First battle at Panipat

First battle at Panipat

Part of: Babur's fifth Indian campaign

Depiction of the First Battle of Panipat (late 16th century)

date	April 20, 1526
place	Panipat , Haryana State , Republic of India
Exit	Victory of Babur

Parties to the conflict
Kingdom of Kabul	Sultanate of Delhi
Commander
Babur	Ibrahim II. †
Troop strength
12,000-15,000 men	up to 100,000 men
losses
Unknown, but not very significant	15,000–16,000 dead, according to Babur; 40,000–50,000 according to Indian data

The First Battle of Panipat was fought on April 20, 1526 . It was the decisive military conflict between the Timurid Babur (1483-1530) and the last Sultan of Delhi, Ibrahim II (r. 1517-26), from the Afghan dynasty of the Lodi . Babur's relatively small army triumphed over the numerically superior force of Ibrahim Lodis, who fell in battle. With Ibrahim's death the Sultanate of Delhi became extinct , and in its place came the Mughal Empire , the cornerstone of which had been laid by this victory.

The backgrounds

The campaign that Babur embarked on in November 1525 and which ended with the First Battle of Panipat did not lead him and his army to the soil of the Indian subcontinent for the first time . He had already made advances there four times. In addition to the material gain, Babur had also secured the possession of important passports and fortresses along the route to India through these “India trains”. Babur regarded the conquered Indian territories as his rightful possession. He referred to Timur Leng (ruled 1370-1405), his ancestor on his father's side, who had conquered Delhi in 1398 and transferred the Punjab to his vassal Khidr Khan as rulership. Even when Khidr Khan became Sultan of Delhi in 1414 and founded the Sayyid dynasty that ruled until 1451 , he still expressed his loyalty to the Timur family by claiming to be Indian viceroy to Timur's son.

India came into Babur's field of vision not least because in 1501, after the loss of his ancestral territory and his favorite city of Samarqand to the Uzbeks under Shaibani Khan, he was forced to conquer a new territory. As he himself writes in his memoirs, the so-called Baburnama , he was already thinking of conquering India after he had made himself lord of Kabul in 1504. However, the implementation of this project was a long time coming, as Babur was busy for years to consolidate and expand his Afghan sphere of influence, so that it finally encompassed an area that stretched from Kunduz and Badachschan in the north to Kandahar in the south. Only when Babur's Afghan empire was more or less secure and he finally had to give up Samarkand in 1512 did the Indian subcontinent, one of the richest regions in Asia, become the focus of his interest.

In this context it was not long hidden from him that the Sultanate of Delhi, whose rich provinces in Punjab had been the target of his first four Indian campaigns, was anything but a firmly established state. When Ibrahim II became Sultan of Delhi in 1517, the Sultanate had already lost much of its former size. Ibrahim's empire was not only weakened by the denominational contrast between the Hindu majority and the ruling Muslim aristocracy, but also by permanent power struggles within the Muslim aristocratic class. Not insignificant parts of the empire, such as Rajasthan , ruled by Hindu princes , had already become independent. But the notables of Afghan origin also endeavored to make themselves independent of the ailing headquarters in Delhi, above all Daulat Khan Lodi , the governor of the provinces in the Punjab. In 1523 he was expelled from Punjab by Ibrahim's army and turned to Babur for help. After Babur then intervened in India and conquered Lahore , Daulat Khan was not reinstated by him as governor.

But the young Sultan Ibrahim also faced danger from his own family. Of all people, his uncle Ala-ud-din Lodi , known as Alam Khan , turned against him and also asked Babur's help. He instructed his Begs in Punjab to assist Alam Khan in the planned conquest of Delhi. However, since the Begs refused to support him, Alam Khan finally turned away from Babur and entered into an alliance with Daulat Khan. It was agreed that Daulat Khan would seize Punjab while Alam Khan would try to take Ibrahim's centers of power Delhi and Agra .

In view of the multitude of difficulties and dangers Ibrahim faced, his attempts to rebuild strong central power and permanently consolidate his empire were almost inevitably doomed to failure. Ibrahim found himself in a very bad starting position to defend against a determined attack from outside, as was carried out a little later by Babur.

The sources of Babur's campaign in India

As is so often the case in historical research, the problem arises with the events surrounding the first battle of Panipat that the tradition about this comes exclusively from the victors. In the specific case, the most important source for Babur's activities in India are the memoirs he wrote himself, the Baburnama . This work also provides the only reasonably detailed contemporary description of the Battle of Panipat. There are also other historical works dealing with this battle, such as the Tarikh-e Shahi by the Afghan historian Ahmad Yadgar, which was probably completed during the reign of Babur's great-grandson Jahangir (r. 1605-27), or the Tarikh-e Daudi des, which was written during this period Abdullah , who was also a historian, draw mainly from the baburnama .

