Battles of India: a guide from the Hydaspes to Longewala

1 Hydaspes, 326 BC

Where

The Hydaspes (Jhelum) river, Punjab, today in Pakistan

War

Alexander's Indian campaign

Sides

Alexander the Great, with his Indian ally the raja of Taxila, vs King Porus

Strength

Alexander's striking force about 6,000 foot and 5,000 horse, more under Craterus across the river; Porus 30,000 foot, 4,000 horse, 300 chariots and 200 elephants by Arrian's count

Result

Macedonian victory; Porus captured and restored as king

The oldest battle in this guide is known only from Greek and Roman writers. In May 326 BC Alexander the Great reached the Hydaspes, today's Jhelum, with his ally the raja of Taxila, and found King Porus and his elephants waiting on the far bank of a river swollen by snowmelt and early rain. On a stormy night Alexander slipped upstream with a picked force and crossed at dawn, leaving Craterus opposite the Indian camp. Arrian puts the striking force at not much under 6,000 foot and 5,000 horse.¹

Porus came on, by Arrian's count, with 30,000 infantry, 4,000 horse, 300 chariots and 200 elephants. Alexander's cavalry fell on the Indian wing, Coenus rode round into the rear, and the surrounded army was cut down while Craterus crossed to join the pursuit. Arrian has nearly 20,000 Indian foot and 3,000 horse killed; World History Encyclopedia gives 12,000 Indian dead against 1,000 Macedonians. Asked how he wished to be treated, the wounded Porus answered, “Treat me, Alexander, in a kingly way!”, and Alexander gave him back his kingdom and added more land to it. Livius.org calls it in fact a skirmish: Alexander used only a sixth of his forces. Months later, further east, his army refused to march on, and he turned for home.²

Why it is here: Alexander's battle with Porus is on every list of Indian battles we checked, recognition 4, but it led nowhere, since his army soon refused to go further, so decisiveness, consequence, memory and certainty score 3. That is 33 points, one short of the top fifteen and exactly this guide's line, enough to open the ancient era.

Read the full story of the Battle of the Hydaspes ›

2 Kalinga, c. 261 BC

Where

Kalinga, on the east coast of India; tradition places the fighting at Dhauli, near Bhubaneswar in today's Odisha

War

Ashoka's conquest of Kalinga

Sides

Maurya Empire (Ashoka) vs the kingdom of Kalinga

Strength

Unknown; Pliny the Elder credits the king of the Calingae with 60,000 foot, 1,000 horse and 700 elephants

Result

Maurya conquest; Ashoka's edict counts 100,000 killed and 150,000 carried away

Chandragupta, who reigned from about 321 BC, founded the Maurya empire, and by the time his grandson Ashoka came to the throne it surrounded Kalinga, a rich trading kingdom on the east coast. Around 260 BC Ashoka invaded it; why, nobody knows, and modern dates run from 262 to 260 BC. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder credits the king of the Calingae with 60,000 foot, 1,000 horse and 700 elephants, without saying when. The one witness is the conqueror: in his Rock Edict XIII Ashoka says he took Kalinga eight years after his coronation, that 150,000 people were deported, 100,000 killed and many more died.³

Kalinga is remembered for what came after. The edict turns victory into regret: the chiefest conquest, it says, is “the conquest of Right and not of Might”, and Ashoka never fought another war. Historians warn that his turn to Buddhism was more gradual than legend says, and that he neither gave Kalinga back nor brought the deported home. In Kalinga itself the edict was not carved: at Dhauli and Jaugada, Edicts XI to XIII are replaced by two special edicts telling his officers how to win the trust of the conquered people. A white Peace Pagoda of the 1970s now stands on Dhauli Hill above the Daya river, which, local belief says, once ran red with blood.⁴

Why it is here: Ashoka's war and his remorse are among the best known stories in Indian history, recognition 5, and the conquest ended Kalinga's independence, decisiveness 5, consequence and memory 4. We know it almost only from Ashoka's own words, certainty 2, but its 43 points are ten above the guide's line.

