Timur Shah Durrani

The Durrani have both numeric as well as qualitative superiority over the Marathas.

The combined Afghan army is much larger than that of Marathas.

Though the Marathas infantry is organized along European lines and their army has some of the best French-made guns of the time, their artillery is static and lacks mobility against the fast-moving Afghan forces.

Moreover, the senior Maratha chiefs constantly bicker with one another.

Each has ambitions of carving out his independent state and has no interest in fighting against a common enemy.

The Marathas are fighting alone a thousand miles from their capital, Pune.

Peshwa's decision to appoint Sadashivrao Bhau as the Supreme Commander instead of Malharrao Holkar or Raghunathrao proves to be an unfortunate one, as Sadashivrao is totally ignorant of the political and military situation in North India.

Ahmad Shah’s superiority in pitched battle could have been negated if the Marathas had conducted their traditional ganimi kava, or guerrilla warfare, as advised by Malharrao Holkar, in Punjab and in north India.

Abdali is in no position to maintain his field army in India indefinitely.

In the final phase of several days of battle near Panipat, the Marathas, under Mahadaji Shinde, attack Najib.

Najib successfully fights a defensive action, however, keeping Shinde's forces at bay.

By noon of January 14, 1761, it looks as though Sadashivrao Bhau will clinch victory for the Marathas once again.

The Afghan left flank still holds, but the center is cut in two and the right is almost destroyed.

Ahmad Shah has watched the fortunes of the battle from his tent, guarded by the still unbroken forces on his left.

He sends his bodyguards to call up his fifteen thousand reserve troops from his camp and arranges them as a column in front of his cavalry of musketeers (Qizilbash) and two thousand swivel-mounted shutarnaals or Ushtranaal—small cannons.

Bhau, seeing his forward lines dwindling and civilians behind, has not kept any reserves, and upon seeing Vishwasrao disappear in the midst of the fighting, he feels he has no choice but to come down from his elephant and lead the battle.

Vishwasrao has already been killed by a shot to the head.

Bhau and his loyal bodyguards fight to the end, the Maratha leader having three horses shot out from under him.

At this stage Holkar, realizing the battle is lost, breaks from the Maratha left flank and retreats.

If Holkar had remained in the battlefield, the Maratha defeat would have been delayed but not averted.

The Maratha army is routed and flees under the devastating attack.

While fifteen thousand soldiers manage to reach Gwalior, the rest of the Maratha forces—including large numbers of non-combatants—are either killed or captured.

The Afghan cavalry and pikemen run wild through the streets of Panipat, killing tens of thousands of Maratha soldiers and civilians.

The women and children seeking refuge in the streets of Panipat are hounded back to Afghan camps as slaves.

Males over fourteen are beheaded before their own mothers and sisters.

Afghan officers who had lost their kin in battle are permitted to carry out massacres of 'infidel' Hindus the next day also, in Panipat and the surrounding area.

They arrange victory mounds of severed heads outside their camps.

According to the single best eye-witness chronicle- the bakhar by Shuja-ud-Daula's Diwan Kashi Raj, about forty thousand Maratha prisoners were slaughtered in cold blood the day after the battle.

Many of the fleeing Maratha women jumped into the Panipat wells rather than risk rape and dishonor.

All the prisoners are transported on bullock carts, camels, and elephants in bamboo cages

The bodies of Vishwasrao and Bhau are recovered by the Marathas and are cremated according to Hindu custom.

Bhau's wife Parvatibai is saved by Holkar, per the directions of Bhau, and eventually returned to Pune.

Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao, uninformed about the state of his army, is crossing the Narmada with reinforcements when he heard of the defeat.

He returns to Pune and never recovers from the shock of the debacle at Panipat.

Jankoji Scindia is taken prisoner and executed at the instigation of Najib.

Ibrahim Khan Gardi is tortured and executed by enraged Afghan soldiers.

The Marathas will never fully recovered from the loss at Panipat, but they remain the dominant military power in India and manage to retake Delhi ten years later.

However, their claim over all of India will end with the three Anglo-Maratha Wars, almost fifty years after Panipat.

The Jats under Suraj Mal benefit significantly from not participating in the Battle of Panipat.

They provide considerable assistance to the Maratha soldiers and civilians who escape the fighting.

Suraj Mal himself will be killed in battle against the Rohillas under Najib-ud-Daula on December 25, 1763.

Ahmad Shah's victory leaves him, in the short term, the undisputed master of North India.

Though Abdali won the battle, he also has heavy casualties on his side, and seeks immediate peace with the Marathas.

TBefore departing, he orders the Indian chiefs, through a Royal Firman (order) (including Clive of India), to recognize Shah Alam II as Emperor.

Ahmad Shah also appoints Najib-ud-Daula as ostensible regent to the Mughal Emperor.

In addition, Najib and Munir-ud-daulah agree to pay to Abdali, on behalf of the Mughal king, an annual tribute of four million rupees.

This is to be Ahmad Shah's final major expedition to North India, as he becomes increasingly preoccupied with the increasingly successful rebellions by the Sikhs.

The empire of Ahmad Shah Durrani, who has extended Afghan control from Mashhad in the west to Kashmir and Delhi in the east, from the Amu Darya (Oxus) River in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south, is the second greatest Muslim empire in the second half of the 18th century, surpassed in size only by the Ottoman.

He dies in 1772 and is succeeded by his son, Timur Shah, who receives only nominal homage from the tribal chieftains.

Timur Shah Durrani, who spends much of his reign in quelling the rebellions of the tribal chiefs, shifts his capital from Qandahar to Kabul in 1776 because of this opposition.

The Durrani, who take up agriculture in the late eighteenth century under Ahmad Shah Durrani and Timur Shah, constitute the most significant political and military support of Afghanistan's monarchy.

Timur's fifth son, Zaman, seizes the throne after his father's death in 1793 with the help of Sardar Payenda Khan, a chief of the Barakzay.

Zaman, intent upon repeating the exploits of Ahmad Shah, turns to India.

In 1798, Zaman Shah appoints a Sikh, Ranjit Singh, as governor of Lahore, after which the Durrani empire, plagued by near-continuous internal revolts, begins to disintegrate.