Although details often remain unclear and there are also a number of time gaps, Babur's work has to be credited with the fact that it describes his campaign to India in a fairly precise manner. Regarding the battle itself, Babur unfortunately gives only cursory information on important details such as the nature of his position system and tactical procedures, and we do not learn anything about other interesting details such as the number of prisoners; Nevertheless, the course of the battle can be understood by and large due to its very vivid description and is beyond question. Babur must also be granted that his memoirs are characterized by extensive plausibility and critical distance from the events described. However, it is essential that even the not inconsiderable number of original documents that have survived from Babur's time cannot replace the Baburnama as a historical source, and often cannot even close its time gaps satisfactorily.

The course of the campaign up to the Battle of Panipat

The Delhi Sultanate and Babur's Campaign

The pacification of the Punjab

On November 17, 1525, Babur set out from Kabul on his fifth and last campaign to India. A garden that he had laid out not far from today's city of Jalalabad was designated as a gathering place for troop contingents from different parts of his sphere of influence. Here the troops from across the Hindu Kush, led by Babur's son Humayun (1508–56), who was only seventeen , and the troops that had marched from Ghazni , joined him. When the combined force crossed the Indus on December 16, Babur already knew that difficulties awaited him in the Punjab.

In order to make himself lord of Punjab again, Daulat Khan had raised an army and Babur had already wrested Sialkot , the capital of the province of the same name. Passing Jhelam , Babur marched towards Sialkot, where his army camped on December 29th. Here he received news that Alam Khan's attempt to take Delhi had ended in defeat and the flight of his troops. Betrayed and abandoned by his armed forces, which had either deserted or defected to Sultan Ibrahim II, Alam Khan had no choice but to surrender himself to Babur at mercy or disfavor. He graciously accepted Alam Khan again and treated him with respect while he was still of use.

Similar to Alam Khan, Daulat Khan, who was abandoned by his "allies", who apparently never really wanted to face a military test of strength with Babur, was left in the lurch. Daulat's army, of which Babur was reported to be 30,000 to 40,000 strong and thus superior to his armed forces several times, simply broke up on his approach. When one of Babur's advance detachments reached the camp of the enemy army on the banks of the Ravi River , they found it already deserted. Daulat Khan was caught and brought to Babur, who spared his enemy's life but had his property confiscated. Babur was then busy for a while to remove remaining local resistance centers. When calm was completely restored in the Punjab, he was able to set up his base here for the further campaign, so to speak within operational reach of Delhi.

The march to Panipat

In the meantime Babur had also been informed by his scouts that Sultan Ibrahim II had left Delhi with a large army to face him. Ibrahim's countermeasures appeared to have got off to a very slow start. Only late, towards the end of February 1526, when Babur had already penetrated far into the Punjab and camped near Ambala , did the first contact with the enemy take place. However, it was not yet Ibrahim's main army, but rather the troops of Hamid Khan, the governor of Hisar-i Firuza , a city in what is now the Indian state of Haryana. Babur sent part of his army under the command of his son Humayun to fight the enemy. Victory in Humayun's first military operation was not too difficult to achieve, as Hamid Khan's troops fled after a short battle. They were persecuted, taken to Hisar-i Firuza and beaten again. According to Babur, the enemy's casualties in the first of the two skirmishes did not exceed 200 to 250 men, of whom around half were killed, but the others were taken prisoner to his camp along with 7 or 8 war elephants . On Babur's orders, all prisoners were shot there by his gunmen equipped with matchlock muskets . This firing squad was undoubtedly a novelty in Indian military history and was - as Babur puts it - intended as a “ chilling example ”.

During March 1526, Babur slowly advanced towards Delhi. The news about Ibrahim's movements was now arriving more and more continuously in his camp, but Ibrahim's army was still nothing to be seen. It was not until the morning of April 2 that a 5,000 to 6,000-strong advance detachment of Ibrahim's army came into first combat near the Yamuna River . Babur's men remained victorious again and pursued the defeated enemy as far as Ibrahim's main camp. Again they captured 6 or 7 war elephants and took 70 to 80 prisoners, most of whom were executed. It was now finally clear that the enemy was not far away and that preparations for battle had to be made.

Preparing for Battle

Given the numerical superiority of the enemy, it seemed advisable to Babur to employ defensive tactics for the battle ahead. The enemy was to run against a fortified position, exposed to the fire of his musketeers and field artillery . Babur therefore ordered his men to find as many carts as possible. These carts - around 700 in number - were now tied to each other " in the style of the country of rum (in the Ottoman style) " with leather straps that came from ox harnesses, among other things. Between each pair of carts, 6 to 7 large protective weirs were to be erected, behind which the musket shooters could be posted. The field artillery should additionally strengthen this defensive position. Babur used almost the same tactics with which the Ottomans were victorious in the Battle of Tschaldiran (1514) over the Persian Kizilbasch , the only difference being that the Ottoman carts were not connected with leather straps but with chains. When this work was completed after 5 to 6 days, Babur convened a council of war to discuss how to proceed. It was decided to move to Panipat and fight the battle against Ibrahim there.