3 Second Tarain, 1192

Where

Tarain (Taraori), near Thanesar in today's Haryana, about 150 km from Delhi

War

Ghurid invasion of northern India

Sides

Muhammad of Ghor vs Prithviraj III Chauhan, king of the Chahamanas

Strength

Some 120,000 Ghurids vs 300,000, figures given as hearsay; a modern Indian account gives Prithviraj 100,000 to 120,000 (all disputed)

Result

Ghurid victory; Prithviraj captured and killed

The ancient era ends on a field near Thanesar, fought over twice in two years. In 1191 Muhammad of Ghor stormed the fort of Tabarhinda, today's Bathinda, and Prithviraj III of the Chahamana, or Chauhan, dynasty, whose lands took in the Delhi region, routed him at Tarain. That first battle is not in this guide, because it settled nothing: Muhammad went home, raised a new army of Turkic, Afghan and Persian troops, and in 1192 came back to the same field.⁵

This time four divisions of mounted archers struck at Prithviraj's flanks and rear and avoided close combat until his army lost its cohesion; then Muhammad charged its center with his 12,000 heavy cavalry and it broke. Prithviraj fled, was captured and was killed. World History Encyclopedia gives, as what “is said”, 120,000 for Muhammad against 300,000, while Colonel Ajay Singh, in The Week, gives Muhammad over 120,000 and Prithviraj 100,000 to 120,000. Earlier Muslim victories in the north had brought no lasting conquest; this one did. Delhi was soon taken and left to the slave general Qutb ud-Din Aibak, who in 1206 proclaimed himself sultan, and the Delhi Sultanate began. Myth vs fact: legend has the blinded Prithviraj kill Muhammad with an arrow at Ghazni, but the sources on his end disagree; the Prithviraj Raso keeps him alive as a Rajput hero.⁶

Why it is here: It led to the Delhi Sultanate, so decisiveness and consequence 5, with recognition and memory 4; the numbers and Prithviraj's end rest on conflicting accounts, certainty 2. Its 42 points close the ancient era far above the line, while the first battle on the same field scored 25.

Read the full story of the Second Battle of Tarain ›

4 First Panipat, 1526

Where

Panipat, north of Delhi, in today's Haryana

War

Babur's invasion of Hindustan

Sides

Babur, Timurid ruler of Kabul, vs Sultan Ibrahim Lodi of Delhi

Strength

12,000 when Babur crossed the Indus vs a reported 100,000 and about 1,000 elephants (Babur's figures); the district's history gives Ibrahim 30,000 to 40,000 fighting men

Result

Babur's victory; Ibrahim Lodi killed

Three centuries after Tarain the Sultanate belonged to the Afghan Lodis, and its last sultan could not hold his nobles. Ibrahim Lodi took the throne in 1517; his uncle claimed it, and Daulat Khan Lodi, governor of the Punjab, joined hands with Babur, the Timurid ruler of Kabul. When Babur crossed the Indus late in 1525 his officials counted everyone with the army, “good and bad”, as 12,000, while people put the Sultan's army at 100,000 men and about 1,000 elephants. The district's history counts 30,000 to 40,000 fighting men, the rest camp followers.⁷

At Panipat Babur lashed some 700 carts into a barricade and waited. On 21 April 1526 Ibrahim attacked. Babur's flanking parties swung into his rear until his wings, in Babur's words, “could neither move forward against us nor force a way for flight”. “In one half-day, that armed mass was laid upon the earth”: his men reckoned 15,000 to 16,000 dead, though people in Agra later spoke of 40,000 or 50,000. Ibrahim died on the field. Myth vs fact: the guns usually get the credit, but Babur's own account suggests his archers did most of the killing. The Sultanate that began after Tarain ended in that half-day, and the Mughal empire that replaced it lasted until 1857. Babur's Kabuli Bagh, Ibrahim's grave and a battle museum still mark the field.⁸

Why it is here: It killed the last Sultan of Delhi and began Mughal rule, so decisiveness and consequence 5, and every list of Indian battles names it, recognition 5. Memory is 4, kept by monuments rather than a national day, and the numbers rest on Babur's memoir, certainty 3; its 46 points lead its era.

Read the full story of the First Battle of Panipat ›

5 Khanwa, 1527

Where

Village of Khanwa (Babur's Kanwa), near Bayana in today's Rajasthan

War

Babur's conquest of Hindustan

Sides

Babur vs a Rajput confederacy under Rana Sanga of Mewar, with Afghan allies

Strength

Babur about 20,000 horse (our sum of Jadunath Sarkar's estimates) with guns and matchlocks vs 201,000 on paper by Babur's reckoning, in Sarkar's view more than double Babur's numbers

Result

Mughal victory; Rana Sanga carried wounded from the field

Panipat gave Babur Delhi and Agra, not India. His most dangerous rival was Rana Sanga of Mewar, whom, in the words of Babur's letter of victory, no Sultan of Delhi, Gujarat or Mandu could face without the help of other princes, and ten chiefs now joined him, among them Hasan Khan of Mewat. The letter reckons the host at 201,000 horse, a paper total worked out from the revenue of their lands; Jadunath Sarkar judged the enemy more than double Babur's own army. His men were shaken by lost skirmishes and an astrologer's gloomy forecast, and Babur renounced wine and had his gold and silver drinking vessels broken up.⁹

