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The Battle of Panipat took place on January 14, 1761 at Panipat (Haryana State, India) about 80 miles north of Delhi, between the Maratha forces of north-western India aiding their allies, the Mughal Empire, and Afghan forces under Ahmad Shah Abdali,

The battle pitted the French-supplied and trained artillery of the Marathas against the famous light cavalry of the Afghans. The matchup would have been rather one sided in favour of the Marathas had not their own cavarly decided to charge under unfavourable conditions, leading to their defeat. Both forces were so heavily attritted that the Mughal empire fell, the expansion of the Maratha's power ended, and Ahmad Shah's Durrani Empire suffered continual attacks by the growing Sikh power and eventually retired to the north of Kandahar. The Marathas had also persued his fleeing army right upto Attock at the foothills of Afganistan in 1756 under Raghobadada.

Prelude to Panipat

The Mughal Empire of north-western India had been in decline for some time after Ahmad Shah's first attacks against them in 1749, eventually culminating in his sacking of Delhi in 1757. He left them in nominial control however, which proved to be a fateful mistake when his son, Timur Shah, proved to be utterly incapible of maintaining control of the Afghan troops. Soon the local Sikh population rose in revolt and asked for the protection of the Marathas, who were soon in Lahore. Timur ran for the hills of Afghanistan.

Ahmad Shah could not allow this to go unchecked, and in 1759 rose an army from the Pashtun tribes with help from the Baloch, and invaded India once again. By the end of the year they had reached Lahore, but Marathas continued to pour into the conflict and by 1760 had formed a huge single army of over 100,000 to block him.

After lots of manouvering and skirmishes at Karnal and Kunjapura and failing to prevent Abdali crossing Yamuna river they set up defensive works in the excellent ground near Panipat, they blocked Ahmad's access back to Afghanistan and Abdali blocked theirs to south. Abdali slowly tightened the noose by cutting off Maratha Army's supply lines. Sikhs and Jats (with the exception of Ala Singh) did not supplied Marathas. When their supplies and stores dwindled to nothing, the Marathas then moved in almost 150 pieces of modern long-range rifled french made artillery. With a range of several kilometres, these guns were some of the best and latest in the world and a powerful force that had previously made the Marathas invincible on the battlefield.

Siege

The Afghan forces arrived in late 1760 to find the Marathas in well-prepared works. Realizing a direct attack was hopeless, they set up for a siege. The resulting face-off lasted two months. During this time Ahmad continued to receive supplies from locals, but the Marathas own supply line was cut off.

Realizing the situation was not in their favour, the Marathas under Sadashiv Bhau decided to break the siege. His plan was to pulverise the enemy formations with cannon fire and not to employ his cavalry until the Muslims were throughly softened up. With the Afghans now broken, he would move camp in a defensive formation towards Delhi, where they were assured supplies.

The line would be formed up some 12km across, with the artillery in front, protected by infantry, pikemen, musketeers and bowmen. The cavalry was instructed to wait behind the artillery nad bayonet wielding musteteers, ready to be thrown in when control of battlefield had been fully established.

Behind this line was another ring of 30,000 young Maratha soldiers who were not battle tested, and then the roughly 30,000 civilians entrained. Many were middle class men, women and children on their piligrimage to the Hindu holy places and shrines, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Aryavarta (Aryan Land). The civilians were supremely confident in the Maratha army, regarding it as one of the best in the world, and definitely one of the most powerful in Asia. Behind the civilians was yet another protective infantry line, of young inexperienced soldiers.

Battle opens

Before dawn on January 14, 1761 the Maratha forces emerged from the trenches, pushing the artillery into position on their pre-arranged lines, some 2km from the Afghans. Seeing that the battle was on, Ahmad positioned his 60 smoothbore cannon and opened fire. However, because of the short range of the weapons, the Maratha lines remained untouched. Ahmad then launched a cavalry attack to break their lines.

The first defensive salvo of the Marathas went over the Afghans' heads and inflicted very little damage, but the Afghan attack was nevertheless broken by Maratha bowmen and pikemen, along with some famed Maratha gardi musketeers stationed close to the artillery positions. The second and subsequent salvos were fired at point blank range, and the resulting carnage sent the Afghans reeling back to their lines. The European-style plan had worked just as envisioned.

The Marathas then started moving their infantry formation forward, led by the artillery. The Afghans responded with repeated cavalry attacks, all of which failed. About 17,000 Afghan cavalry and infantrymen lost their lives in this opening stage of the battle. Gaping holes were opened in their ranks, and in some places the Afghans and their Indian Muslim allies began to run away.

The Marathas cavalry charge

At this stage it looked as though Bhausaheb would clinch victory for the Marathas once again. However, some of the Maratha lieutenants, jealous of the exploits of their artillery chief (Commandant de la gard - Ibrahim khan Gardi), decided to exploit the gaps in the enemy lines & dash; despite strict instructions not to charge or engage Afghan cavalry in hand to hand fight. The mass of Maratha horsemen raced through their own artillery lines and charged towards the demoralised Afghans, intending to cut the faltering army in two.

The over-enthausiasm of the charge saw many of the half starved Maratha horses exhausted long before they had traveled the two kilometres to the Afghan lines; some simply collasped. Making matters worse was the suffocating odour of the rotting corpses of men and animals left on the field from the fighting of the previous months. Still, a major mass of Maratha cavalry collided with the Afgan cavalry, initially taking down a few thouands Afghans.