Babur's fighters reached Panipat on April 12 and spent most of the following week preparing for battle. The wagons and guns had to be brought into position, digging work had to be carried out and barriers and barriers had to be put in place. Ibrahim's army remained inactive during this period and did not respond to the repeated pinprick attacks that small groups from Babur made on their camp to bring severed heads back as trophies. Despite everything, the mood among Babur's men was depressed. They faced a tremendous superiority and were far from home in a country whose language they did not understand. Babur must have put some effort into encouraging his men. Since Ibrahim did not allow himself to be lured from the reserve, Babur finally followed the advice of some of his Indian begs and ordered a large-scale attack on his camp at night in order to provoke him into battle. This risky undertaking, for which Babur assigned 4,000 to 5,000 men, did not go as planned, but it seems to have convinced Ibrahim that he now had to put his army on the march.

The opponents

Babur's army

The armies that clashed at Panipat could hardly have been more different, both in terms of size and armament, as well as in terms of their tactics and the personality of their commanders. As for Babur, it is unclear how many men he actually had at Panipat. What is certain is that the army with which he operated in India was relatively small. Based on a troop count that he had carried out on the Indus, it is known that his army - including those who performed purely logistical functions - comprised 12,000 men at the beginning of the campaign. Since it can be assumed that the logistics units made up at least a quarter of this, the actual combat strength of his army at this point in time could hardly have been more than 9,000 men. It also remains unclear how much reinforcement Babur received during his campaign. As he reports in the Baburnama , he did not receive any substantial reinforcements from his homeland because it was constantly threatened by the Uzbeks, his old enemies. So the only option was to get reinforcements in India. Due to the difficulties with Alam Khan and Daulat Khan, however, this should not have been quite as numerous as Babur might have hoped. The fact that he had 24,000 men at Panipat, as the historian Ahmad Yadgar states, is very unlikely that - as his contemporary Abdullah reports - it was 50,000, which is completely exaggerated. The actual number of Babur's fighters may have been somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000.

The battles with the Uzbeks in particular taught Babur early on to compensate for the lack of quantity in his fighters with quality. Babur had brought his warriors " to maintain strict discipline and to adhere to the combat positions assigned to them ", as he writes, for example, in his report on the battle of Kandahar (1507). Without a doubt, Babur's army was a disciplined and battle-tested elite force, whose individual units in his Begs had capable subordinates.

Mounted archers formed the backbone of Babur's army . On their fast horses and armed with long-range composite bows, these tough steppe warriors specialized in raid-like attacks, showering their opponent with a deadly hail of arrows from a distance of up to 250 m, but staying out of his reach. Babur, who was always open to innovations, knew how to combine the advantages of this traditional fighting style of the Central Asian cavalry armies with the efficiency of the latest weapon systems at the time. It was probably the news that firearms played a decisive role in the victory of the Ottomans at Tschaldiran that prompted him to call on specialists from the Ottoman Empire to use them to equip his army with small arms and artillery . One of these men, Master Ali-Quli, became the commander of his field artillery. Although neither the number of Babur's musket shooters nor the number of his guns and the mortars mounted on the carts is known, it is clear that they played a decisive role not only in the victory at Panipat, but also in the successes in the battles and sieges of those that followed Years. In this context it should also be mentioned that Babur's firearms were by no means purely “imported goods”, because it is known from the Baburnama that Master Ali-Quli himself cast cannons. In October 1526, for example, he made a large-caliber gun on behalf of Babur for the war against those Indian fortresses that had not yet surrendered.

Ibrahim Lodi's army

In contrast to Babur, Ibrahim Lodi commanded a huge force, the strength of which also differed in figures. In his story of the Afghan rulers in India, which was also written during the reign of Jahangir, the historian Nematollah reports that Ibrahim's army comprised 100,000 horsemen, 5,000 elephants and a large number of infantry. Babur himself estimated the force of his enemy at around 100,000 men and around 1,000 fighting elephants. Although Babur's numbers also have a somewhat magical sound, they are accepted by most historians today and it is considered certain that Babur faced a tremendous superiority with Panipat. Mass armies could be set up in densely populated India without any major problems. However, one must assume a not inconsiderable number of people entrusted with purely logistical tasks for Ibrahim's army; In addition, there were still numerous people in his camp who can be classified as mere "battle-wanderers", so that the actual combat strength of his army will have been well below 100,000.

