United States or Anguilla ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
On this, as on many other occasions, the Mahratta cause was jeopardised by jealousies; Holkar holding aloof during the action, which would have begun earlier, and in all probability proved more decisive and with less loss, had he given due co-operation. There is a modest account of this action from de Boigne's pen in the Calcutta Gazette for 22nd July, 1790.
He was now placed over the whole regular army, to which the civil administration, on de Boigne's system, was inseparably attached, and under him were brigades commanded by Colonel du Drenec and by other officers, chiefly French, of whom we shall see more hereafter.
"As told by many persons who witnessed it, the disastrous circumstance which occurred during Sindiah's rule and prior to Du Boigne's administration known by the people as the 'Chaleesa Kaut, the severe famine of A.D. 1783 in a considerable degree desolated the country, and the many ruinous high mounds still visible in the district owe their origin to this calamity.
To use de Boigne's words, written in 1790: "le respect .... envers la maison de Timour regnait a tel point que, quoique toute la peninsule se fut sucessivement soustraite a son autorite, aucun prince .... de l'Inde ne s'etait arroge le titre de souverain. Sindhia partageait le respect, et Shah Alam etait toujours assis sur le Trone Mogol, et tout se faisait en son nom."
The fame of his political sagacity, and the terror of General de Boigne's arms, were acknowledged from the Satlaj to the Ganges, and from the Himalayas to the Vindhyas. And for nearly ten years the history of Hindustan is the biography of a few foreign adventurers who owed their position to his successes.
De Boigne's squares, however, resisted all attempts throughout the afternoon, and a general advance of the whole line at length took place, before which the enemy gradually broke. De Boigne placing himself at the head of one of his battalions, ordered the others to follow, and precipitated his foot upon the enemy's batteries.
And when the Rajah and his companions were roused from the drunken dreams of Madhu, they already found the camp deserted, and the army in confusion. Fifty field pieces were piercing the lines with an incessant discharge of grape-shot, and Colonel Rohan who commanded de Boigne's right wing had, with unauthorised audacity, thrown himself into the midst of the camp at the head of three battalions.
De Boigne's infantry and artillery however repulsed him, before Gholam Kadir, who was returning to the Moghul's aid, had been able to cross his forces over the Jamna, or effect a junction. Ismail Beg, who was severely wounded, did not hesitate to plunge his horse into the stream, swollen and widened as it was by the melting of the Himalayan snows.
A tumbril being struck in de Boigne's batteries, led to the explosion of ten or twelve others; and Holkar observing the confusion, endeavoured to extricate his cavalry from the trees, and charge, while du Drenec engaged the enemy's infantry. As they retreated, he launched his own cavalry upon them, and drove them off the field. It was now his turn once more to advance.
Ismail at the head of his Moghul cavaliers repeatedly charged de Boigne's artillery, sabring the gunners at their posts. Between the charges the infantry were thinned by well-directed volleys of grape, and the squares had to be formed with the greatest rapidity as the cavalry of the enemy once more attacked them.
Word Of The Day