पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

94 PANIPAT 1761 cleared. Now only a few hundred troops surrounding Bhau remained at the front in the centre of the line. On the left hand side the Ruhelas now reinforced with fresh troops, began their attack simultaneously with that of the Wazir at the centre. In the consequent battle Damaji Gaikawad, Antaji Manakeshwar and Yashwant rao Pawar fell back defeated unable to stand the heavy slaughter by the con- secutive rounds of match lock fire from the Ruhela side. They could not make a united stand in one place. Ibrahim Khan went forth and mixed his troops amongst the Ruhelas heavily firing his last salvoes but was himself wounded and carried a prisoner by the Ruhelas. His son and brother in-law died in the effort. Practically the whole of his corps seems to have died on the battle field fighting to the last. Yashwantrao Pawar also was cut to pieces. Damaji Gaikawad received three wounds but retreated safely with his im- mediate civil assistants.⁸ Antaji Manakeshwar also with his usual cautious- ness retreated just in time to save himself uncovering the left side of the Marathas. The Ruhelas now closed upon the left flank of Bhau's personal cavalry. On the left hand side of Bhau, Samsher Bahadar was standing. He behaved on that day as a worthy scion of the Peshwa family and fought to the last. To his right were standing the Shindes, Tukoji, Mahadji and Janakoji. Their opposites on the Abdali side were Shuja ud daulah and Najib Khan. At the beginning of the battle at 9 A. M. the distance between the Ruhela front and the Shinde line was more than three miles. Najib was the coolest brain on the Abdali side, never losing his head and never acting impetuously. On this day he seems to have acted with perfect calculation. As the Maratha plan of the battle was to march on to the river side before the evening and not to fight a battle, naturally no one from the Shinde side advanced to at- tack Shuja or Najib. Besides, there was a great distance intervening between them. Najib used this respite to act in a systematic manner. He turned all his troops into infantry, dismounting even his cavalry from their horses. Then with his 15,000 troops he slowly advanced on foot, throwing up earth works in front at each quarter of a mile. That is to say, the sappers and others raised a breast-work of sand and earth a few steps in front of the line, one cubit high, which afforded a shelter to the stooping infantry and prepared trenches where the Ruhela infantry advanced and crouched down. Najib had a vast quantity of rockets with him. He would fire a volley of 2,000 rockets all at once from his advanced trenches. This had the effect of darkening the ground and the sky with their smoke and their noise created a sort of terror very useful for frightening away any advancing force. Kashiraj says that the troops of the Shinde contingent wanted to attack Najib, but they got no chance on account of this fire. We think otherwise. Bhau had wisely kept the Shinde and Holkar contingents with their beaten troops—beaten by Abdali himself in three or four fights during the last two years—to the rear flanks of his advancing square so as not to demoralise other troops by their chicken-hearted behaviour in an *8 SPD 21.200