Flattered as he was by his royal reception, hard experience made Law sceptical about the new Emperor’s chances, particularly given his experience of the Mughal nobility on whom Shah Alam relied. He confided to the historian Ghulam Hussain Khan, ‘I have travelled everywhere from Bengal to Delhi, but nowhere have I found anything from anyone except oppression of the poor and plundering of way-farers.’
Whenever I wanted that one of these famous potentates like Shuja ud-Daula [the Wazir of Avadh], Imad ul-Mulk or their peers, out of honour and a regard for the regulation of the government, should undertake to put in order the affairs of Bengal and suppress the English, not one of them felt any inclination for the task. They did not once weigh in their minds the shamefulness of their conduct … The Indian nobles are a set of disorderly, inconsistent blockheads, who exist solely for ruining a world of people.36
With him, Law had brought a ragged but determined force of one hundred of the last French troops in north India, and a battle-hardened battalion of 200 highly trained and disciplined sepoys. These troops he now offered to Shah Alam, who accepted with pleasure. On 23 December 1759, at Gothauli near Allahabad, the young Emperor emerged from the royal tents having shut himself away for three days of state mourning for his father.
According to the Mughal historian Shakir Khan, ‘On the victorious day of his ascension to the imperial throne, His Sacred Majesty, the Shadow of God, Vice-Regent of the All-Merciful, the Emperor who is a Refuge to all the World, with general support and acclamation, commanded coins to be struck and khutba sermons to be given in the name of Shah Alam, King of the World, Warrior, Emperor, Exalted Seed, with the glorious Aureole of Kingship of the ancient Persian Kings, may God grant him eternal rule!’37
Soon after, the court artist, Mihir Chand, painted the Shah’s dignified accession portrait, and newly minted rupees in the name of Shah Alam were distributed around the camp, as the commanders and army officers came to offer their compliments. ‘I was honoured with the office of Mir Atish,’ wrote Law, ‘that is Master of Mughal Artillery, without actually having any heavy guns, although notionally, all the cannons and firelocks in the Empire were now under my orders’:
Thereafter offices were bestowed upon many other officers. The ceremony was conducted perfectly, accompanied by the sound of music by the naubat [trumpet] and artillery salutes …
The whole country was at this point in flames, torn apart by a multitude of factions. Moreover, the Shah’s officers were divided among themselves; there was no uniform command and they had not been paid for months. Money and war materiel were completely lacking … I had got some bayonets made which were fixed to long poles, and with these I armed about 300 of the Koli tribals who were following us. I made them march in formation behind my regular sepoys, and they greatly augmented our strength. I also added a squadron of about 15 Mughal horsemen, well mounted … It was not brilliant, but I was now Mir Atish, just as Shah Alam had become Emperor. The idea was everything.38
Shah Alam’s campaign to recapture Bengal got off to a promising start. The Emperor successfully crossed the Karmanasa, and in durbar formally demanded the homage of the people, landowners and rulers of Bengal, who he commanded to ‘remove the cotton wool of negligence from their ears’. Within days, three of the important Bengali zamindars west of the Hughli announced their support, as did two of Mir Jafar’s most senior army commanders. All made haste westwards to join the Emperor with their troops.39
Shah Alam decided to attack immediately, before Miran and the Company commander Major John Caillaud could arrive with reinforcements from Murshidabad. So on 9 February the Emperor’s forces moved forward and at Masumpur, a short distance outside Patna, engaged the Company sepoys commanded by the Governor of Patna, Raja Ram Narain. The battle was fought on the banks of the River Dehva. ‘Musket balls were falling from the English line like a storm of hail,’ wrote Ghulam Hussain Khan, but the young Emperor’s forces attacked first, ‘broke the enemy’s ranks, and made them turn their backs …’
As soon as the English fire was silenced, and the enemy was flying, [Shah Alam’s commander] Kamgar Khan fell on Ram Narain, who yet stood his ground [on his elephant] with a number of men … Ram Narain’s army was put to rout, and the Raja himself was obliged to fly for his life. Kamgar Khan ran a spear at him, wounding him grievously … and he fell speechless inside his howdah, where, luckily for him, he was sheltered by the boards … Ram Narain appeared senseless, so his driver turned his elephant around and fled … The Emperor, satisfied with his victory, ordered his music to play in token of rejoicing, but forbore pursuing the vanquished.40
Allowing the defeated army to tend their wounded may have been a noble act, but Ghulam Hussain Khan believed it was also a fatal mistake: ‘Had the victorious followed their blow, and pursued the vanquished, they would have mastered the city of Patna at once, as there did not remain in it a single soldier; they would have plundered it, and would have finished Ram Narain, who could not move. But as it was ordered by fate that city should be saved, Kamgar Khan contented himself with plundering the flat country outside the walls, and laying it under contribution.’41
Part of the British community in Patna fled downriver by boat. But Ram Narain’s army remained quite safe within the city for, once the gates had been shut, the Emperor simply did not have the necessary artillery or siege equipment to attempt a storming of the walls.
