Battle of Manupur

The Battle of Manupur was fought between the Mughal Empire and the Durrani Empire in March 1748 at the frontiers of Sirhind which ended in victory for the Indian coalition.

Battle of Manupur
Part of Indian Campaign of Ahmad Shah Durrani
Date10 March 1748[2]
Location
Sirhind
Result Allied victory[2][3]
Belligerents

Mughal Empire

Sikh Misls[1]		 Durrani Empire
Commanders and leaders
Ahmad Shah Bahadur
Itimad-ad-Daula, Qamar-ud-Din Khan †
Mir Mannu
Adina Beg
Safdar Jang
Ishwari Singh
Charat Singh
Jassa Singh Ahluwalia
Ala Singh		 Ahmad Shah Durrani
Jahan Khan
Strength
Disputed
200,000 men[4]
70,000 men[5]
60,000 men[6]
Hundreds of thousands of non-combatants[7]		 Disputed
30,000[8]
12,000[7][9]

Background

Main article: Battle of Lahore (1748)

Following the assassination of Nader Shah, last Emperor of the Persian Afsharid dynasty, Ahmad Shah Durrani took control of Persian Afghanistan. In late 1747, he began operations against the declining Mughal Empire, taking Kabul, Peshawar, and, on 18 January 1748, Lahore, over which he established a governor.[10] New coins were minted in the name of Ahmad Shah Durrani.[11] Thousands of Punjabi men were conscripted into the Afghan army, and thousands of women and children were enslaved.[12]

By February 1748, a Mughal army under Prince Ahmad Shah Bahadur and Qamaruddin Khan, the Subahdar of Lahore province, had assembled and was moving to drive out the Durrani army. On 1 March 1748, Ahmad Shah began searching for the Mughal army, making contact with them on 10 March outside the village of Manupur where the fighting began and continued into a war between "Durrani Afghan" frontiersmen and the "Great Mogul" emperor of India.

Battle

When the Mughal commander, Qamaruddin Khan, was killed by artillery in an early exchange of fire, his son, Moin-ul-Mulk, also known as Mir Mannu, continued the battle. Ahmad Shah's Afghan troops swept aside the Rajput flank and raided their baggage train.

A Mogul rocket struck the Durrani artillery store, causing an explosion that led thousands of soldiers to retreat, thus forcing Ahmad Shah Durrani's return to Afghanistan.[13]

Aftermath

After the retreat of Durrani, the panicked Mughal were unable to pursue, however Sikh bands under Charat Singh, Jassa Singh Ahluwalia and Ala Singh continued to harass them as they retreated to Kabul. Thus, the first invasion of Shah proved a failure but it gave an opportunity to the Sikhs to organize themselves into Dal Khalsa, an army of Sikh Confederacy, at Amritsar in March 1748.[14][15]

References

  1. ^ Gupta, Hari Ram (1978) [1937]. History of the Sikhs: Evolution of Sikh Confederacies (1707-1769) (3rd ed.). Munshiram Motilal Publishers. p. 85. ISBN 978-8121502481.
  2. ^ a b Grewal 1990, p. 87.
  3. ^ Jacques, Tony (2006). Dictionary of Battles and Sieges. Greenwood Press. p. 631. ISBN 978-0-313-33536-5. Archived from the original on 2015-06-26. Retrieved 2015-10-01.
  4. ^ Gupta, Hari Ram (1978). History of the Sikhs: Evolution of Sikh confederacies, 1708-1769. Munshiram Manoharlal. p. 84. A huge army of 2 lakhs under Wazir Qamar-ud-din Khan was sent to check the progress of the Afghans.
  5. ^ Srivastava, Ashirbadi Lal (1954). The First Two Nawabs of Awadh. Shiva Lal Agarwala & Company. p. 117. ISBN 978-0-8426-1549-5.
  6. ^ Adamec 2010, p. 2.
  7. ^ a b Srivastava 1954, p. 116.
  8. ^ Adamec, Ludwig W. (2010-04-07). The A to Z of Afghan Wars, Revolutions and Insurgencies. Scarecrow Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-4617-3189-4.
  9. ^ Sarkar, Sir Jadunath (1964). Fall of the Mughal Empire. M. C. Sarkar. p. 130.
  10. ^ Lansford, Tom (2017). Afghanistan at War: From the 18th-Century Durrani Dynasty to the 21st Century. ABC-CLIO. p. 20. ISBN 9781598847604.
  11. ^ Singh, Ganda (1959). Ahmad Shah Durrani. Asia Publishing House, Bombay. pp. 51–53.
  12. ^ Lee, Johnathan. Afghanistan A History From 1260 To The Present. pp. 119–122.
  13. ^ History of Islam, p. 509, at Google Books
  14. ^ Mehta, J. L. (2005). Advanced study in the history of modern India 1707–1813. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd. p. 251. ISBN 978-1-932705-54-6. Retrieved 2010-09-23.
  15. ^ Gandhi, Rajmohan (14 September 2013). Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten. Aleph Book company. pp. 125–126. ISBN 9789383064410.