Battle_of_Manupur_(1748)

Battle of Manupur

Battle of Manupur

Battle fought between the Mughal Empire and the Durrani Empire

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

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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. 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.[citation needed] On the same time, the Rajput army of Jaipur under Ishwari Singh assembled near Manupur.[5]

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[6] and raided their baggage train but a fire beginning in a captured rocket cart went on to ignite the Durrani artillery store, roasting thousands of soldiers alive and forcing Ahmad Shah Durrani's retreat.[7]

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.[8][9]

References

  1. [1]
    Grewal 1990, p. 87.
  2. [2]
    Grewal, J.S. (1990). The Sikhs of the Punjab. Cambridge University Press. p. 87. ISBN 0-521-63764-3. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
  3. [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. [4]
    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.
  5. [5]
    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.
  6. [6]
    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.
  7. [7]
    History of Islam, p. 509, at Google Books
  8. [8]
    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.
  9. [9]
    Gandhi, Rajmohan (14 September 2013). Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten. Aleph Book company. pp. 125–126. ISBN 9789383064410.
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