On 17 March 1527, the date in Babur's memoirs, he drew up as at Panipat behind a line of carts tied together with rawhide, with Ustad Ali Quli's mortar and Mustafa's matchlocks in front. For hours the Rajputs charged the wings while gunfire held them off the center, until Sanga was carried senseless from the field and the confederacy broke; the dead lay along the road as far as Bayana. Babur added Ghazi, holy warrior, to his titles. Sarkar called the battle the supreme test of his generalship: defeat, or even a retreat after a drawn fight, would have shattered his newborn empire. Panipat had ended the Sultanate; Khanwa kept the Rajputs from taking its place.¹⁰

Why it is here: Khanwa broke the one Indian power able to throw Babur out, so decisiveness and consequence 4, but it lives in the shadow of Panipat, recognition and memory 3, and we know it mainly from Babur's own memoir, certainty 3. Its 34 points clear the guide's line by one.

6 Second Panipat, 1556

Where

Plain of Panipat, north of Delhi (Haryana)

War

Mughal war against the Sur dynasty

Sides

Akbar's Mughal army under the regent Bairam Khan vs Hemu, ruling Delhi as Vikramaditya

Strength

Mughal vanguard 10,000, perhaps 5,000 real fighters (Abul Fazl), vs 30,000 horsemen (Abul Fazl) and 1,500 war elephants (Panipat district)

Result

Mughal victory; Hemu captured and put to death

Babur's empire nearly died with his son. Humayun lost Hindustan to the Afghan Sur dynasty, won Delhi back in June 1555 and died in January 1556, leaving a boy of 14, Akbar, in the hands of his guardian Bairam Khan. The Sur cause now rested on Hemu, a Hindu from Rewari who had risen to be chief minister and general of the Sur kings and had won 22 battles for them. He beat the Mughal governor at Tughlaqabad, entered Delhi on 7 October 1556 and took the royal title Vikramaditya.¹¹

On 5 November the armies met at Panipat, where Babur had won thirty years before. Abul Fazl, Akbar's court historian, gives Hemu 30,000 Rajput and Afghan horsemen and the Mughal vanguard 10,000, of whom perhaps 5,000 were real fighters; the district administration counts 1,500 war elephants on Hemu's side. Hemu seemed to be winning when, in Abul Fazl's words, “an arrow from the bended bow of Divine wrath reached Hemu's eye, and piercing the socket, came out at the back of his head.” His army broke, and he was put to death. The battle closed the Afghan and Mughal contest for northern India in the Mughals' favor. At Panipat the loser is honored too: Hemu's Samadhi Sthal stands where he was beheaded.¹²

Why it is here: One arrow ended Hemu's challenge and gave Akbar's generals a decisive victory, so decisiveness and consequence 5, but it is the least known of the three battles of Panipat, recognition and memory 3, and the story is told mainly by Akbar's own court historians, certainty 3. Its 38 points still put it well above the guide's line.

Read the full story of the Second Battle of Panipat ›

7 Talikota, 1565

Where

Plains south of the Krishna, between Rakshasi and Tangadgi, in today's northern Karnataka

War

War between Vijayanagara and the Deccan sultanates

Sides

Vijayanagara Empire (regent Aliya Rama Raya) vs the sultanates of Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda and Bidar

Strength

Over 100,000 foot and some 40,000 horse vs about 110,000 by one modern account; the chroniclers claim up to 900,000

Result

Sultanates' victory; Rama Raya beheaded; Vijayanagara sacked

While the Mughals fought for the north, Vijayanagara had held the south for more than two centuries, and in the 1560s its real master was the regent Rama Raya, who kept King Sadasiva in seclusion and, in Ferishta's words, was “daily continuing to encroach on the dominions” of the Muslim sultanates of the Deccan. Four of them, Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda and Bidar, joined forces against him. Three days of feints along the Krishna drew the defenders from the main ford, and the allies crossed it at night.¹³

The battle was fought on 23 January 1565, the date Robert Sewell worked out from Ferishta and that The Week also gives, on the plains between Rakshasi and Tangadgi; Jadunath Sarkar dated it 5 January. Ferishta at one point gives Vijayanagara 900,000 infantry and Diogo do Couto 600,000 foot, while The Week gives Rama Raya over 100,000 foot and some 40,000 horse against about 110,000. The allied guns, some loaded with bags of copper coins, broke the Hindu attack. Then an elephant charged Rama Raya's litter, he was seized, and Hussain Nizam Shah of Ahmadnagar had him beheaded and his head raised on a spear. For five months by Sewell's count, six by The Week's, the victors plundered and wrecked the capital. Its ruins at Hampi became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.¹⁴

Why it is here: The greatest empire of the south lost its capital for good, so decisiveness and consequence 5, with recognition and memory 4; the numbers come from chroniclers who contradict themselves, certainty 3. Its 43 points make it the one battle of the Deccan in its era, far above the line.