Ibrahim's army consisted largely of lance-armed infantrymen . His cavalry was likely to have been relatively weak and was completely different from Babur's cavalry in terms of quality and tactics. In India, a tradition of equestrian combat using a bow and arrow, as was typical for the inhabitants of the Central Asian steppes, had never really developed. In contrast to the highly mobile Central Asian cavalry units, which specialized in long-range combat, Indian cavalry tactics were essentially based on frontal attacks on horseback, with opponents fighting on foot simply being ridden down and enemy cavalry groups being fought down with weapons in hand. Because of their superior cavalry, conquerors from the steppes of Central Asia had repeatedly succeeded in defeating their Indian opponents and gaining a foothold in India. However, since there was a lack of sufficient pasture land and suitable forage plants for the horses in India, it was not possible for these conquerors to maintain the mounted archers, which had formed the basis of their military success, from the country alone. Under these conditions, the quality level of Indian horse breeding remained well behind that of Persia or Central Asia. In addition, the Indian climate impaired the efficiency of the Central Asian composite arches, especially during the monsoon season .

In order to be able to maintain the military power of their cavalry - and thus their ability to assert themselves on the battlefield - the conquerors who had now settled in India were forced to permanent and costly recruitment of cavalry warriors from those areas from which they originally came were, that is, mainly from the steppe areas of Central Asia. Similarly, the quality of Indian horse breeding could only be maintained through the permanent import of breeding horses from Arabia , Persia and Central Asia. In the late phase of the Lodi Empire, however, both import options were no longer available to the same extent as in the previous period, so that Ibrahim Lodi was mainly forced to fall back on “ the traditional Indian military system ”, “ which has been used by enemies from across the mountains for centuries had proven inferior. "

As a "replacement" for the missing or insufficient quality cavalry in India, fighting elephants have always offered themselves. Of course, the military value of this “breakthrough weapon”, which one could not do without in Indian warfare, was always in doubt. If the animals panicked, they could be just as dangerous to your own army as to the enemy. Firearms, after all, were completely unknown in Ibrahim's army and there is no evidence that the Lodi Empire took any notice of this new type of weapon.

Ibrahim's only advantage, then, was the sheer mass of his fighters, who were essentially quick-hired mercenaries and the ranks of his vassals. The inner cohesion of such an army of individualistic warriors was naturally low; their loyalty depended on the personality, success and purse of the respective general. To make matters worse, many of Ibrahim's fighters were not Afghans but Hindus , who showed little sympathy for their Muslim masters; and finally a number of Ibrahim's subordinates must have consisted of notables who pursued their own interests and were therefore not very reliable.

Babur and Ibrahim Lodi as military leaders

As opposed to the opposing armies were the personalities who led them. Babur was still in the sixties of the 20th century , first published Propylaea world history " as a brilliant ... Prince [and] one of the greatest generals of his time called". Today's historians do not usually throw such roses on Babur, but they also admit that he was a quick-witted, determined and charismatic leader who had good ideas and was able to interact with and motivate people. There is also agreement that Babur's real great military achievement was to have recognized the decisive importance of concentrated firepower in the battle and to have successfully used it for his purposes within the framework of an already proven military tactic.

In contrast, Ibrahim Lodi seem to have lacked all of these virtues. In any case, Babur describes him as an inexperienced young man who showed little initiative during the campaign. The fact that Ibrahim did not use his military superiority for an immediate attack, but waited until Babur had fully expanded his positions at Panipat, in any case gives rise to justified doubts about his qualities as a military leader. This failure of Ibrahim and his decision to attack Babur's position head-on on the day of the battle ultimately proved fatal. In general, Ibrahim seems to have had some trouble keeping his army together. Babur reports that out of greed, he is said to have refused to pay his men their pay before the battle , as was customary in Indian armies at the time. This has arguably led to desertions and a drop in morale in the crucial week before the battle.

The battle

The sequence

According to the decisions taken previously, Babur had set up his army at Panipat in such a way that its right flank was protected by the city and its suburbs. In the center were the prepared carts and barriers, behind which the gunners and musket shooters had positioned themselves. The left flank, but also other neuralgic points, were finally secured by ditches and tree barriers or entanglements made of branches. Passages were created an arrow shot away from each other, which should allow 100 to 150 strong cavalry units to rush out quickly. Babur kept part of his cavalry in reserve, while the rest was assigned the task of attacking the enemy from the flanks and trying to stab him in the rear.

Ibrahim's army advanced rapidly against Babur's right wing at dawn on April 20, so he first ordered his reinforcements there. When the units at the top saw Babur's entrenchments in the center, their advance stalled, but did not come to a standstill due to the pressure of the units streaming in from behind. Now Babur gave his cavalry command to swarm and their orders to attack the enemy according to the flank and rear. Fierce fighting had broken out on Babur's left wing, and he was sending reinforcements there from his center; At the same time, his right wing was also heavily attacked, but the Indians and Indo-Afghans never made a breakthrough. Babur's riflemen and the artillery were able to cause a veritable bloodbath in the tightly packed mass of the enemy. The effect of his firearms will have been reinforced by the fact that neither the Indo-Afghan and Indian teams nor the elephants had previously been confronted with firearms. Above all, Ibrahim's war elephants turned out to be completely useless in the turmoil, as they had little room to move and therefore only made magnificent targets. When Babur's superior cavalry - Babur reports nothing of any actions by Ibrahim's cavalry units during the battle - also got into the rear of the enemy, his fate was sealed: Ibrahim's army began before the hail of arrows that fell on them from their back and flanks, to draw back more and more. Since the barrier in Babur's center proved to be insurmountable, Ibrahim's fighters huddled together until they were almost completely immobile and panic broke out. What followed was a slaughter from which hardly anyone could escape. Around noon, a few hours after the battle began, Ibrahim's army was finally destroyed. His body was also found in the middle of a mountain of corpses that afternoon and her head was brought to Babur as evidence of his death. Babur, who always showed a certain minimum of respect for his opponents, had Ibrahim erected a tomb in Panipat, which still exists today. What remained to be done now was bringing in the prisoners and the war elephants, which, according to Babur, were immediately captured by herds.

