Babur won the First Battle of Panipat on 21 April 15262, defeating and killing Ibrahim Lodi, the Sultan of Delhi. Though vastly outnumbered, Babur used field cannon and matchlock guns, new to northern India, together with a wagon-fort and encircling cavalry, to shatter the Lodi army. The victory founded the Mughal Empire, which would rule much of the subcontinent for three centuries.
On the plain of Panipat in 1526, a Timurid adventurer named Babur faced the vast army of the Sultan of Delhi with a fraction of its numbers, but with cannon the sultan had never faced. By the end of the day Ibrahim Lodi was dead and a new empire, the Mughal, was born.
Babur's march into India
Babur, a descendant of both Timur and3 Genghis Khan, had been driven from Central Asia and carved out a kingdom at Kabul3. From there he raided into India and, in 1526, marched on the Delhi Sultanate, ruled by the unpopular Ibrahim Lodi, whose army was huge but divided.
Guns against the Delhi Sultanate
Babur brought something new to the plains of north India: field artillery and matchlock firearms, handled by Ottoman-trained gunners. He chained carts together into a wagon-fort1 to shield his guns and infantry, leaving gaps through which his cavalry could charge, a style he had learned from the Ottomans.
The trap at Panipat
At Panipat Babur anchored his line on the town and his wagon-fort, and waited. When Ibrahim Lodi's huge army and war elephants pressed forward, they crowded together and lost momentum before the carts and cannon. Babur's cavalry then swept around both flanks in the tulughma manoeuvre3 and attacked the Lodi army from the sides and rear.
The death of Ibrahim Lodi
Hemmed in, pounded by cannon fire they had never met, and taken from every side, the Lodi army broke. Ibrahim Lodi was killed in the press, one of the few sultans of Delhi to die on the battlefield. His great host dissolved, and the road to Delhi and Agra lay open.
Why Panipat founded an empire
With Ibrahim Lodi dead, Babur took Delhi and Agra and founded the4 Mughal Empire, which under his descendants, Akbar, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, would rule much of the subcontinent into the 18th century. Panipat is remembered as a decisive example of gunpowder and tactics overcoming sheer numbers. Two later battles were fought on the same ground, including the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761.