Battle of Merta

Background

The battle of Patan had not really put an end to the Kachhwa-Rathor combination. From the fatal field the vanquished general Mirza Ismail Beg and most of his soldiers and captains escaped, though at the sacrifice of all their guns and property. And now from his refuge in Jodhpur territory he began to assemble a new army by calling his scattered followers. The Maratha cause was furthered weakened by the incurable quarrel between Scindhia and Holkar, and their failure to collect enough war indemnity for meeting the daily cost of their inflated army.

So Scindhia's generals, after making some little money collection in the Shekhawati district, by-passed Jaipur and laid siege to Ajmer fort (on 21 August). At the same time, Mahadji, by a master stroke of strategy, terrified and neutralized the Raja of Jaipur by pushing a large detachment from his camp in Mathura, on to Bhusawar (15 August), on the eastern frontier of the Jaipur state, in readiness to invade that country if his troops marched west to aid the Marwar army then defending Ajmer. Finally in order to strike even greater terror, he announced that he would join the campaign in person, and entered 'marching tents' outside that holy city, and a few days later advanced to Shantanukund.

The Raja of Jodhpur set himself to collecting an army under the brilliant leadership of Mirza Ismail Beg for raising the siege of Ajmer and expelling the Marathas from his territory. It was a question of life and death to Mahadji to strike the first blow.

No time was to be lost in breaking up the relieving the Marwar army posted at Merta before it could be doubled by the arrival of the reinforcements which were gathering at Nagor, only forty miles away. This strategic move was immediately put into execution by the Marathas. Leaving 2,000 Deccani horse and a small body of trained musketeers to hold the siege trenches before Ajmer and prevent any succour from reaching the beleaguered fort, the main army of Scindhia under Gopal Hari Raghunath (popularly known as Gopal Bhau Chitnis) set out for Merta on 4 September, The Maratha horse moved one march ahead, forming a screen before the more slowly guns and trained infantry under De Boigne, and arrived at Netaria, four miles east of Merta, on the seventh. De Boigne had to take a more circuitous route, south of Ajmer, then west and finally north, by ways of Pisangaon and Govindgarh, to Alniawas, on the southern bank of the Luni, and ploughed his way across the broad, sandy bed of that river on to the town of Rian, fifteen miles south-east of Merta, on the eighth. His arrangements were perfect; a large number of camels carried skins of water for his men over this dry region, and others transported his infantry to lessen their fatigue. At midnight between eighth and the ninth, De Boigne resumed his march and next dawn arrived at the Maratha camp in Netaria.

A mile due east of Merta city is the village of Dangawas, with two large tanks lying east of it. Three miles beyond Dangawas, in the same easterly direction lies another village, Netaria, (eleven miles north-west of Rian and the Luni river) with a similar water supply. Thus, Netaria served as the base of Scindhia's army before the battle, and the fighting began with an attack upon the northernmost point (or the left extreme) of the Rajput trenches which extended from the tanks east of Dangawas westwards in a semi-circular line along the south side of Merta city.

Merta has been righly called the Gateway of Marwar, and here every invader of the Rathore kingdom has been first opposed.

Initial skirmishes

A mutual cannonade began at 9 AM on the day of De Boigne's arrival (9 September), with no other result than the waste of munition, as was usually the case in those days. Gopal Bhau wished to attack immediately, but De Boigne wisely refused to employ his worn-out troops in the intense heat of the desert noon and also the chance of an effective pursuit by beginning the battle so late in the day. He spent that afternoon in reconnoitering the enemy's lines and planning his blow.

Scindhia's army consisted of about 25,000 cavalry of his own with two auxiliary but detached bodies of 4000 and 1000 horse respectively supplied by Holkar and Ali Bahadur. De Boigne division was made up of twelve infantry battalions (totalling about 6500 rank and file), together with fifty pieces of choice artillery. The Jodhpur army was made up of about 26,000 cavalry and a body of irregular infantry not more than ten thousand strong, a few of whom were armed with matchlocks and the bulk with sword and spear only. Their artillery consisted of some twenty-five antique guns. Scindhia's superiority in the fire power was made ten-fold of this numerical difference by the greater mobility, efficiency and rapidity of his brass guns, light 3- and 6- pounders, which were worked by highly trained Indian gun crews under one European gun-layer for each piece, and supplied with enormous quantities of powder and shot brought into the firing line by well-organized bullock transport. Thus it happened that within an hour of the commencement of the fight, the Jodhpur infantry was broken and driven out of the field, so that the rest of the battle, for two more hours, was a contest between cavalry armed with sword on one side and disciplined infantry armed with modern flintlocks and bayonets and highly efficient artillery on the other. During this second stage the Marwari guns were silent. The Maratha cavalry made an advance.