The losses

Babur and his men estimated that 15,000 to 16,000 of their opponents had lost their lives in the Battle of Panipat. In Agra they later learned that Ibrahim's losses were said to have been as high as 40,000 to 50,000 men. The Indian and Indo-Afghan loss figures undoubtedly reflect the horror of the defeat suffered, which is why Babur's figures should come closer to the truth. Nothing is known about Babur's losses, but they cannot have been very great, as his army remained powerful, as the events of the following months proved.

The Importance of the Battle of Panipat

On military-historical and operational importance

The First Battle of Panipat has a special place in terms of military history. For the first time, and relatively early on, firearms were used in a field battle in this part of the world. The use of small arms and artillery became an important element of warfare here, too, and the new weapons spread rapidly on the Indian subcontinent. It is noteworthy that this development coincided with that in Europe - a fact that was invariably ignored in the older, Eurocentric military historiography.

The Mughal Empire was - like the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Empire in Persia - from the beginning one of those empires that equipped their armies with firearms and that were therefore also referred to as gunpowder empires . However, there has been a long-standing scientific controversy about the importance of firearms in the Mughal Empire , which essentially revolves around the question of whether the Mughals actually "established a" gunpowder empire "or ... a cavalry state like their predecessors [ruled] ”and whether the introduction of firearms brought about the same changes in warfare in their empire as in Europe. As the last study on the military in the Mughal Empire convincingly demonstrated, firearms - in combination with new infantry combat tactics - led to cavalry being replaced by infantry as the dominant weapon in Europe. In the Mughal Empire, however, this was not the case, here the cavalry was able to maintain its dominance on the battlefields. The main reason for this difference was identified in this study as the “ horse-warrior revolution ”, which was carried out by the nomadic (equestrian) peoples of the arid climatic zone and which led to a perfection of equestrian warfare that was unique in the world. Europe, which lay outside the arid climate belt and therefore had no indigenous nomadic (equestrian) peoples, “missed” this “revolution in warfare on horseback”.

In accordance with its predominantly sedentary population, European wars had always been fought with the main use of infantry, and the firearms were one of the reasons that the infantry finally prevailed over the knights who had been overpowering for several centuries . This only succeeded, however, because the cavalry formations here - measured by the standards of the Mughal Empire - were always very small and rarely comprised more than a few thousand horsemen. In India, for example, the Mughals were able to mobilize tens of thousands of cavalrymen for a single battle, divided into highly mobile light cavalry equipped with composite bows and heavily armored "shock" cavalry, which specialized in breaking through the enemy line of battle. Such masses of horsemen could have destroyed even the most large gathering of infantrymen equipped with contemporary firearms with their hail of arrows from afar. Small arms could not compete with composite bows in India and Central Asia due to their (still) short range and slow firing rate, the artillery, in turn, could not compete with the highly mobile light cavalry, which was to be found in all armies in these areas, due to their clumsiness be outmaneuvered. Thus, handguns and artillery in general could only develop their full effectiveness in more static or defensive military situations, such as sieges and ambushes.

An exception were those field battles where an army attacked an enemy in a strong defensive position and armed with firearms head-on or was tempted to attack by his cavalry in order to be brought within range of his artillery and small arms. This basic scheme of a strongly fortified and artillery-equipped defensive center, mostly in combination with highly mobile flanks of mounted archers, is almost always found in the great battles fought in the first decades of the 16th century by the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals . In this way, the Ottomans defeated the Safavids in the aforementioned Battle of Tschaldiran, the Egyptian Mamluks in the Battle of Marj Dabik (1516) and the Battle of Ridania (1517) and the Hungarians in the Battle of Mohács (1526) . Babur won the battle against Ibrahim Lodi, the Safavids the battle of Jam (1528) against the Uzbeks and Babur's son Humayun in turn won the battle of Mandasor (1535) against the army of the ruler of Gujarat, although the latter was even superior to the Mughal army in terms of artillery .