Exaggerated rumours of the Emperor’s victory soon reached Murshidabad where it threw the court into panic, and where Mir Jafar, aware of the extreme instability of his regime, fell into deep despair.42 In the event, however, it proved a short-lived victory. Less than a week later, Major Caillaud and Miran marched into Patna, relieved the garrison, then marched out to confront the Emperor’s force. Caillaud commanded one wing, Miran the other, and it was upon his cavalry that the Emperor’s troops first fell.
‘The enemy came on with much spirit,’ wrote Caillaud afterwards, ‘though with some irregularity, and in many separate bodies, after the Eastern manner of fighting.’43
Miran’s army shattered at the force of the charge: ‘Without minding his high rank and conspicuous station,’ wrote Ghulam Hussain Khan, ‘Miran was struck with a panic and turned around; he fled, followed reluctantly by his commanders, who called in vain for him to return.’ He was followed by the Emperor’s bowmen who surrounded the elephant and fired into his howdah: ‘One arrow hit Miran, breaking his teeth; and whilst he was carrying his hand thither, another arrow lodged in his neck.’ But Caillaud’s highly disciplined Company sepoys held their ground, formed a square and attacked the flank and rear of the Mughal army at short range, with all the force of the musketry at their command. The effect was devastating. Hundreds were killed. Soon, it was the turn of the Emperor’s troops to flee.
But Shah Alam had not come so far from Delhi to give up now. Sending his baggage and artillery back to the camp under the care of Law, he took the bold step of gathering a small body of his elite, lightly equipped Mughal cavalry under Kamgar Khan. Instead of retreating he pressed onwards, heading east, cross-country. ‘He resolved to leave the enemy behind,’ wrote Ghulam Hussain Khan, ‘and by cutting his way through the hills and mountains, to attack the undefended city of Murshidabad, where he hoped he would possess himself of Mir Jafar’s person, and of the wealth of so rich a capital.’44
The speed and courage shown by Shah Alam’s small force took the Company by surprise. It was several days before Caillaud realised what the Emperor had done and where he was heading and was in a position to assemble a crack cavalry force to begin the pursuit.
Meanwhile, with three days’ lead, the Emperor and Kamgar Khan, in the words of the Tarikh-i Muzaffari, ‘thinking it was essential to move by the most rapid route available, crossed over several high passes rapidly and clandestinely, passing with forced marches steep mountains and narrow, dark clefts before heading southwards, down through the Bengal plains, passing Birbhum and eventually reaching the district of Burdwan’. There t
he Raja, who was an uncle of Kamgar Khan, had already declared for Shah Alam and risen in revolt against Mir Jafar.45
It was here, midway between Murshidabad and Calcutta, that the imperial army made the mistake of pausing for three days, while they rested and gathered more recruits, money and equipment from among the disaffected nobility of Bengal. As a relieved Caillaud himself wrote afterwards, ‘Either from irresolution or some dissention among his commanders, he [Shah Alam] committed an unpardonable and capital error in hesitating to attack the old Nabob immediately, while the two armies were still divided. The delay completely ruined his design, at first so masterly concerted, and till then with so much steadiness carried on.’46
As with the failure to keep up momentum after the victory outside Patna, it gave Shah Alam’s opponents time to catch up and regroup. By the time the Emperor had ordered his now slightly larger force to head north from Burdwan, Miran and Caillaud had managed to catch them up, and on 4 April effected a junction with Mir Jafar’s small army. Together, they now blocked the road to Murshidabad.
