BATTLE OF PANIPAT ( All 3)

Panipat is a city in haryana district, 80 km from the capital city of Delhi. However, it witnessed several important wars throughout the history which continuously changed the fate of Indian subcontinent. Let’s learn about them.

WHAT WILL WE LEARN

• FIRST BATTLE OF PANIPAT
• SECOND BATTLE OF PANIPAT
• THIRD BATTLE OF PANIPAT
• CONCLUSION
• FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

FIRST BATTLE OF PANIPAT

The first is the list is the first battle of panipat. Ibrahim Lodhi and Babur fought it on 21 April 1526. This was a decisive battle which certainly completely changed the fate of India.As a result Mughal’s became next set of rulers who ruled for many generation. But how and why this battle started:

HISTORY:

LODHI Dynasty:

• The Lodhi dynasty was an AFGHAN dynasty that ruled DELHI Sultanate from 1451 to 1526.
• Bahlul Khan Lodhi formed Lodhi Dynasty.
• This dynasty succeeded Sayyid dynasty.

MUGHALS:

Footprints of mughals can be traced back to the mighty Genghis khan who once ruled all over central asia.

Timur was descendent of Genghis khan. Mughals were descendent of Timur.Consequently, his empire got divided into three parts. Safavids controlled area of modern Iran, Ottomans controlled modern day Turkey and surrounding area and uzbeks controlled area of modern day uzbekistan.

BACKGROUND

• Babur belonged to uzbek family and there was a constant power struggle among the entire community of uzbeks. In addition, several battles were fought out of which one was BATTLE OF SAMARKAND in which Babur lost for the second time.
• However, this made babur gave attention toward indian land as a motive of which he reached banks of river chenab in 1519.
• up until 1524,main motive of babur was to expand to punjab mainly to fulfill his forefather Taimurs legacy.
• And during 1524, that part which babur fantasied of conquering one day was under IBRAHIM LODHI and was constantly crumbling under his rule.
• No doubt Lodi was an excellent warrior but was a pathetic ruler, which made his empire prone to defects.
• His uncle Alaud din and Daulat Khan Lodhi, governor of punjab gave invitation to Babur because they were unhappy under ibrahim’s eccentric rule.
• Babur started for Lahore, punjab in 1524 where lodhi army marched out but his army was to be routed which made him march to dipalpur, placing Alam khan as governor.
• Alam khan was quickly overthrown and he fled to KABUL and later was joined by Daulat Khan lodhi and 30000 troops and went to fight lodhi to which they lost.
• Which made babur realised his army was way weaker to his enemy and he had to find another way to conquer punjab.

WAR DAY TACTICS

• This decisive war took place on 21 april 1526, and lasted to few hours. What made this war end so quick were the extraordinary tactics of babur.
• Babur knew Ibrahim lodi was stronger in terms of strength.
• He wanted his to be offensive. He divided his army into 3 parts right left and center
• Further divided left and right parts to rear and forward units and placed chained carts in between.
• They then surrounded lodhis army and started attacking by all directions with musket fire, cannon fire and cavalry, which made lodhi fall.

AFTERMATH

• Around 20000 soldiers along with IBRAHIM LODI died on battle field.
• It certainly, paved the way for Mughals to indian subcontinent

ALSO LEARN ABOUT : INDO CHINA WAR

SECOND BATTLE OF PANIPAT

Hemu and Akbar fought Second Battle of Panipat on October 1556. This battle took many twist and turns and ultimately fate favoured akbar which helped him revive his empire.

BACKGROUND

Mughal

1. Babur’s son Humayun lost to Sher Shah Suri and as a result was forced to leave India. Sher shah suri established Sur empire in 1540 in delhi and agra but he died soon in 1545.
2. His younger son Islam Shah Suri succeeded him and died in 1553.
3. Suri empire was in succession battle after this incident.
4. Humayun as soon as he heard of Islam’s death came to regain control over Delhi and Agra.He did so by defeating Sikandar Shah suri in 23 July 1555.
5. Subsequently, Adil Shah succeeded Sikandar Shah Suri by assassinating 12 year son of Islam suri.

Hemu

1. During the reign of Islam shah suri, Hemu emerged as superintendent of market of Delhi and gradually ranked up to administrator and was now a high ranking officer and started building his own army and was completely given command of army.
2. His desire was to throw mughals out of India and re establish its ancient values certainly.
3. He was a highly capable military mind and won 22 wars for Adil shah.