The battle of Panipat also represented a decisive turning point in operational terms. The military test of strength between Babur and Ibrahim Lodi was decided at the first direct encounter between the two. With Babur's overwhelming victory and the death of Ibrahim Lodi, not only was the campaign ended, but it was also ensured that the Sultanate of Delhi was eliminated as a power factor. There was now no one left who would have been able to pool the remaining resources of the Sultanate and turn them against Babur again. A sign of the total collapse of the Delhi Sultanate that was obvious to contemporaries was Babur's occupation of Delhi and Agra, Ibrahim's former centers of power, a few days after the battle.

On political importance

While the question of the military-historical and operational significance of the Battle of Panipat can be clearly answered, the answer to the question of its political significance is not that clear. At first glance, the battle of Panipat does indeed seem to represent something of an epochal turning point, but this view is quickly put into perspective if one asks about the significance of the battle for Babur himself and looks at the further history of the Mughal empire. In fact, the outcome of the Battle of Panipat initially represented little more than a stage victory for Babur in establishing his rule in northern India. Although the Lodi dynasty had collapsed completely, Babur's situation remained precarious. Only a small part of Ibrahim's former empire was under his control by then and the Indian subjects were extremely suspicious of their new masters, although looting and pillage by Babur's troops are unlikely to have occurred. Baburs Begs and crews, on the other hand, saw their task in India as finished after the victorious battle and the distribution of the looted treasures. They longed for the cool summer of Kabul and at first could hardly make friends with their general's decision to stay in India. Ultimately, however, Babur was able to persuade the majority of his men to stay with gifts, bribes and his persuasion.

Babur's biggest problem, however, was that there were still powerful opponents who themselves had ambitions to succeed Ibrahim. The greatest danger for Babur initially came from the Confederation of Rajputs , which was led by Rana Sanga of Mewar (ruled 1509-27). Using tactics very similar to those of Panipat, Babur succeeded in crushing the Rajput army on March 17, 1527 at the Battle of Khanwa , west of Agra. But soon afterwards new enemies appeared. In the east of the former Lodi Empire, a number of Afghan feudal lords resisted, and Mahmud Lodi , a younger brother of Ibrahim Lodi, claimed the throne of Delhi and raised an army against Babur. He and the other Afghans received support from Nusrat Shah (r. 1518 / 19–32 / 33), the ruler of Bengal , who hoped to keep Babur out of his sphere of influence in this way. In May 1529 Babur was finally able to master the threat in the east in the battle of the Gogra, which lasted several days . Only now was his rule secured. His empire was by no means consolidated, however, and further events were to show that a lot of blood had to flow before the Mughals were firmly in the saddle and one of the great empires of world history could take shape permanently.

Source editions (selection)

• Babur, Zahiruddin Muhammad: The Memories of the First Grand Mogul of India. The Babur-nama. Translated into German and with a foreword by Stammler Wolfgang. With a historical introduction by Azimdžanova Sabakhat, Habibi Abd-al-Hayy and Hasan, Mohibbul (= Manesse Library of World Literature ). Manesse Verlag, Zurich 1988, ISBN 3-7175-8082-5 and ISBN 3-7175-8083-3 . (Translation based on the 1980 translation of Baburnama into French by Bacqué-Grammont Jean-Louis )
• The same: The Baburnama. Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor. Translated, edited, and annotated by Thackston, Wheeler M., Oxford University Press, New York 1996, ISBN 0-19-509671-1 .

literature

There is hardly any German-language literature on Babur's campaigns and battles in India. This is generally addressed in the few easily accessible, but mostly outdated, popular science works on the Mughals. Due to the additional bibliographies, which, tellingly, almost only list foreign-language titles, some of these works are also listed in the bibliography. At this point, some recommendable English-language works on Babur and the military system of the Mughal Empire are mentioned, but a complete overview cannot be given due to lack of space; For the same reason and because of their frequently existing scientific shortcomings (incorrect information, missing references to sources and literature used, etc.), web publications on the First Battle of Panipat were also omitted.