Read the full story of the Battle of Talikota ›

8 Haldighati, 1576

Where

Haldighati pass near Khamnor, north of Gogunda, Mewar (Rajasthan)

War

Mughal conquest of Mewar

Sides

Akbar's Mughal army under Man Singh of Amber vs Maharana Pratap of Mewar

Strength

5,000 to 10,000 Mughals (Badauni, Sarkar) vs about 3,000 Mewar horsemen (Badauni); later Rajput figures far higher

Result

Mughals held the field; Pratap escaped

The era ends with a battle the Mughals won and Indian memory gave to the loser. Akbar had won over or crushed most Rajput princes, but Pratap Singh, the Rana of Mewar, refused to become his vassal and held out in the western hills around Gogunda. Akbar sent Man Singh of Amber and was not present at any stage of the battle, as Pratap's biographer Rima Hooja stresses. Numbers are disputed: Hooja cites Badauni for Man Singh's 5,000 horsemen, Badauni's own text gives Pratap 3,000, Jadunath Sarkar guessed about 10,000 Mughals, and later Rajput writers 40,000 or even 80,000.¹⁵

The armies clashed on 18 June 1576. Pratap's first charge broke the Mughal vanguard, and Man Singh's own Rajputs ran “like a flock of sheep”, wrote Abd al-Qadir Badauni, who rode with the vanguard and shot into the mass without telling friend from foe. The Mughal reserve rallied the fugitives, an arrow killed the driver of the Rana's elephant, and the wounded Pratap was led away while a Jhala chief, Bida, drew the enemy off by seizing the royal umbrella. Sarkar dismissed the tale of Chetak leaping onto Man Singh's elephant along with the inflated numbers, and called the day “a barren victory”: Pratap won back western Mewar, and peace came only when Jahangir granted terms to his son Amar Singh.¹⁶

Why it is here: Pratap and Chetak are known to every Indian reader, so recognition and memory take full marks and carry it to 36 points, three over the guide's line of 33. The war in Mewar went on for two decades, so decisiveness and consequence are only 2, and the one eyewitness fought for the Mughals, certainty 3.

Read the full story of Haldighati ›

9 Karnal, 1739

Where

Karnal, north of Delhi near the Yamuna, in today's Haryana

War

Nadir Shah's invasion of India

Sides

Nadir Shah of Persia vs the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah

Strength

About 55,000 Persian horse (Rustam Ali) vs 75,000 to 80,000 Mughal fighting men (Sarkar, Lockhart), with a vast camp

Result

Persian victory; Delhi occupied and sacked

The Company era opens with the blow that showed how hollow Mughal power had become. In 1739 Nadir Shah of Persia marched through the Punjab toward Delhi, and the emperor Muhammad Shah dug in at Karnal behind a mud wall said to be fourteen miles round. Jadunath Sarkar put the Mughal fighting strength at no more than 75,000 and Laurence Lockhart at about 80,000, against 55,000 Persian horse by the chronicler Rustam Ali's estimate, which Sarkar accepted.¹⁷

On 24 February Saadat Khan, governor of Awadh, rushed out to save his baggage from Persian plunderers. The commander-in-chief Khan Dauran followed with 8,000 to 9,000 cavalry, while the Nizam, by Lockhart's account, sat on his elephant drinking coffee. Nadir's horsemen cut them down: Saadat Khan was captured and Khan Dauran died of his wounds the next day. Sarkar counts about 8,000 Mughal dead, Lockhart some 10,000. Muhammad Shah in effect abdicated, and in Delhi, after a riot killed Persian soldiers, Nadir ordered a six-hour massacre; estimates run from 8,000 to 400,000 dead, and Sarkar thought probably no more than 20,000. Nadir took the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor among spoils Lockhart values at no less than 70 crores of rupees, then in May set the crown back on Muhammad Shah's head and went home. In the Delhi bazaar, Lockhart notes, “a Nadir Shahi” still means a massacre.¹⁸

Why it is here: The sack stripped Delhi of the treasure of generations and laid bare the empire's weakness, consequence 4, but Nadir handed the crown back, decisiveness 4. The massacre is remembered better than the battle, recognition and memory 3, so it scores 35, two over the guide's line.

