The Third Battle of Panipat 1761

The Strategic Context: The Afghan-Maratha Conflict

The Third Battle of Panipat was the culminating engagement of a long struggle between the Maratha Confederacy and the Afghan empire of Ahmad Shah Abdali for the control of northern India. The Marathas, under the leadership of the Peshwa Baji Rao I and his successors, had extended their authority over much of central and northern India in the years following the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, and by the 1750s they were the dominant power in the subcontinent. The Afghan invasion of India, undertaken by Ahmad Shah Abdali in response to a Maratha incursion into the Punjab, was the fourth of his Indian campaigns, and it was conducted on a much larger scale than its predecessors.

The Maratha decision to meet the Afghan invasion in pitched battle, rather than to withdraw into the Deccan as they had done in the previous Afghan campaigns, was taken in the winter of 1760 by the Peshwa’s son, Sadashiv Rao Bhau, who assumed command of the Maratha army. Sadashiv Rao was joined by the Peshwa’s eldest son, Vishwas Rao, and by a substantial body of Maratha cavalry and infantry. The Maratha army marched north from the Deccan in the autumn of 1760, and the two forces met on the plain of Panipat in the following January.

The Two Armies

The Afghan army of Ahmad Shah Abdali was a substantial force, perhaps fifty to sixty thousand men, including a strong body of Afghan cavalry, a substantial infantry contingent armed with matchlocks, a powerful artillery train, and a number of Indian Muslim allies. The principal Indian Muslim allies were the Rohillas of the upper Ganges plain, particularly the Rohilla chief Najib ud-Daulah, and the Nawab of Awadh, Shuja ud-Daulah. The Afghan army was drawn up in the classic Central Asian formation, with the qulam in the vanguard, the qarawal on the right, the jawwal on the left, and the reserve in the centre. The principal tactical reserve was a corps of Afghan heavy cavalry under the command of the Afghan chief, and the artillery was deployed in the centre of the line.

The Maratha army, commanded by Sadashiv Rao Bhau, was somewhat smaller, perhaps forty to fifty thousand men, but it was composed largely of the celebrated Maratha light cavalry, the bargi and shiledar horsemen who had been the backbone of Maratha expansion since the time of Shivaji. The Maratha army included a substantial body of Mahratta infantry, a number of artillery pieces, and a contingent of Rajput allies from the Rajput states of central India. The Maratha army was, however, weakened by the absence of significant support from the Sikh chiefs of the Punjab, the Jat rulers of Bharatpur, and the Rajput states of Rajasthan, all of whom had been approached by the Marathas but had declined to provide substantial assistance.

The Military Operations

The battle opened on the morning of 14 January 1761 with a series of cavalry skirmishes between the two armies. The Marathas attempted to envelop the Afghan flanks with their celebrated light cavalry tactics, but the Afghan heavy cavalry, supported by the Rohilla infantry and the Afghan artillery, repeatedly repulsed the Maratha charges. The Maratha centre, commanded by Vishwas Rao, made a determined attack on the Afghan artillery, but the attack was repulsed with substantial loss, and Vishwas Rao was killed in the fighting.

The death of Vishwas Rao was a severe blow to the Maratha morale, and Sadashiv Rao Bhau attempted to rally the army by personally leading a charge against the Afghan centre. The charge was repulsed with substantial loss, and Sadashiv Rao was himself killed in the fighting. The Maratha army, deprived of its commanders, broke and fled, and the Afghan cavalry pursued the fugitives for several miles. The losses on the Maratha side were catastrophic: by contemporary estimates, perhaps twenty to thirty thousand Marathas were killed in the battle and the subsequent pursuit, and the Maratha army was effectively destroyed.

The Role of the Rohillas, the Jats, and the Rajputs

The role of the Indian Muslim allies of Ahmad Shah Abdali, particularly the Rohilla chief Najib ud-Daulah, was a substantial one. The Rohilla cavalry and infantry, drawn from the Pashtun tribes of the upper Ganges plain, formed a substantial component of the Afghan army, and Najib ud-Daulah played a leading role in the planning of the battle. The Nawab of Awadh, Shuja ud-Daulah, also contributed a substantial contingent, and the combined Indian Muslim support was a major factor in the Afghan victory.

The absence of substantial support from the Jat and Rajput rulers was equally important. The Jat ruler of Bharatpur, Suraj Mal, had been approached by the Marathas for assistance, but he had declined to provide substantial support, and the Rajput rulers of Rajasthan had also declined to commit substantial forces to the Maratha campaign. The refusal of the Jat and Rajput rulers to support the Marathas was a consequence of the long history of Maratha raids into their territories, and it was a major factor in the Maratha defeat.

The Aftermath and the Long-Term Significance

The immediate aftermath of the battle was the destruction of the Maratha army and the death of the Peshwa’s heir. The Peshwa Baji Rao II, who had remained in the Deccan during the campaign, was shattered by the news, and the Maratha Confederacy was plunged into a prolonged succession crisis. The Afghan army, weakened by the losses of the campaign and unable to follow up its victory, withdrew to Afghanistan in the spring of 1761, and the political vacuum in northern India was gradually filled by the rising power of the British East India Company.

The long-term significance of the battle was substantial. The destruction of the Maratha army weakened the principal Indian rival to the British East India Company, and the gradual British expansion into the subcontinent, treated in detail on the British East India Company and the Mughals page, was a direct consequence of the Maratha defeat. The decline of the Mughal Empire, examined on the Mughal decline page, was also accelerated by the battle, for the Mughal emperor, nominally the sovereign of northern India, was unable to take advantage of the Maratha defeat to reassert his own authority. The battle is also notable as the last of the great set-piece engagements of the Indian military tradition, and it marks the end of an era in Indian military history.

Sources

• Jadunath Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. I (1932), pp. 95–140.