The Third Battle of Panipat

The third battle of Panipat, fought on the frozen plain north of Delhi in January 1761, was among the largest and bloodiest battles of the eighteenth century and a decisive moment in the long struggle over the inheritance of the decaying Mughal empire. The Maratha confederacy, a great power risen in the Deccan, had carried its armies across India to the gates of the north-west. Against it came Ahmad Shah Durrani (rahimahu Allah), the Afghan king who had built the Durrani empire on the ruins of Nader Shah's, down through the passes with his army and joined by Indian-Muslim allies, chief among them the Rohillas and Shuja al-Dawla, the Nawab of Awadh. The two hosts faced each other for weeks on the historic field of Panipat, where the fate of the north had twice before been settled; the Afghan cavalry and the mobile camel-guns (zamburak) cut the Maratha supply lines, and hunger wore down their entrenched camp before the fighting began. When at last the Marathas came out to give battle, a long and terrible day ended in the breaking of their army. The number of dead, in the battle and the days that followed, ran into the tens of thousands and fell most heavily on the Marathas and the great host of non-combatants who had marched north with them, making it one of the costliest single days in the history of the subcontinent. The victory shattered the Maratha bid to succeed the Mughals as masters of India; but Ahmad Shah withdrew to Afghanistan, the Mughal emperor remained a shadow, and none of the contending powers could fill the void the battle left, so that into the disordered India of the following decades the British East India Company would steadily advance. This scene is set on the Afghan side of the field in the cold dawn: the Durrani camp with its camels, green banners and camel-mounted guns in the foreground, and the Maratha host ranged under its saffron banners across the plain. In keeping with the project's ethics the figures are anonymous and distant and the slaughter is not shown.