THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MUGHAL EMPIREIt was Baber’s unique contribution that he knew how to combine
the deployment of these new weapons with the strategy of cavalry
warfare which he had learned from the Usbeks. This achievement is
the more surprising as these firearms were entirely new to him. He
himself was trained as an archer and knew how to use his bow and
arrows very well. Nevertheless, he managed not only to grasp the
strategic function of the new weapons, but also to plan battles so as
to integrate the use of artillery and cavalry. He did this so perfectly
that he surpassed many generals of later periods who, because they
were men on horseback unable to discern the proper use of the less
mobile guns, often lost touch with the artillery. When Baber besieged
the fortress Bajaur on the northwestern border of India in 1519, the
appearance of the innovative muskets amused the defenders of the
fortress, as Baber reports in his memoirs. They soon ceased to be
amused when Baber’s marksmen shot down some of their number,
and dared not show their faces again.
Seven years later, on the traditional Indian battlefield near Panipat,
Baber encountered the great army of the sultan of Delhi, Ibrahim Lodi.
The latter’s forces were ten times more numerous than Baber’s, who,
however, had carefully deployed his artillery on the eve of the battle. The
light field artillery was posted behind small ramparts and the guns were
tied together with leather thongs so that the cavalry of the enemy could not
make a quick dash at them. Marksmen with muskets were also at hand.
The army of the sultan—with its thousands of elephants, horsemen and
footmen—came to a halt in front of the artillery while Baber’s archers on
horseback bypassed the enemy and then, in the manner of the Usbeks,
attacked the unwieldy army from the rear. Caught between gunfire and
showers of arrows the sultan’s huge forces were defeated within a few
hours. Lodi and most of his men died on the battlefield.
Thereafter, Baber repeated this performance in a battle against the
leader of the Rajputs, Rana Sangha of Mewar. In this confrontation Baber
managed to give his artillery an even more frightening appearance by
placing wooden dummy guns between the real ones. In addition, he
managed to move the whole artillery, dummies and all, further ahead while
the battle was raging.
Such victories on the battlefield were followed by successful sieges of the
fortresses in which Baber’s stricken enemies took refuge. He invested as
much as he could in his miraculous artillery. When he moved further to the
east in order to combine his forces with those of the governor of Bengal
against Afghan rebels in Bihar, he put his guns on barges and shipped them
down the Ganga. The treasures of the sultan of Delhi seized by Baber were
quickly spent on this costly kind of warfare, and the first Great Mughal
was soon obliged to levy special taxes.