In response, the Afghan officers stiffened their troops resistance. Abdali sent his body gaurds to call up his reserves of 40,000 from his camp and arranged it as column right in front his and cavalry of musketeers, and swivel mounted cannons on the back of camels. because of their positioning on camels they could fire an extensive salvo over the heads of their own infantry and at the Maratha cavalry, who were unable to withstand the rifled muskets and camel-mounted swivel cannons of the Afghans.

With their own men in the firing line, the Maratha artillery could not respond, and about 7,000 Maratha cavalry and infantry perished before the hand to hand fighting began at around 2PM. By 4PM the tired Maratha infantry began to succumb to the onslaught of attacks from fresh Afghan reserves, protected by armoured leather jackets.

Attack from within

The Maratha's Muslim logistics infantrymen (Rohillas), who had not been trusted to fight in the front line because their loyalty was suspect—or, rather, who were suspected of being loyal to the Koran or fellow Muslims and not to their country— now responded to the calls of the Afghan army for jihad and revolted. This caused brought confusion and great consternation to loyal Maratha soldiers, who thought that the enemy has attacked from behind.

Sadashivrao Bhau, seeing his forward lines dwindling and civilians behind, could not move forward his young soldiers as reserves from behind and felt he had no choice but to come down from his elephant and take a direct part in the battle on horseback at the head of his troops. He left instructions with his bodyguards that, if the battle were lost, they must kill his wife Parvati bai, as he could not abide the thought of her being dishonoured by Afghans.

Some Maratha soldiers, seeing that their general had disappeared from his elephant, panicked and began to flee. Vishwasrao, the son of Prime Minister Nanasaheb, had already fallen to Afghan stray shot, in the head. Sadashivrao Bhau and his loyal bodyguards fought to the end, the Maratha leader having three horses shot out from under him.

Rout

The Afghans pursued the fleeing Maratha army and the civilians, while the Maratha front lines ramined largely intact, with some of their artillery units fighting until sundown. Choosing not to launch a night attack, made good their escape that night. Parvati bai escaped the armageddon with her bodyguards, and eventually returned to Pune.

The Massacre

Mass of surrendered Maratha souldiers were handcuffed and then murdered, their heads chopped off by Afgans to earn blessings for killing Kafirs on account of their families back in afganistan.

The Afghan cavalry and pikemen ran wild through the streets of Panipat, killing any Maratha soldiers or civilians who offered resistance. About 6,000 women and children sought shelter with India Shuja (allies of Abdali) whose Hindu officers persuaded him to protect them. Another 22,000 women and children seeking refuge in streets of panipat were hounded back in afgan camps as slaves. Children over 14 were beheaded before their own mothers and sisters. Women were made to carry the sewered heads of Marathas to the afgan army accountant so the afgan soldiers earned 1 silver coin per head brought in.

Afghan officers who had lost their kin in battle were permitted to carry out masscres the next day, also in Panipat and the surrounding area. They arranged victory mounds of severed heads outside their camps. About 10,000 Maratha civilians and soldiers alike were slain this way on 15th January 1761. Many of the fleeing Maratha women jumped into the Panipat well rather than risk rape and dishonour. Many others did their best to hide in the streets of Panipat when even the North Indian Hindus of the town refused to give them refuge.

Abdali's soldiers took about 22,000 women and young children and brought them to their camps. The women were raped in the camp, many committed suicide because of constant rapes perpetrated on them. All of the prisoners were exchanged or sold as sex slaves to Afghanistan or North India, transported on bullock carts, camels and elephants in bamboo cages.

A conservative estimate places Maratha losses at 45,000 on the Panipat battlefield itself, and another 20,000 or more in surrounding areas besides atleast 22,000 women and children as prisoners and slaves. The Afghans are thought to have lost some 30,000.

Following the battle

To save their kingdom, and in the name of Islam the Mughals once again changed sides and welcomed the Afghans to Delhi quickly forgetting that Marathas had just lost 100,000 men women for their cause.. However the news soon rose that Marathas in the south had organised another 100,000 men to avenge their loss and rescue the prisoners. He left Delhi two months after the battle, heading for Afghanistan with his loot of 500 elephants, 1500 camels, 50,000 horses and atleast about 22,000 women and children.

The Mughals remained in nominal control over small areas of India, but were never a force again. The empire officially ended in 1857 when its last emperor was accused of being involved in the Sepoy Mutiny and exiled.

The Marathas expansion was stopped in the battle, and soon broke into infighting within their empire. They never regained any unity, and were soon under increasing pressure from the British. Their claims to empire were officially ended in 1818.

Meanwhile the Sihks, were left largely untouched by the battle. They soon re-took Lahore. When Ahmad returned in March 1764 he was forced to break off his siege after only two weeks due to rebellion in Afghanistan. He returned again in 1767, but was unable to win any decisive battle. With his own troops arguing over a lack of pay, he eventually adbandoned the district to the Sihks, who reamained in control until 1849.

This 3rd battle of Panipat was scene of highest no. of casulties and deaths in a signle day battle perhaps unmatched even today in the world. It was the seen of uncommon valour, unwanted strategic blunders, murders of prisoners of war, rapes on women on unparallel scale. It was the holocaust for Marathas.