On April 21, 1526, the Lodi dynasty and Babur's invading army engaged in the First Battle of Panipat. It occurred in North India and served as both the beginning of the Mughal Empire and the demise of the Delhi Sultanate. In a combat on the Indian subcontinent, the Mughals were the first to employ field artillery and gunpowder-powered weapons. The first Battle of Panipat, a crucial component of the UPSC Syllabus of Mediaeval History, will be covered in this article.
History's First Battle of Panipat: The First Battle of Panipat was fought on April 21, 1526, in Panipat, an open plain suitable for cavalry manoeuvres located about 50 miles (80 kilometres) north of Delhi. Babur, the Mughal emperor of Kabul, and Sultan Ibrahim Lodi of Delhi engaged in combat. Ibrahim Lodi of the Lodi dynasty was in charge of North India at the time, but the empire was disintegrating and there were several defectors.
Babur was invited by Ala-ud-Din, Ibrahim's uncle, and Punjab Governor Daulat Khan Lodi. Babur sent an ambassador to Ibrahim after receiving the invitation, saying that Ibrahim was the legitimate successor to the kingdom, but the ambassador was initially held in Lahore and eventually released.
In 1524, Babur reached Lahore but was driven away by Lodi's forces. With the aid of a different rebel chief, he made another attempt to attack Lodi, but was unsuccessful. On the other hand, Babur was more ready in 1526 because of a stronger intelligence network. This resulted in the first Battle of Panipat, which took place there in 1526. Panipat is a level plain appropriate for cavalry operations that is located about 50 miles (80 km) north of Delhi.
Between 13,000 and 15,000 men made up Babur's Mughal armies, the most of whom were cavalry on horses. His primary arsenal consisted of a battery of 20–24 field artillery pieces, a relatively recent development in military technology.
Tens of thousands of camp followers fought alongside Ibrahim Lodi's 30,000–40,000 men against the Mughals. Various sources claim that Lodi's troop of war elephants, which ranged in size from 100 to 1,000 trained and combat-ready pachyderms, was his main tool of shock and awe.
Details of the Battle of Panipat: Ibrahim Lodi was not a tactician; his army marched out in a disorganised posture in an effort to overwhelm the opposition. Contrarily, Babur employed two strategies that were new to Lodi, which helped to change the course of the conflict. The idea of dividing a smaller force into pieces like forward left, rear left, forward right, rear right, and centre was first introduced by Tulughma.
The more powerful enemy force was pushed into the centre of the battlefield by the highly mobile right and left divisions as they broke off and ringed it. The cannons Babur positioned in the middle. The second tactical innovation by Babur was the use of carts, or Araba. His artillery units were shielded by a line of carts joined by leather ropes, preventing the enemy from moving in between them and hitting the artillerymen.
Babur referred to this strategy as the "Ottoman device" since the Ottoman Turks had previously employed it in the Battle of Chaldiran. The Lodi army was encircled by Babur's Tulughma formation in a pincher-like fashion.
The terrified Lodi's war elephants turned around and raced through their own lines, trampling their own soldiers since they had never heard a sound as loud and dreadful as that made by the canons. Ibrahim Lodi, the despotic Sultan of Delhi, was ultimately abandoned by his surviving officers and left to perish on the battlefield from his wounds.
