Battle of Agra (1788)

01The fort that held

Through the spring of 1788 Lakhwa Dada kept Mahadji’s flag on Agra fort while Ismail Beg mined and battered the walls. After Chaksana, Ghulam Qadir rode off to Delhi, and Ismail Beg was left alone. Mahadji gathered what he could: Rane Khan’s horse, Jat contingents from Bharatpur, and the two new battalions raised by the Savoyard officer Benoît de Boigne, drilled on the European pattern.

02Ismail Beg broken

The two armies met outside Agra in June 1788. The Maratha horse pinned Ismail Beg’s front while de Boigne’s battalions held steady under fire, the first real test of the trained infantry that would later win Patan and Merta for Mahadji. Ismail Beg’s army broke. He escaped across the Yamuna and joined Ghulam Qadir. The siege was raised, the stores of the fort were saved, and Mahadji could turn on Delhi.

Dynasty · 1731–1948 CEScindias (Shinde) of GwaliorRanoji Shinde rose as a commander under Bajirao I and was given northern Malwa. His son Mahadji, who survived Panipat, became the master of Delhi and the most powerful Indian ruler of the 1780s; the house later ruled Gwalior until 1948.Read →