The vital element of surprise was now completely lost. Mir Jafar’s combined force lined up at Mongalkote, on the banks of the Damodar River. Here they commanded the crossing place and prevented the Emperor from moving the final few miles north to take the city. Had Shah Alam headed straight to Murshidabad without diverting south to Burdwan he would have found it all but undefended. As it was, a week later further reinforcements were still arriving for Mir Jafar: ‘all these forces, with the English military contingent, turned to confront the Emperor’s army encamped on the opposite bank.’
Seeing such overwhelming enemy forces lined up on the bank of the Damodar, and realising that he could not now make the crossing and confront them with any hope of success, the Emperor decided he had no option but to return to Patna. Mir Jafar, seeing himself suddenly victorious, sent a military force to chase the retreating Emperor; however Kamgar Khan and the others kept the pursuing enemy busy, alternately with fighting and fleeing, and thus managed to get their troops and possessions back safely to Patna, where they were reunited with the sepoys of M. Law.47
It had been a bold, imaginative and very nearly successful strike. But the game was almost up. The people of Bihar, who had welcomed Shah Alam so enthusiastically a few months before, were now tired of hosting a large, undisciplined and losing army. According to Ghulam Hussain Khan, people initially loved the idea of the return of the good order of Mughal government, but instead they ‘experienced from his unruly troops, and from his disorderly generals, every act of oppression and extortion imaginable; and, on the other hand, they saw every day what a strict discipline the English officers of those days did observe, and how amongst them that travelled, [the officers] carried so strict a hand upon their troops, as to suffer not a blade of grass to be touched; then indeed the scales were turned and when the Prince made his second expedition into those parts, I heard people load him with imprecations, and pray for victory to the English army.’48
After several months of dwindling fortunes, and deserting troops, the final defeat of the Emperor’s army took place at the Battle of Helsa, near Bodhgaya, the site of the Buddha’s Enlightenment, on 15 January 1761. Here the imperial army was finally cornered by several battalions of red-coated sepoys.
The night before the battle, Law dined for the last time with the Emperor – ‘a very private affair, the atmosphere was very relaxed, and there were none of the usual constraints of etiquette and ceremony. I told him frankly that our situation was very bad. The Prince then opened up his heart about the misfortunes that had continued to dog him, and I tried to persuade him that, for the sake of his own security and peace, it might be better if he turned his gaze in some direction other than Bengal. “Alas!” he said, “what will they say if I retreat? Contempt will be added to the indifference with which my subjects already regard me.”’49
Early the following morning, the Company troops took the initiative, moving rapidly forward from their entrenchments, ‘cannonading as they marched’. A well-aimed ball from a 12-pounder killed the mahout of the Emperor’s elephant. Another stray shot wounded the elephant itself, which careered off the field, carrying the Emperor with it.50 Meanwhile, Mir Jafar, reverting to his usual devious tactics, had managed with large bribes to corrupt Shah Alam’s commander, Kamgar Khan, as well as several other courtiers in his retinue, ‘who soon crossed sides and joined the forces of the Nawab’, reported the French soldier of fortune Jean-Baptiste Gentil. ‘After that, there could be no doubt about the outcome. The general and the courtiers all took to their heels, taking with them the greater part of the Mughal army. Monsieur Law de Lauriston, who was in charge of the royal artillery, in spite of his bravery, military skill and all his efforts, could do nothing to stop them, and the French officer was taken prisoner.’51
Ghulam Hussain Khan gives a moving account of Law’s brave last stand and his determination, having seen the Emperor deserted by all, and betrayed even by his commander-in-chief, to battle to the death: ‘M. Law, with a small force, and the few pieces of artillery that he could muster, bravely fought the English, and for some time he managed to withstand their immense numerical superiority. The handful of troops that followed M. Law, discouraged by the flight of the Emperor and tired of the wandering life they had hitherto led in his service, turned about and fled. M. Law, finding himself abandoned and alone, resolved not to turn his back; he bestrode one of the guns, and remained firm in that posture, waiting for the moment of death.’52
Moved by Law’s bravery, the Company commander, John Carnac, dismounted, and without taking a guard, but bringing his most senior staff officers, walked over on foot, and pulling their ‘hats from their heads, they swept the air with them, as if to make him a salaam’, pleading with Law to surrender: ‘You have done everything that can be expected from a brave man, and your name shall undoubtedly be transmitted to posterity by the pen of history,’ he begged. ‘Now loosen your sword from your loins, come amongst us, and abandon all thoughts of contending with the English.’