10 Plassey, 1757

Where

Plassey (Palashi) on the Bhagirathi-Hooghly River, about 160 km north of Calcutta (Kolkata), Bengal

War

East India Company's war with the Nawab of Bengal, during the Seven Years' War

Sides

East India Company (Robert Clive) vs Siraj ud-Daulah, Nawab of Bengal

Strength

About 2,100 to 3,000 vs about 50,000, a round estimate; some two thirds of the Nawab's army never fought

Result

Company victory; Clive reported 22 killed and 50 wounded

The power that would replace the Mughals won its first province by a bargain as much as a battle. The young Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, had taken Calcutta from the East India Company in 1756; Clive won it back, and the Company joined discontented courtiers, the Jagat Seth bankers and the army commander Mir Jafar in a plot to put Mir Jafar on the throne.¹⁹

On 23 June 1757 Clive's army, about 3,000 by the National Army Museum's count or about 2,100 by our sum of World History Encyclopedia's 1,400 sepoys and over 700 Europeans, faced around 50,000 men at Plassey. Mir Madan, Mohanlal and other loyal commanders fought hard, while about two thirds of the Nawab's army, under Mir Jafar, Yar Latif and Rai Durlabh, stood by. A downpour soaked the Nawab's powder, while the British gunners covered theirs with tarpaulins. At about three in the afternoon a cannonball killed Mir Madan; Mir Jafar advised the shaken Nawab to break off until morning, and the British attack that followed turned into a rout. Clive reported 22 killed and 50 wounded, against about 500 enemy dead. “Such was this great and decisive battle by which a kingdom was conquered without there having been a general assault,” wrote John Wood, a British soldier who was there.²⁰

Why it is here: Company rule grew from this afternoon and Indian lists treat it as the turning point, so recognition and consequence take full marks and it scores 45, the most in its era. Mir Jafar's bargain decided as much as the fighting and Buxar had to finish the work, decisiveness 4, and the Nawab's 50,000 is a round estimate, certainty 4.

Read the full story of the Battle of Plassey ›

11 Wandiwash, 1760

Where

Wandiwash (Vandavasi), in today's Tamil Nadu

War

Third Carnatic War, part of the Seven Years' War

Sides

British and East India Company troops (Colonel Eyre Coote) vs the French (comte de Lally), with Maratha horse

Strength

About 1,900 to 2,000 Europeans and 3,350 Indian troops vs 1,500 to 2,250 Europeans and up to 1,300 sepoys, by British and French counts

Result

British victory; Bussy captured

While Clive won Bengal, the British and French fought for the south in the Carnatic war. In January 1760 the French under the comte de Lally tried to retake the fort of Wandiwash, but his engineer built batteries as if for a regular siege, and on the seventh day Colonel Eyre Coote's relieving army appeared.²¹

On 22 January Lally drew up his line with its left on an entrenched water tank held by sailors and marines. Fortescue gives him 2,250 Europeans and 1,300 sepoys; Lally's own report, which Malleson follows, only 1,350 European foot and 150 horse, his other troops refusing to fight or foraging. Coote had 1,980 Europeans, 2,100 sepoys and 1,250 Indian horse by Fortescue's count, or 1,900 Europeans and 3,350 Indian troops by Orme's, which Malleson quotes. Two British guns firing grape broke Lally's cavalry charge, and while his infantry fought hand to hand a shot blew up an ammunition cart in the entrenchment, killing its commander and killing or disabling eighty men; the sailors fled. Bussy led a counterattack, his horse was shot under him and he was taken prisoner. The French lost close on 600 Europeans and 24 guns, the British 63 killed and 124 wounded. The surrender of Pondicherry in January 1761, says the National Army Museum, marked the end of French power in India; Lally, Malleson records, was beheaded in 1766.²²

Why it is here: It ended France's bid for India, decisiveness and consequence 4, and British and French accounts agree on what happened, certainty 4. Few remember it, memory 2, recognition 3: one point short of the top fifteen, it enters this guide exactly on the line of 33.

12 Third Panipat, 1761

Where

Panipat, in today's Haryana

War

Maratha war with Ahmad Shah Durrani

Sides

Maratha Empire (Sadashivrao Bhau) vs Ahmad Shah Durrani of Afghanistan with the Rohilla Afghans and Shuja-ud-Daula, Nawab of Awadh

Strength

45,000 to 60,000 Maratha troops with some 200,000 non-combatants; over 125,000 troops engaged in all, by the district's account

Result

Durrani victory; 60,000 to 70,000 killed by the district's account

The Marathas, the power that rose as the Mughals faded, met their disaster on the plain where Babur and Akbar had won. By the 1750s they had carried their power from the Deccan as far as the Punjab, and Ahmad Shah Durrani of Afghanistan answered with a coalition of the Rohilla Afghans and Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh. Sadashivrao Bhau's army, 45,000 to 60,000 strong with roughly 200,000 non-combatants, took Delhi in August 1760; in October Durrani crossed the Yamuna behind it, and by January the besieged camp at Panipat was starving.²³