ALSO LEARN ABOUT : COLD WAR

Starting of war:

• Humayun died on 26 January 1556. Hemu was in Bengal at that time and it was certainly an ideal opportunity for him to regain his lost territory.
• As a result, hemu started a rapid march from Bengal towards delhi covering all major cities in between. Upon hearing the of hemu invasion, agra’s governor evacuated and fled the city.
• Hemu reached Tughlaqabad and defeated Tardi Beg Khan the mughal governor in Battle of Tughlaqabad. Tardi Beg Khan somehow managed to fled and reached to Bairam khan to warn him about hemu when he beheaded him.

WAR DAY

• ON 5 November, 1556 again in field of panipat the battle starts. This time between Bairam Khan ( on behalf of Akbar) and Hemu.
• Bairam khan remained 8 miles away from the battle ground because Mughal army war led by Ali Quli Khan. With his 10,000 cavalry in centre with support from left and right sides.
• On the other hand, Hemu had an army of 30,000 strong cavalry, Afghan horsemen and 500 elephants.
• Hemu continued destroying mughal army himself, he was at the verge of victory but from nowhere an arrow came and struck hemu’s eyes. He went unconscious and seeing him in this condition broke formation of his army and hemu lost. MUGHALS won by sheer luck.

AFTERMATH:

1. Bairam khan beheaded Hemu. He was sent to Kabul and body was hanged at Delhi gate.
2. Hemu’s soldiers too met with the same fate as their king.
3. As a result,Akbar then regained control and ruled for a long period in India.

THIRD BATTLE OF PANIPAT

This battle certainly changed history of India to a new direction . It was fought between Marathas and Ahmad Shah Abdali along with his allies from north India on 14 January 1761 at Panipat. This battle is considered one of the largest battle of 18^th century and records largest number of fatalities between two armies on a single day.

THE PESHWAS:

They were the Marathas rulers which expanded their territories to a large extent. Some prominent figures were Balaji rao, Balaji baji rao. They had tax collection powers.

AHMED SHAH ABDALI:

• He was the founder of Durrani empire and is regarded as the founder of modern Afghanistan.
• Secondly, was not born a king instead laddered his way up.
• Moreover he formed a state in Afghanistan.
• He also raided India eight times.

BACKGROUND

• Firstly,Abdali in 1757 raided Delhi and captured punjab and left his son Timur Shah Durrani in Lahore to rule.
• Secondly,Marathas captured Delhi in august 1757 and Timur fled back to Afghanistan.
• As a result of which, Abdali returned to punjab on December 1759.
• And On hearing this Peshwa Nanasaheb assigned Sadashivrao and Vishwasrao to battle.

ALSO LEARN ABOUT : INDO PAK WAR

WAR CAMPAIGN

• Marathas campaigned to north 1,00,000 in numbers.
• They were accompanied by locals in very large numbers.
• Meanwhile,Marathas were on west and afghans were on eastern side of Yamuna.
• Abdali was a great diplomat as a result he turned Rohillas and Awadh to his side.
• On the other side Marathas had antagonised the northern empires by imposing heavy taxes and interfering in their internal matter and certainly they didn’t felt it necessary to take support.

THE BATTLE

• Abdali effectively cut off all the food supplies of the Marathas which had a huge army as a result food at Maratha camp ran out by early January and cattles and soldiers died in huge numbers due to starvation.
• Commander persuaded army to attack on 14 January, makar sakranti. Initially marathas were leading, but at one point of time Sadashivrao took off from his elephant by which soldiers anticipated his death and caused ultimate chaos and caused loss of marathas.

Maratha army was not well organised as compared to Abdali which became reason for loss.

CASUALTIES

• Approx 40000 afghan soldiers died.
• After war,approx 50000 Maratha soldiers were killed in fighting and 70,000 slaughtered .
• Further,many were taken as slaves to Afghanistan.

AFTERMATH

• Certainly Marathas supremacy was forever gone.
• A power vacuum was created in North India which paved way for British empire.
• Jats and Sikhs were successful in establishing their empire.

CONCLUSION

All these wars kept on changing the fate of indian empire.

To sum up, Antagonism between indian rulers became the chief cause of foreign powers establishing here which caused reckless exploitation of resources certainly.

LEARN AND GROW..

CHEERS!!

ALSO WATCH : WAR MOVIES

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS