पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

36 PANIPAT 1761
doubt, but the merchants were not responsible for the continuous supply as
such, nor were the prices fixed This was a constant source of difficulty for a
moving army There was no assurance of supply nor certainty about the cost,
which led not only to slackness and even obstruction in the war effort, but to
the bankruptcy of the soldiers and the authorities as well
Sadashivrao Bhau's progress was very slow if he had the intention of
joining Shinde and Holkar before the rains These generals had been prac-
tically driven out of the Delhi area, and were then camping at a safe distance
from the Durrani forces behind the Jat principality, using Surajmal as a mid
dleman in their diplomatic negotiations 19 Ahmad Shah Abdali had sent
emissaries to both Madhosingh of Jaipur and Surajmal Jat, ordering them to
unite their forces with his and send monies to aid him in his work of driving
out the Marathas,21 but both pleaded their inability to do anything in the mat-
ter and tried the game of procrastination and equivocation Surajmal was the
more cunning of the two He would always call himself a mere zamindar,
or even a tenant, and not a prince He replied that he would pay the ac-
knowledged Emperor the revenues due to him If Ahmad Shah would him-
self assume that position and remain permanently in India, he would pay him
as the legal sovereign Till then he could not possibly do what he had been
asked, especially as his territories had been ravaged by the movements of both
the Maratha and the Durrani armies 22 As the Indian summer advanced,
Abdali encamped in the vicinity of Ramgad in the mid Doab, exhausted by the
three months' incessant running after the elusive Marathas of the Shinde-
Holkar contingents Each party now expected the other to renew the fight
first, and would not start it themselves This stalemate could have been broken
only by the junction of the forces under Sadashivrao Bhau and the exhausted
generals in the north
Bhau started from Patdur on the 14th of March, 1760, but had only
crossed the Narmada after a month, covering a distance of not more than two
hundred miles The delay was due to the preparation and joining in of the
various corps with equipment for a long and distant campaign Sadashivrao
Bhau's Panipat campaign was, in fact, on the model of the Mughal Emperors
and not like that of Shivaji or Bajirao I The Maratha army had large tents,
screens for women's apartments, and the various departments to look after
the convenience of the leaders and the army The chiefs rode on superb Arab
or Central Asian chargers and wore gorgeous dresses of gold brocades Their
weapons and other equipment were also of the best type, and the brigades
under Ibrahim Khan Gardi, trained after the French model, were the envy of
Indian potentates of those times The presence of these infantry corps with
their cannon, regulated the whole movement of the army, and the daily
marches would cover but a few miles The heavy siege-guns which accom-
panied the army, together with the light field artillery, slowed the rate of
progress, as the long rows of bulls necessary to draw them would move but
slowly over the rugged country and narrow passes in the Satpura and Vindhya
19 SPD 2 121
21 Ibid 21 186.
22 Ibid.