On 14 January 1761, the festival of Makar Sankranti, the starving Marathas came out to fight. Among the dead was the 17-year-old Vishwasrao, a grandson of Bajirao I, whose name means faith, so that Marathi still says that “our faith was lost at Panipat”. The district puts the killed at 60,000 to 70,000, and Kashi Raj, a diwan of Shuja-ud-Daula, wrote that about 40,000 Maratha prisoners were slaughtered the day after. The defeat halted the Maratha advance in the north for about ten years, until Peshwa Madhavrao sent an army back in 1771. According to The Quint, Marathi speakers still say “Panipat zale”, “a Panipat has happened”, for a major loss. A pillar marks Kala Amb, where by tradition Bhau commanded, and a museum tells the Panipat battles.²⁴

Why it is here: Recognition and memory take full marks: every Indian list names it and Marathi still calls a disaster a Panipat. It checked the Marathas for only about ten years, decisiveness and consequence 4, and the death tolls differ by tens of thousands, certainty 3, for 44 points.

Read the full story of the Third Battle of Panipat ›

13 Buxar, 1764

Where

Buxar on the Ganges, in today's Bihar

War

The East India Company's war with Mir Qasim and his allies, 1763 to 1765

Sides

East India Company (Major Hector Munro) vs the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II, Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh and Mir Qasim

Strength

4,200, or about 900 Europeans and 7,000 sepoys, plus 1,000 cavalry, vs perhaps 50,000, by World History Encyclopedia's figures

Result

Company victory; Treaty of Allahabad, 1765

Plassey gave the Company a puppet; Buxar gave it the law. After 1757 the Company made and unmade the nawabs of Bengal. Mir Qasim, its next nawab, tried to rule for himself and to stop Company servants trading free of duty. War broke out in 1763; he lost four battles and fled to Awadh, where Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula and the wandering Mughal emperor Shah Alam II took up his cause. Their combined army, perhaps 50,000 strong, camped by the fort of Buxar on the Ganges.²⁵

Major Hector Munro reached Buxar on 22 October 1764 with 4,200 men by some historians' count, or about 900 Europeans and 7,000 sepoys by others', and 1,000 cavalry. The allied horsemen rode round a marsh into the Company's rear but turned to looting, and Munro's lines held. Munro then struck back, and the retreat became a rout across the Torah nala stream. The Company lost about 850 dead, wounded or missing, the allies perhaps 2,000 to 5,000 dead. Shah Alam came over to the Company, and by the Treaty of Allahabad of 12 August 1765 he granted it the diwani, the right to collect the revenue of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Banglapedia says Buxar “riveted the shackles of company rule upon Bengal”: before it the Company had only manipulated the existing powers, and now its power was unchallenged.²⁶

Why it is here: Decisiveness and consequence take full marks, because Buxar made the Company the legal collector of the revenues of three provinces. It finished what Plassey began and is much less remembered, memory 3, but recognition 4 and certainty 4 give it 42 points, well over the guide's line.

Read the full story of the Battle of Buxar ›

14 Seringapatam, 1799

Where

Seringapatam (Srirangapatna), Tipu Sultan's island fortress capital, Mysore, southern India

War

Fourth Anglo-Mysore War

Besiegers

Nearly 38,000 East India Company and Hyderabad troops (our sum of British Battles' returns)

Defenders

Tipu Sultan's army: 33,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry and rocket men (British Battles)

Outcome

Stormed 4 May 1799; Tipu killed, Mysore partitioned

In the south the Company's great rival was Mysore: Haidar Ali and his son Tipu Sultan fought it in three wars between 1767 and 1792, with an army that joined western drill to war elephants and iron-cased rockets. In 1799, with the British convinced that Tipu was allied with the French, a fourth war brought the Company's armies and a contingent from the Nizam of Hyderabad before his island capital on 5 April. By our sum of British Battles' returns they had nearly 38,000 men, against a Mysore army it gives as 33,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry and rocket men.²⁷

After a month-long siege, on the afternoon of 4 May, a column of 2,862 Europeans and 2,003 Indian troops went into the breach. Tipu was killed in the fighting; an attendant later picked out his body from the dead piled in the northern gateway. His death ended the war. Mysore was partitioned between the Company, the Nizam and the Marathas, and the rump went back to the old Hindu dynasty. The quarrel over Tipu is still alive: Karnataka first held an official Tipu Jayanti in 2015, and when the next government canceled it in 2019, the man who had started it called Tipu "the first freedom fighter of the country".²⁸

Why it is here: The storm ended the war and Mysore's independence, decisiveness 5, and made the Company the strongest power in the south, consequence 4. With 39 points it clears the guide's line of 33, held down by recognition 3, since few readers outside India know the name, and certainty 4, since both armies' sizes rest on one website and Mysore's losses are unknown.

