On 14 January 1761, on the plain of Panipat north of Delhi, the army of the Maratha Empire under Sadashivrao Bhau fought a coalition led by the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani, also called Abdali. By evening the Maratha army had been destroyed. It was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the eighteenth century, but almost every number attached to it is disputed, so this article names the source for each figure.
A blockade on the road to Delhi
As Mughal power declined in the eighteenth century, the Marathas expanded across much of India and pushed into the north. Ahmad Shah Durrani, ruler of an Afghan empire, campaigned into the Punjab, and the Marathas raised a large army under Sadashivrao Bhau, which retook Delhi. Durrani was joined by Indian allies, among them the Rohilla Afghans of the Doab and Shuja-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Awadh.1
Panipat, about 80 kilometers north of Delhi according to Britannica, lies on a level plain suited to cavalry. Two earlier battles had been fought there, Babur's victory in 1526 and Akbar's in 1556. The Indian historian Jadunath Sarkar describes how Durrani's vanguard forded the Yamuna near Baghpat on 25 October 1760, and how within three days his whole army was across and the Maratha army at Panipat was caught in a trap. The two armies faced each other at Panipat for two and a half months, while the Maratha camp suffered from scarcity and sickness. Britannica says Durrani's aim was to starve the Maratha army of supplies, and that Bhau finally decided to break the blockade by battle.2
The battle on 14 January
According to Sarkar, the Maratha council of war decided that the whole army would march out about an hour before daybreak and attack. Britannica says Bhau planned to wear the enemy down with a heavy artillery bombardment and then push south, but was hampered by rivalries among his commanders and by the need to protect the many civilians with his army. Sarkar writes that the last Maratha charge was crushed at about a quarter to three in the afternoon, after which the Maratha army broke and the Durrani horsemen pursued the fugitives for twenty miles until nightfall.3
Among the dead was Vishwasrao, the eldest son of the Peshwa. Sarkar describes how Bhau, wounded and on foot, was surrounded by a few Durrani horsemen, refused to surrender and was killed, and how his headless body was found two days after the battle. Our article on the Third Battle of Panipat covers the campaign in more detail.4
How many fought, and how many died
The sources disagree widely. Sarkar puts the armies drawn up on the battlefield at about 45,000 Marathas against 60,000 men on Durrani's side, half of them the Shah's own subjects and half his Indian allies. Britannica gives 80,000 for the Marathas and a range of 40,000 to 75,000 for Durrani's army. Both agree that a large crowd of non-combatants was with the Maratha army.5
The death toll is even less certain. Sarkar writes that the next morning about 28,000 bodies were counted in heaps on the battlefield, that the dead along the line of retreat, mostly non-combatants, were probably nearly as many, and that thousands of prisoners were massacred after the battle; he gives 22,000 Maratha men and women carried off as slaves. Britannica gives Maratha losses of 40,000 casualties and 30,000 captured, and Durrani losses of 5,000. None of these figures comes from a reliable count.6
Why it mattered
Panipat ended the Maratha attempt to replace the Mughals as rulers of India, in Britannica's words. Sarkar calls it a nation-wide disaster in which an entire generation of Maratha leaders was cut off at one stroke.7
Britannica adds that the battle began decades of disorder in northwestern India and cleared the way for later British supremacy. Panipat is often counted among the turning points on the road to British India, and it features in our guide to the battles of India.8
Also on this day
- 1944: Leningrad-Novgorod offensive. The Red Army's Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts, helped by the 2nd Baltic Front, struck German Army Group North to end the siege of Leningrad.