Plan and tactics of the Jodhpur army

The battle of Patan, fought less than three months before this, had proved beyond doubt the futility of swords against cannonballs. The Rathore tribal levy was entirely made up of tumultuous bands of horsemen, with a few rusty old cannon of position. Their national infantry was despised arm and consisted of wild Naga monks, poorly armed and utterly ignorant of discipline, and some servants too poor to keep a horse. Therefore, before challenging Scindhia's new model army again, the Jodhpur Government wisely decided to stiffen its national cavalry with the Mughlalia matchlock-men and gunners of Mirza Ismail Beg, who were semi-modernised and fully experienced in a life of fighting as a profession. Ismail Beg was timed to reach Nagor, only forty miles off, on 11 September.

So, it was the interest of the Marwar army to lie on the defensive and gain the necessary three or four days' respite for the junction of Ismail Beg'a army. Scindhia's interest lay in not giving the enemy this time. And knowing the habits of the opium-eating Rajputs and the indolent unruly Nagas, De Boigne decided that a surprise attack at peep of dawn would catch them at the greatest disadvantage.

The first impact of the day was between the Maratha right of vanguard and the enemy's extreme left wing. The general engagement along the entire line took more than an hour to develop, on account of the initial distance between the Maratha left and the Rathore right wings opposed to each other, and the lazy habits of the Rajput cavaliers.

Therefore, De Boigne's surprise attack was very quickly successful in crushing the isolated left wing of the Rajputs. This result spread confusion and some dispersion among the rest of their army. The Rathores, ordered to be solely on the defensive pending Ismail Beg's arrival, had formed no plan of action, no concert for the movement of he different limbs of their vast sprawling army; they had no supreme commander even who would be obeyed by all.

The first stage of the battle

On Friday, 10 September 1790, De Boigne silently marshalled his line of battle about two hours before daybreak and delivered his attack on the extreme left of the Rajput lines, at the first streak of dawn. Here the tanks of Dangawas were held by a body of fighting monks called Nagas, who belonged to the Ramanandi and Vishnuswami sects. Their arms mostly sword and spear with a few rusty old matchlocks and twenty cannons.

De Boigne's twelve battalions formed two lines with fifty pieces of light field guns before them. Some distance behind them the Maratha horse was drawn up, in far elongated line, Lakhwa Dada on the left, Gopal Bhau in the centre and Jiva Dada on the right. A full mile behind these stood the small sulky contingents of Holkar's horse under Bapu Rao and ashi Rao Holkar and Ali Bahadur's men under his diwan, Balwant Sadashiv Aswalkar.

Moving obliquely to their right, the trained battalions came upon the enemy and opened fire with grape on the Naga lines all of a sudden. The surprise was complete; the Nagas were utterly unprepared. Many of them had dispersed to the fields for the necessary operations of nature after the night's sleep, some were brushing their teeth with chewed twigs, some bathing in the tanks, and some still in bed. For some time, the Rajput guns replied but without stopping De Boigne's advance, who shot down the Nagas running about and trying to assemble for combat. Nothing could stand before such superior firing at close range. The Nagas lines were forced and their artillery captured in an hour's time.

The counter-attack

Then the tide of battle suddenly turned and an unforeseen disaster threatened the victors. Captain Rohan, who commanded the three battalions forming De Boigne's right wing, flushed with his easy victory and tempted by the rich camp of the Nagas lying close ahead, advanced too far to the right without his general's orders, and thus created a wide gap between his men and the rest of De Boigne's line. Into this opening, the Rathore cavalry poured with lightning speed and overwhelming numbers.

For, by this time the alarm had spread throughout the Rajput army, where the chiefs were more unready than the Nagas. Many individual heads of families gathered their relatives together and got ready to fight, though their supreme commander (Bakhshi) Bhimraj Ginghavi had at first vacillated and at last fled away. Therefore, when an hour after dawn, the three battalions under Capt. Rohan were seen to have moved far away from their centre, one large body of Rathore cavalry from the south of Dangawas quickly seized this tactical blunder, rushed into the gap in the campoo line, enveloped these battalions, cut up nearly half of the men, and threw the entire wing into disorder.

After the flood of horsemen had passed on, Capt. Rohan managed to rejoin De Boigne's main body with the remnant of his force, himself mortally wounded.

Taking advantage of the confusion and check to the Maratha side, the full force of the Rathore cavalry, forming seven large bodies, charged Scindhia's army at the gallop. Regardless of their losses from the first salvoes of grape from De Boigne's fifty guns, the Rathore horse swept tumultuously through the line of these guns, sabred such of the gunners as stood in their way, made a mere threat of attack against the front of the battalions and quickly wheeled to the right and the left in order to strike at the flanks of the campoo in two pincer movements, and overwhelm Scindhia's cavalry in the second line. The Rajput cavalry whirled round the two wings and rear of De Boigne's force seeking an opening for crumpling it up and riding down the foot. But what they found facing them everywhere was not the uncovered flank of the line formation but a square.