15 Delhi, 1857

Where

Delhi, the Mughal capital, northern India

War

Indian Rebellion of 1857 (the Indian Mutiny)

Besiegers

About 4,000 British and Indian troops in June, 9,000 by September

Defenders

Over 30,000 rebel sepoys (National Army Museum estimate)

Outcome

Stormed 14 to 21 September 1857; Bahadur Shah Zafar captured and exiled

A century after Plassey, the Company's own army turned on it. On 10 May 1857 the sepoys at Meerut rose, and the next day Delhi fell to them. They turned to the old and largely powerless Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, who reluctantly agreed to lead them, and the city became the center of the rising. On 7 June a hastily raised force of 4,000 men seized the Ridge above the walls, and through the summer it held off over 30,000 mutineers.²⁹

After a siege train came down from the Punjab in August, by September there were 9,000 men before Delhi, a third of them British and the rest Sikhs, Punjabi Muslims and Gurkhas. On 14 September the guns breached the walls, the Kashmir Gate was blown open and four columns went in; after a week of street fighting the city was taken, then ransacked. Zafar gave himself up at Humayun's Tomb, was tried in the Red Fort and exiled to Burma, where he died in 1862, the last of the Mughals. Both sides still mark the siege: the British Army's Gurkha regiments keep 14 September as Delhi Day, and in 1972 India renamed the British Mutiny Memorial Ajitgarh, with a plaque honoring the rebels as fighters for national liberation.³⁰

Why it is here: Retaking the rebels' capital broke the rising, and once it was crushed the Mughal dynasty and Company rule ended too, consequence 5; fighting went on at Lucknow and in Central India until Gwalior fell in June 1858, decisiveness 4. A siege, it counts because it decided the fate of a state, and its 42 points close the Company era.³¹

16 Saragarhi, 1897

Where

Saragarhi post, Samana Ridge, North-West Frontier (today Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan)

War

Frontier rising of 1897 (Tirah campaign)

Sides

36th Sikhs of the British Indian Army vs Afridi and Orakzai tribesmen

Strength

21 soldiers vs an estimated 8,000 to 10,000

Result

Post overrun after about seven hours; all 21 defenders killed

The frontier era of this guide opens on the North-West Frontier, where the rising of 1897 threw Afridi and Orakzai tribesmen against the British posts on the Samana Ridge. Saragarhi was a small signalling post between Fort Lockhart and Fort Gulistan, held by 21 men of the 36th Sikhs under Havildar Ishar Singh. On 12 September 1897 a tribal army, estimated at 8,000 to 10,000 men, surrounded it.³²

The Sikhs held from nine in the morning until half past four, threw back two assaults, and when the door gave way at the third rush they fought on inside until none was left; the signaller kept Fort Lockhart informed to the very last. All 21 were awarded the Indian Order of Merit after their deaths. The post fell, but Fort Gulistan held, and within three days a relief column had retaken Saragarhi. One caution: no defender lived, so every detail of the fight comes from the attackers and the watchers in the forts, as H. L. Nevill pointed out in 1912. The Sikh Regiment of the Indian Army keeps 12 September as Saragarhi Day, and in 2021 Wolverhampton unveiled the first statue in Britain to honor the 21.³³

Why it is here: The Indian Army honors the stand every year, so recognition and memory 5 (recognition 4 in our last stands guide), but the post fell and decided nothing, decisiveness and consequence 1. At 32 it is one point under the guide's line of 33 and is in on the rule that every era has at least two battles, as the best scoring battle of the frontier era after Imphal and Kohima.

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17 Imphal and Kohima, 1944

Where

Imphal plain (Manipur) and Kohima ridge (Nagaland), north-east India

War

World War II, Burma campaign

Sides

British and Indian troops of the Fourteenth Army vs the Japanese Fifteenth Army, with a division of the Indian National Army

Strength

Japanese Fifteenth Army 85,000; at Kohima a garrison of 2,500 against 12,000 to 15,000

Result

Japanese defeat; 53,000 Japanese dead and missing

In March 1944 the Japanese Fifteenth Army launched Operation U-Go, sending three divisions over the hills of the Indian frontier to destroy the bases at Imphal and Dimapur from which the Fourteenth Army was preparing to retake Burma. Indians fought on both sides. Most of the defenders were Indian Army troops, while about 6,000 men of the Indian National Army's 1st Division marched with the Japanese.³⁴