• Behr, Hans-Georg : The Mughals. Power and splendor of the Indian emperors from 1369–1857. Econ Verlag, Vienna-Düsseldorf 1979, ISBN 3-430-11282-6 . (popular scientific work with extensive bibliography)
• Förster, Stig: Fire against elephants. Panipat, April 20, 1526. In: Forster Stig, Markus Pöhlmann , Walter Dierk (eds.): Battles of world history. From Salamis to Sinai. dtv, Munich 2004, pp. 123-137, ISBN 3-423-34083-5 . (well-founded presentation of the First Battle of Panipat)
• Gascoigne, Bamber: The Mughals. Splendor and greatness of Mohammedan princes in India. Special edition for Prisma Verlag, Gütersloh 1987, ISBN 3-570-09930-X . (popular scientific work with extensive and detailed bibliography)
• Gommans, Jos JL: Mughal Warfare. Indian Frontiers and high roads to Empire, 1500-1700 (= Warfare and History , ed. By Black Jeremy). Routledge, London 2002, ISBN 0-415-23988-5 . (excellent study on the military in the Mughal Empire)
• Kulke, Hermann , and Rothermund, Dietmar : History of India. From the Indus culture to today. Special paperback edition from Verlag CH Beck oHG, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-406-54997-7 . (Standard work on the history of India)
• Lane-Poole, Stanley : Babar (= Rulers of India , ed. By William Wilson Hunter ). Reprinted by Low Price Publications, Delhi 1997, ISBN 81-7536-073-9 . (outdated but knowledgeable account by the British orientalist and archaeologist)
• Majumdar, Asoke Kumar: India in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times. In: Mann Golo and Nitschke August (eds.): Propylaea world history. A universal story. Vol. 6: World Cultures. Renaissance in Europe. Propylaen Verlag and Verlag Ullstein GmbH, Berlin and Frankfurt 1991, pp. 113-187, ISBN 3-549-05017-8 . (Chapter from the new edition of the Propylaea World History , published in 10 volumes in 1960–64 )
• Prawdin, Michael : The empire out of nowhere. The first great moguls. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt GmbH., Stuttgart 1965.
• Shashi, Shyam Singh (Ed.): Encyclopaedia Indica: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. Vol. 47: Babar. The First Mughal Emperor of India. Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi 1999, ISBN 81-7041-859-3 .
• The same (ed.): Encyclopaedia Indica: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. Vol. 56: Mughal Army: Organization and Discipline. Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi 1999, ISBN 81-7041-859-3 .