Conclusion of the Battle

The genius of General Benoît de Boigne and the perfect discipline of his troops saved the day. As soon as the general saw his right wing engulfed by one body of Rathor cavalry and another body, heaving and roaring like a mile-long wave, getting ready before their camp to hurl themselves upon the Maratha line, Benoît de Boigne at once drew the first line of his infantry back on its supports and ordered the whole to form a hollow square, every face of which presented to the massed cavalry approaching it, a line of bristling bayonets and the platoon fire of musketry from rapid flintlocks. As time passed, the checked Rajputs continued to fall in heaps over the plain.

Unable to break the square of the campoo, the Rajput cavalry turned aside and struck the Maratha cavalry ranged behind. The Maratha cavalry which had been long stationary, could not resist the momentum of the Rathor charge and fled far away to the rear to the rear of stationary squadrons of Holkar and Ali Bahadur. Here hand-to-hand fighting took place and after two hours, the Rathor horse was spent, their ranks were woefully thinned by the incessant fire of the campoo behind them.

After failing to break the trained infantry, failing to annihilate the southern cavalry, the baffled Rathors turned their faces to their own lines, being helplessly butchered during the return journey by the campoo artillery firing on their flank and rear. Benoît de Boigne had personally advanced and reoccupied his fifty guns. His quick volleys of grape tore bloody lanes among the confused mass of tired men and horses retiring westwards.

The Zard-Kaprawalas

There was fighting still left in the Rathors. The last desperate charge for which they long prepared, had still to be delivered. Rajputs who vow to fight to their last breath and never leave the field except victory, are invested by their kings with a full suit of robes dyed in saffron. Such fighters were called kesaria i.e. the saffron clad, and in Hindustani Zard Kaprawalas (Red Robed). The morning sun had already been up for three hours. The all-saffron column, three thousand strong, set itself in motion at the far western end pf the fatal plain. The ground shook under the tramp of the cavalcade, as the flower of Rathor chivalry swept on nearer and nearer. Then General Benoît de Boignes quick firing brass guns vomited fire, making woeful gaps in the dense crowd of horses and men. Of the three thousand brave men who had set out to save the honour of their clan, only one-third survived to reach the front of the campoo. And then the French led infantry, by their steady and well directed platoon fire at such close range shot down the foremost Rathor desperadoes. The attacking line of horsemen was torn up by every successive volley. But the fury of the Rajput charge was yet to be spent. Again and again, only ten or fifteen of their horsemen regardless of their hopeless inferiority in number and arms, charged up to the bayonets till they were all laid low.

A British officr of Benoît de Boigne gives an eyewitness's account of this charge: "it is impossible for me to describe the feats of bravery performed by the Zard-Kaprawalas or forlorn hope of the enemy. I have seen, after their line was broken, fifteen or twenty men only return to charge one thousand infantry, and advance within ten or fifteen paces of our line, before they were all shot." "It is but just to the enemy to acknowledge that, considering the situation in which they were found, and the disorder consequent thereto, they behaved very valiantly, as they actually cut down some of our people at their guns, and two of them with a desperate fury and intrepidity, made at De Boigne himself and might possibly have killed him if they had not been hewn in pieces by his bodyguards."

Aftermath

The last effort of Rajput Valour was quenched in blood. All over that level plain leading up to the gates of Merta. The yellow sand was littered with heaps of white clad men. This scene was now variegated, as saffron robes,darkened with a warmer and more crimson fluid, mingled with the earlier white masses. Then the Sindhia's entire army advanced. The dispersed Maratha cavalry had by this time taken heart from the example of the campoo and forming up on the two wings and rear of the infantry, joined in the pursuit. There was none to oppose them. The enemies guns and camp were captured by 10 o'clock in the morning, and the walled city of Merta with all its stored wealth capitulated at three p.m. when De Boigne came up with his guns and threatened bombardment. The fort itself surrendered four days later. the loss on the victorious side was heavy, it was mainly due to Captain Rohans reckless advance. Nine hundred of the disciplined infantry of De Boigne were killed or wounded. In the Maratha section of the army fifty men were killed and two hundred and fifty were wounded, the officer casualty included Maloji Pingle and Sukji Shinde killed and Shaikh Shariff wounded. The Rajputs lost over two thousand men and another three thousand were wounded. Not a house of note among the Rathor clan or their feudal retainers but mourned the death of its head. The Rathor nobles who died included Maheshdas Kumpa and Shiv Singh Champa. These two nobles had rallied their clansmen and led them in a time when their commander in chief Bhimraj Singhavi faltered and fled. During the battle, Bhimraj Bakhshi fled away to Nagor with 4000 Rathore cavalry, Gangaram Bhandari who had hidden himself some where during the fighting, came out afterwards and arranged with the Marathas for the capitulation of Merta fort, from which 2000 Rajputs who had entered it, were allowed to go away with their arms. De Boigne by his personal interposition, saved a large body of Rajputs who had fallen into his hands from being transfixed on the bayonets of his soldiers. The city of Merta was plundered by the victors, though it did not yield much booty as Patan. After three days peace and security was re-established in the city. In one of its mosques opium worth Rs.50,000 was found stored and was confiscated.