At Imphal, IV Corps held the plain with four Indian divisions. Eighty miles north, at Kohima, a garrison of about 2,500 faced a Japanese division that the Ministry of Defence puts at more than 12,000 men and the National Army Museum at 15,000; it held through 13 days of siege, at one point with only the width of a tennis court between the lines. On 22 June the relief force linked up with IV Corps, besieged since 5 April, and of the Fifteenth Army's 85,000 men, 53,000 were killed or missing. Britain remembers the battles more than India does: in 2013 a National Army Museum poll and debate chose Imphal and Kohima as Britain's greatest land battle, while the researcher Hemant Singh Katoch wrote a year later that the battle had received "little to no attention".³⁵

Why it is here: The twin battles broke the Japanese Fifteenth Army and decided the Burma campaign, decisiveness 5, and ended the threat to north-east India, consequence 4; recognition 3 because Indian lists name Kohima rather than the campaign, and memory 3. Scored as one entry, it clears the guide's line of 33 with 37 points.

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18 Longewala, 1971

Where

Longewala post, Jaisalmer district, Rajasthan, in the Thar desert near the border

War

Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, western front

Sides

A Company, 23 Punjab (Maj. K. S. Chandpuri), and Indian Air Force Hunters vs Pakistan's 18th Infantry Division with two armored regiments

Strength

About 120 men at the post and a flight of four Hunters vs about 45 tanks (Air Marshal Bawa's figure)

Result

Pakistani thrust halted; 37 tanks left on Indian soil (Indian count)

On the evening of 3 December 1971 Pakistan opened a western front with air strikes on Indian airfields. After dark on 4 December a patrol from Longewala, a post held by about 120 men of A Company, 23 Punjab, under Major Kuldip Singh Chandpuri, saw a large force of tanks and infantry cross the border. Chandpuri could have fallen back on foot; he chose to hold.³⁶

By the small hours the tanks had nearly ringed the post, but the attack stalled, partly because a strand of wire put up to stop camels straying was taken for the edge of a minefield. At first light Hunters from Jaisalmer caught the tanks in open sand and kept coming back through 5 and 6 December. The losses are disputed. By the evening of 5 December the air force claimed 20 tanks destroyed or damaged; the Pakistani regimental commander's account, as Major General Bajwa summarizes it, gives one regiment's loss that day as 17 tanks; and Bajwa counts 37 tanks, 200 vehicles and over a hundred dead left on Indian soil. Chandpuri received the Maha Vir Chakra, and J. P. Dutta's 1997 film Border made the battle famous across India, though, as Sushant Singh writes in The Caravan, it took many liberties with what happened.³⁷

Why it is here: The stand and the air strikes are famous across India through Border, memory 5 and recognition 4, but they stopped one thrust in a war decided in the east, decisiveness and consequence 2, and the tank losses are disputed, certainty 3. One point short of the top fifteen, it scores exactly the guide's line of 33.

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19 Dhaka, 1971

Where

Dhaka and East Pakistan (today Bangladesh)

War

Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and the Bangladesh Liberation War

Sides

Indian Army and Mukti Bahini under a joint command (Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora) vs Pakistan's Eastern Command (Lt Gen A. A. K. Niazi)

Strength

Indian Army and Mukti Bahini guerrillas vs Pakistani forces in the east put at about 90,000; Niazi counted 26,400 men in uniform at Dhaka

Result

Pakistani surrender on 16 December 1971; about 90,000 to 93,000 prisoners; Bangladesh independent

From 25 March 1971 the Pakistani army waged a reign of terror in East Pakistan, and the Mukti Bahini freedom fighters, trained and supplied by India, fought back. On the evening of 3 December the Pakistan Air Force bombed Amritsar, Srinagar and the Kashmir valley, and a joint command of the Indian Army and the Mukti Bahini under Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora went over to the attack.³⁸

Lieutenant General A. A. K. Niazi had built his defense on fortified towns near the border. The allied columns went round them, and Pakistan's own Hamoodur Rahman Commission later found there had been no plan at all for the defense of Dacca. By his own estimate Niazi still had 26,400 men in uniform in the city, but on 16 December he and Aurora signed the instrument of surrender at the Ramna Racecourse. India's government speaks of about 93,000 Pakistani soldiers surrendering. The Commission, as reported by Dawn, counts 90,368 prisoners, of whom about 56,000 (by our sum) were army, navy and air force men, the rest paramilitaries, police and civilian officials with their families. Every 16 December India keeps Vijay Diwas, and Bangladesh celebrates its own victory, as with a national parade in Dhaka on the 45th anniversary.³⁹

Why it is here: It has the highest score in this guide, 47: in thirteen days it ended a war and made a new state, both countries mark the day and both sides documented the surrender, so decisiveness, consequence, memory and certainty 5. Recognition is 4 because lists of Indian battles name the war rather than a battle.