Remarks

1. ↑ According to Babur, the battle took place in 932 on the eighth day of the month of Rajab, which was a Friday. This date corresponds to April 20, 1526 and is mostly mentioned in the source translations and in the secondary literature . The conversion is based on the schematic variant of the Islamic calendar , the epoch of which is July 16, 622. Occasionally there are also dates that deviate from this, such as April 21st.
2. ↑ When he means India (specifically: the country on the other side of the Indus ), Babur always uses the term Hindustan in his memoirs , which translates as "land of the Hindus". In Babur's time, Hindu was not only a name for a person who professed Hinduism, it was also a general term for a resident of the Indian subcontinent.
3. ↑ He is sometimes referred to in the literature and translations of the Baburnama as the " governor ".
4. ↑ A detailed overview of the internal power struggles and rebellions in the Sultanate of Delhi during Ibrahim Lodi's reign, which are only briefly described here, can be found in Shashi, Encyclopaedia Indica. Vol. 47 , pp. 101-118.
5. ↑ Shashi, Encyclopaedia Indica. Vol. 47 , p. 150, note 25, notes the undisputed source value of the Baburnama in professional circles : " ... most of what we know of Baber's [Baber = Babur] history is ... derived from his own commentaries. It is surprising how difficult it is to supply, in a satisfactory manner, the blanks ... that are found in them. "
6. ↑ Source: India on the eve of Babur's invasion (map) ( Memento from February 23, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
7. ↑ Alam Khan took part in 1527 on Babur's side in the battle against the Rajputs at Khanwa and was later sent to Badakhshan, that is to the extreme north of Babur's sphere of influence. That this was obviously a kind of exile is also underlined by the fact that Alam Khan from there eventually fled to Gujarat . Shashi, Encyclopaedia Indica. Vol. 47 , p. 150, note 19h.
8. ↑ Hamid Khan was one of those officials of the Lodi Empire who were entrusted with the administration of the crown property and were therefore subject to the direct orders of the Sultan. His area of ​​responsibility encompassed both civil and military matters. In the German translation of the Baburnama and in German-language literature, he is referred to as " Gouverneur ", in the English translation of the Baburnama as " provost ". Otherwise little is known about him. Babur, Memories , p. 965, note 426.
9. ↑ Hamid Khan was one of those officials of the Lodi Empire who were entrusted with the administration of the crown property and were therefore subject to the direct orders of the Sultan. His area of ​​responsibility encompassed both civil and military matters. In the German translation of the Baburnama and in German-language literature, he is referred to as " Gouverneur ", in the English translation of the Baburnama as " provost ". Otherwise little is known about him. Babur, Memoirs , p. 668.
10. ↑ Hamid Khan was one of those officials of the Lodi Empire who were entrusted with the administration of the crown property and were therefore subject to the direct orders of the Sultan. His area of ​​responsibility encompassed both civil and military matters. In the German translation of the Baburnama and in German-language literature, he is referred to as " Gouverneur ", in the English translation of the Baburnama as " provost ". Otherwise little is known about him. Babur, Recollections , p. 670. In the German translation of the Baburnama , explanations in the text were placed in round brackets.
11. ↑ What it was exactly is unclear. Lane-Poole, Babar , p. 161 speaks of " hurdles or shields ". The two translations of the Baburnama speak of “ large shields ” (Babur, The Baburnama , p. 323.) and “ balaclavas ” (Babur, recollections , p. 670.). Shashi, Encyclopaedia Indica. Vol. 47 , p. 124, it was a question of “ small movable breast-works ”, which are said to have consisted of “ bags filled with earth ” (p. 151, note 29). Förster, Feuer gegen Elefanten , p. 133, on the other hand, only uses the term “ protective weirs ”.
12. ↑ Babur, of course, saw it differently. The army with which operated in India in 1525/26 was, in his words, “ the largest ... that I had ever set up for a campaign in India. “Babur, Memories , p. 681.
13. ↑ Babur, Recollections , p. 522, where there are also interesting details about Babur's army organization.
14. ↑ The figures that can be found again and again in various Internet publications, including the entry First battle of Panipat in the English-language Wikipedia, are either pure guesswork or information from later sources.
15. ↑ Cf. Babur, Recollections , pp. 743f.
16. ↑ Babur enjoys high credibility among historians, which is why his figures can also be found in almost all works in which the battle was written. Kulke and Rothermund, Geschichte Indiens , p. 253, do not give any figures, but speak of the " ten times superior army of the Sultan of Delhi ".
17. ↑ Gommans, Mughal Warfare , pp. 111–121, provides detailed information on the problems of horse breeding in India, which are only briefly touched on here, and on the fundamental differences in the military use of horses between India and Central Asia .
18. ^ Forester, Fire Against Elephants , p. 131.
19. ↑ Majumdar, India , p. 166.
20. ↑ For an assessment of Babur see, for example, Förster, Feuer gegen Elefanten , pp. 126–129, Kulke and Rothermund, Geschichte Indiens , pp. 251–253 and Shashi, Encyclopaedia Indica. Vol. 47 , pp. 191-196.
21. ↑ Babur did not provide any details on the nature of the position system. Lane-Poole, Babar , p. 162, it was about “ ditches and abatis of trees ”, the two translations of the Baburnama use the terms “ trenches and pylons ” (Babur, The Baburnama , p. 323.) and “ trenches and Spank "(Babur, Memories , p. 671.). Shashi, Encyclopaedia Indica. Vol. 47 , p. 125, it was about “ ditches… and… defenses made of the boughs of trees. "
22. ↑ Babur only wanted to give an approximate indication of the distance, as it is well known that every positioning system has to be adapted to the terrain and these passages are hardly ever evenly spaced from one another. A corresponding distance specification in meters is therefore nowhere to be found in the literature used.
23. ↑ In the report on the siege of the fortress Bajaur (1519) on the extreme north-western border of India, Babur vividly describes the psychological effect of his firearms. At first, Bajaur's defenders, who had never heard the bang of a firearm, made fun of it and reacted with obscene gestures. But when the bullets pierced the defenders' shields, armor and leather clothing and knocked down some of them, the others no longer dared to look over the walls of the fortress. Babur, Memoirs , p. 568.
24. ↑ For a long time afterwards, the battlefield was considered a ghostly place where sounds of wailing and horror were said to have been heard at night. The historian Badauni (* 1540; † probably 1615) reports that he heard such noises himself when he crossed the battlefield with a tour group. Horrified, the travelers left this place as quickly as possible, repeatedly calling out the holy name of God. Shashi, Encyclopaedia Indica. Vol. 47 , p. 151, note 33.
25. ↑ There are sources that suggest the existence of artillery in the ports of Gujarat as early as the early 16th century, and the inhabitants of the port cities on the Indian west coast, who had refused to recognize Portuguese sovereignty, were already suffering at that time Experience with the effects of the Portuguese ship's cannons (e.g. bombardments of Calicut 1500 and 1502); however, the first unequivocal reference to the use of firearms in an Indian land battle comes from the Baburnama , as also Gommans, Mughal Warfare , p. 147 writes.
26. ↑ Kulke and Rothermund, Geschichte Indiens , p. 260.
27. ↑ A brief outline of the question, which has been assessed very differently in research, to what extent gunpowder and firearms have led to changes in warfare not only in India but also in the realms of the Near and Middle East and also promoted state centralization or decentralization , found in Gommans, Mughal Warfare , pp. 133-136.
28. ↑ This is the work of Gommans, Mughal Warfare , which has already been mentioned several times. It is also based on the explanations in the following paragraphs of this section (cf. pp. 117–120, 157 and 203–204). Until this study was published, the only detailed works on this subject were those by Horn, Paul: Das Heer- und Kriegwesen des Grossmoghuls , Leiden 1894 and Irvine, William: The Army of the Indian Moghuls , London 1903.
29. ^ Gommans, Mughal Warfare , p. 204.
30. ↑ During the heyday of their empire, the Mughals managed to maintain 100,000 to 200,000 cavalrymen and the same or double the number of war horses - despite all the problems associated with keeping horses in India. Gommans, Mughal Warfare , p. 117.
31. ↑ In Agra Babur also fell into the hands of Ibrahim's mother and her court company. Babur not only gave her life, but also gave her and her entourage sufficient means so that they could continue to lead a life according to their status. Babur, Memoirs , p. 679.
32. ↑ Here, too, there are occasional deviating dates in the literature. See also note 1.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on June 8, 2007 .