Law answered that if they would ‘accept this surrendering himself just as he was, he had no objections; but that as to surrendering himself with the disgrace of his being without a sword, it was a shame he would never submit to; and that they must take his life if they were not satisfied with the condition. The English commanders, admiring his firmness, consented to his surrendering himself in the manner he wished to; after which the Major shook hands with him, in their European manner, and every sentiment of enmity was instantly dismissed from both sides.’53
Later, in the Company camp, the historian was appalled by the boorishness of Mir Jafar’s Murshidabad soldiers who began to taunt the captured Law, asking ‘where is the Bibi [Mistress] Law now?’
Carnac was furious at the impropriety of the remark: ‘This man,’ he said, ‘had fought bravely, and deserves the attention of all brave men; the impertinences which you have been offering him may be customary amongst your friends and your nation, but cannot be suffered in ours, for whom it is a standing rule never to offer injury to a vanquished foe.’ The man whom had taunted Law, checked by this reprimand, held his tongue and did not answer a word. He went away much abashed, and although he was a commander of importance … No one spoke to him any more, or made a show of standing up at his departure.
The incident caused Ghulam Hussain Khan to pay a rare compliment to the British, a nation he regarded as having wrecked his motherland:
This reprimand did much honour to the English; and it must be acknowledged, to the honour of these strangers, that their conduct in war and battle is worthy of admiration, just as, on the other hand, nothing is more becoming than their behaviour to an enemy, whether in the heat of action, or in the pride of success and victory.54
On 2 July 1761, Miran, the ‘abominable’, murderous, debauchee son of Mir Jafar, was killed – allegedly by a chance sudden strike of lightning while returning from the campaign against Shah Alam. According to John Cail
laud, who was present in the camp, ‘the young nabob, was lying asleep in his tent at midnight. Though singular in itself, yet no very extraordinary circumstances attended the event. He was struck dead in the middle of a violent storm, by a flash of lightning. The fire pierced through the top of the tent, struck upon his left breast, and he perished in the flame.’55
The event, however, occurred on precisely the anniversary of Miran’s mass murder of the harem of Siraj ud-Daula and from the beginning there were rumours that his death was the result of divine intervention – or, alternatively, that it was not an accident at all, and that Miran had been murdered. The most probable candidate was said to be a bereaved concubine who had lost a sister to Miran’s murderous tendencies, and who was then said to have covered up her revenge by setting fire to the tent.56
Many rejoiced at the death of this bloodthirsty and amoral prince; but for his father, Mir Jafar, it was the last straw. As the Company demanded prompt payment of all his debts, and as his subjects and troopers revolted against him, the old man had relied more and more on the grit and resolution of his son. Without him, Mir Jafar went to pieces. ‘He had at no time been in his right senses,’ commented Ghulam Hussain Khan, ‘but he now lost the little reason that remained to him. The affairs of the army, as well as the government being entirely abandoned to chance, fell into a confusion not to be described.’57
But Mir Jafar had a son-in-law, Mir Qasim, as different a man as could be imagined from his chaotic and uneducated father-in-law. Of noble Persian extraction, though born on his father’s estates near Patna, Mir Qasim was small in frame, with little military experience, but young, capable, intelligent and, above all, determined.58
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