The First Battle of Panipat

The First Battle of Panipat, fought on April 21, 1526, marked a pivotal moment in Indian history. It was a clash between the forces of the Delhi Sultanate, led by Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, and the invading Mughal army, commanded by Babur. This battle is renowned for introducing gunpowder and advanced artillery to the Indian subcontinent, which played a crucial role in Babur’s decisive victory. The defeat of Ibrahim Lodi not only ended the Lodi dynasty but also laid the foundation for the Mughal Empire, which would dominate the region for centuries.

First Battle of Panipat

Introduction

Certain places seem fated to be battlegrounds—locations where major battles were fought, often hundreds of years apart. Usually, the reason is that the site constitutes a strategic crossroads, where invaders naturally would encounter defenders. Geographic determinism seems to be why the undistinguished little town of Panipat, about 80 miles north of Delhi, was the site of no fewer than three significant battles—in 1526, 1556, and 1761—each arguably decisive battle. The First and Second Battles of Panipat took place between local rulers and two of the earliest and most famous of the Mughal emperors, Babur and Akbar, and these battles established Mughal dominance over the Indian subcontinent that would last until the arrival of the British.

Babur

• (1) On June 8, 1494, in the fortress city of Akhsi, in the modern province of Ferghana, Uzbekistan, a local chieftain named Mirza was killed, leaving an 11-year-old son named Babur. Through his father, Babur could claim to be an heir of Tamerlane, and on his mother’s side, he could trace his ancestry to the greatest of all Mongols, the mighty Genghis Khan himself. Despite his youth, Babur was already dreaming of becoming a great conqueror.
• (2) Babur had a literary bent and, from an early age, wrote a diary that would survive and grow into a charmingly frank autobiography of his deeds, known as the Baburnama. In it, he describes how, after his father’s death, he attempted to take control of Ferghana and succeeded in briefly capturing the important city of Samarkand.
• (3) His youth and the treachery of others combined against him, however, and within three years, Babur had lost not only Samarkand but Ferghana and had been deserted by nearly all of his retainers. Undaunted, he rebounded from this low point, seizing the city of Kabul and making it the base for his operations.
• (4) As his empire grew, Babur began to look to the riches of India and to lead raids into northern India. Since the battles of Tarain several centuries earlier, northern India had been dominated by the Muslim rulers of the Delhi sultanate.
• (5) Babur was determined to attack the sultanate, whose current sultan was Ibrahim Lodi, an Afghan Pashtun. The coming battle would be a study in contrasts, with one side emphasizing training and new technologies and the other relying on massive numbers and traditional methods.

The First Battle of Panipat

• (1) Babur spent several years preparing for his invasion, assembling a highly professional army of about 10,000 soldiers. The core of his army was made up of excellent Turkic horsemen, well-trained in the sort of hit-and-run wheeling attacks favored by steppe cavalry for centuries.
• (2) Babur had acquired a cutting-edge military technology: gunpowder. The Ottomans had begun employing cannons and primitive guns to good effect, and by 1519, Babur had brought an artillery expert to Kabul to advise him on the use of this new technology. In addition to acquiring some cannons, Babur equipped a unit with matchlocks—primitive handguns that worked by thrusting a flaming wick against the firing hole to ignite the powder in the barrel.
• (3) In February 1526, a scouting group from Babur’s army defeated an advanced element of Sultan Lodi’s army. Babur now advanced with his main army to Panipat. Sultan Lodi had amassed a huge army to face the invaders. Sources claim a force of 100,000 men and 1,000 armored elephants.
• (4) Babur ordered his 700 baggage carts tied together in a line, leaving wide enough gaps between them for cavalry to charge through. The matchlock men and light cannons were established on the carts and behind other temporary barriers, transforming the whole line into a series of miniature strong points. The remainder of the infantry was distributed around the carts, giving further protection to the slow-firing guns and cannons.
• (5) Babur’s horse archers were in left, right, and center formations, and Babur himself was with the center group. He secured one flank of his line against the structures of the town of Panipat, and the other against the banks of a river. The left and right cavalry wings were to circle around the flanks of the enemy, shower them with arrows from the powerful Mongol bows, and herd them toward the middle, impeding their mobility by crowding them and providing a dense target for the gunpowder weapons.
• (6) On April 21, 1526, the sultan commanded his men to advance. His strategy was unimaginative, consisting of a frontal charge and the hope that his greater numbers would overwhelm the enemy. The charge seems to have been badly coordinated, and it bogged down among the carts and obstacles.
• (7) Meanwhile, Babur’s cavalry were deploying on both sides as planned, hemming in and harassing the attacking ranks. An attempt to break Babur’s line near the town was repulsed, and surrounded and under heavy fire from all directions, the sultan’s men were cut down in large numbers. Lodi led a final charge of the remaining 5,000 men in his reserve and, somewhere in the melee, was killed.
• (8) Babur had defeated a much larger force by virtue of superior generalship, training, and technology. He offered a harsh but probably accurate assessment of his opponent: “Ibrahim Lodi was an inexperienced man, negligent in his movements. He marched without orders or halted without plan, and engaged in battle without foresight.”

Effects of the First Battle

• (1) Emperor Babur was succeeded by his son, Humayan, who died in 1556. Humayan’s son and heir, Akbar, was 13, and the Mughal dynasty seemed on the verge of coming to a premature end. Several strong local rulers who resented Mughal control took advantage of Humayan’s death and Akbar’s youth to rebel.
• (2) The nominal leader of this rebellion was Sultan Adil Shah Suri, but the driving force behind its success was the sultan’s prime minister, a Hindu named Hemu. Under his leadership, Delhi itself was captured, and the young Akbar was reduced to a refugee.
• (3) Akbar’s advisors counseled retreating to the traditional stronghold of Kabul and conceding the loss of India, but in this crisis, Akbar revealed himself to be a youth in the mold of the young Babur. Supported by Bairam Khan, an experienced Mughal general, Akbar decided to march south immediately and challenge Hemu for control over Delhi.

Conclusion

Ibrahim Lodi was killed on the battlefield, leading to the collapse of the Lodi dynasty. Babur’s victory at Panipat laid the foundation for the Mughal Empire in India, which would go on to dominate the Indian subcontinent for the next several centuries. This battle not only ended the rule of the Delhi Sultanate but also established the Mughal dynasty as a major power in India.

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