akbar expect to conguer chittor!
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The Mewar campaign began on 19 September 1567. We do see the 25-year-old Akbar as a strategist and master tactician in this. He didn’t make a dash at Chittor; he started taking one fort after another and posting Mughal garrisons there so that his rear was never threatened in his quest for Chittor.
He first moved to Hindwara, where the army encamped near a fort that Abu’l Fazl calls Sivi Supar. This fort was under the control of Rao Surjan Hada of Ranthambore, but the garrison abandoned it when it heard Akbar was coming. The fort was secured, and a new garrison posted under Nazr Bahadur. Akbar then went to Kota, which was easily taken and another garrison posted under the command of Shah Muhammad Qandahari. Then Akbar conquered the imposing Gagron Fort (a UNESCO World Heritage Site today).
Gagron FortGagron Fort
Akbar’s commanders, Asaf Khan and Wazir Khan, next took the powerful fort of Mandalgarh, which was held for Mewar by Rawat Balvi Solanki. Abu’l Fazl gives no details of the fight, but hints at it being a tough one as it was conquered ‘by the prestige of the Shahinshah’.
At this point, Abu’l Fazl says, the emperor’s army wasn’t big. But Akbar decided to push ahead in the hope that Rana Udai Singh would be tempted to come out of his defences to attack a numerically inferior enemy. However, this didn’t have the desired effect. On the contrary, when the Rana learnt that Akbar didn’t have a siege train (heavy artillery, including mortars and howitzers, meant for sieges) with him, he assumed that Akbar wouldn’t be foolhardy enough to attack Chittor. To be doubly sure, he strengthened the fort, posted a garrison of 5,000 Rajputs, stocked up supplies that could sustain the people inside for years, and laid the areas around the fort waste so that the approaching Mughals couldn’t live off the land. Not even a blade of grass was left standing, it is said. This was the scorched earth policy that Imperial Russia would successfully employ against the Grande Armee of Napoleon in 1812, and the Soviet Union would repeat when invaded by Nazi Germany.
ChittorgarhChittorgarh
Siege of Chittor
The Rana withdrew further deep into the hills while leaving the Chittor garrison to face the Mughal might. Jaimal Rathore of Merta, the former Mughal ally who once led Mughal armies against fellow Rajputs, commanded the garrison. His task now was to defend the crowning glory of Mewar even with his life, if need be.
Akbar wisely avoided following the Rana into the hills. Instead, he chose to lay siege to the fort. On 20 October 1567, the Mughal army camped around the fort in what must have been an intimidating sight for the garrison. The terrain outside the fort even today is flat. From the imposing heights, the garrison must have spotted the imperial army approaching when it was miles away.
As Akbar set up camp, a storm broke accompanied by thunder and lightning. In that open country, the intensity of a storm must have been more acutely felt than in the Mughal walled capitals. The ‘earth was shaken’, Abu’l Fazl writes. Going by the superstitious society of the time, it could have been perceived as a bad omen, we don’t know. But Akbar was of sterner mind. In any case, the storm lifted in an hour and made it possible for the imperial camp to plan a siege.
The following morning, Akbar rode out towards the fort that was atop a hill and went around it. It was a recce. The Mughals figured out that the circumference of the fort was over 2 kos (6 km) and was about 5 kos at the part used by the people. Today, we know that the circumference of the existing fort is 13 km—a huge, formidable fort even today. Akbar must have realised by now that he had an uphill task at hand, literally. So, at the end of the recce, he ordered the artillery to be brought ahead and asked his engineers and artillery officers to select spots to erect the batteries. Additional artillery was also called for. And even though Napoleon was still several centuries in the future to tell the world that ‘God fights on the side with the best artillery’, it must have been apparent to Akbar that the fort will have to be taken by the might of his guns. It took Akbar a whole month to set up his artillery.
Akbar’s zealous generals, in a bid to rise in the emperor’s favour, subjected reason to over-enthusiasm and risked life and limb in making intrepid yet fruitless charges at the fort. Akbar reprimanded them for being rash and lectured them on the true meaning of courage. Good commanders are also the ones who don’t unnecessarily put the lives of their men at risk.
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