warfare was not the game that they knew. They counselled, therefore, that the families and tents, and all heavy equipments, should be left in some strong place of safety, such as the almost impregnable forts of Jhansi and Gwalior, while their clouds of horse hara.s.sed the enemy and wasted the country before and round him. But the Bhao rejected these prudent counsels with contempt. He had seen the effect of discipline and guns in Southern war; and, not without a shrewd foresight of what was afterwards to be accomplished by a man then in his train, resolved to try the effect of scientific soldiers.h.i.+p, as he understood it. The determination proved his ruin; not because the instrument he chose was not the best, but because it was not complete, and because he did not know how to handle it. When Madhoji Sindhia, after a lapse of twenty years, mastered all Asiatic opposition by the employment of the same instrument, he had a European general, the Count de Boigne, who was one of the great captains of his age; and he allowed him to use his own strategy and tactics.
Then, the regular battalions and batteries, becoming the nucleus of the army, were moved with resolution and aggressive purpose, while the cavalry only acted for purposes of escort, reconnoissance, and pursuit. In the fatal campaign before us, we shall find the disciplined troops doing all that could fairly be expected of them under Asiatic leaders, but failing for want of numbers, and of generals.h.i.+p.
On arriving at Dehli, the Bhao surrounded the citadel in which was situated the palace of the emperors. It was tenanted by a weak Musalman force, which had been hastily thrown in under the command of a nephew of Shah Wali Khan, the Daurani Vazir. After a brief bombardment, this garrison capitulated, and the Bhao took possession and plundered the last remaining effects of the emperors, including the silver ceiling of the divan khas, which was thrown into the melting-pot and furnished seventeen lakhs of rupees ( 170,000).
Ahmad, in the meantime, was cantoned at Anupshahr, on the frontier of the Rohilla country, where he was compelled to remain while his negotiations with Shujaa were pending. So came on the summer of 1760, and the rainy season was at hand, during which, in an unbridged country, military operations could not be carried on. All the more needful that the time of enforced leisure should be given to preparation. Najib, the head of the Rohillas, was very urgent with the Shah that Shujaa should be persuaded to take part against the Mahrattas. He pointed out that, such as the Moghul empire might be, Shujaa was its Vazir. As Ahmad Shah had hitherto been foiled by the late Nawab Safdar Jang, it was for his majesty to judge how useful might be the friends.h.i.+p of a potentate whose predecessor's hostility had been so formidable.
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