पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

SADASHIVRAO'S APPOINTMENT FOR NORTHERN INDIA 39 Balaji Bajirao's rule is always inexplicable, and it was much more so during the Panipat campaign Looking to the political condition then existing in India, and the strength of the Marathas, it was a first rate mistake to have left the south Indian tangle to take its own shape, and proceed to north India after Udgir, especially after knowing the complete defeat of the Shinde Holkar forces There were at least four fronts on which the Maratha attention was necessary then The Abdali front in the north, the Haider Ali front in the south, the Nizam front in the Deccan and the English front—for such it was though the ,Peshwa was completely unaware of it—along the whole Indian coast The Maratha power seemed to be at its zenith at the end of 1758,³⁶ but the funda- mental weakness of their unplanned spreading became apparant soon By the end of 1759 they were completely driven out of the Panjab and suffered a major defeat owing to the death of Dattaji soon after In the south, Haider Ali who was strengthening himself silently, had slyly set aside the all conquer- ing Marathas, establishing himself, finally in September 1759 by defeating Nanjraj³⁷ and imprisoning him with the puppet Mysore ruler The English had established their power in Bengal equally firmly, and had, taking advan- tage of the Maratha support, occupied the best districts in the Nizam's dominion on the eastern sea board by driving out the French What Sadashivrao Bhau could conquer from the Nizam after his far famed victory of Udgir, the Brit- ish had taken away from the Nizam by merely marching a few thousand troops, under Colonel Forde,³⁸ from Bengal to the Northern Sarkars' The result of Bhau's going to the north at this juncture after the French defeat at Wandiwash in January 1760, was exemplified not only in the far reverberat ing defeat of Panipat on 14th January, 1761, but, simultaneously or quickly fol- lowing on its heels, in the occupation of Pondicherry by the English on 16th January, 1761, and the defeat of the Emperor Shah Alam by Colonel Car- nack in Bihar on 15th January, 1761, that is, a day after the Panipat disaster ³⁹ By these events, little noticed or thought of then, the future of India was decided, more than by the defeat at Panipat Sadashivrao Bhau was fighting for the preservation of the Mughal Empire for the descendant of Taimur who actually became a prisoner and a tool in the hands of the English' Bhau thought that but for Abdali the whole south would have come into the pos- . session of the Marathas'⁴⁰ But by the defeat of the French in the south and the occupation of the Northern Sarkars, the English became powerful enough in the south to defy all others The Peshwa had planned the capture of Janjira from the Sidi this year (1760), but by the covert action⁴¹ of the English it never came to pass' Even the lands conquered from the Nizam at the be ginning of 1760 had to be returned when he threatened Poona after Panipat. How can a historian account for these results but on the one supposition that 36 BISM (Persian Mss ) No 696, dated 20-12 1758, No 699, dated 15-4-1^759 37 RAJ 1 138. 38 Cambridge History of India 5 162 39 Fall 2.542 40 RAJ 1 166. 41 SPD 40.136