Battle of Merta

01The charge of the Rathores

Marwar had refused to pay its dues and its horse had turned the day at Lalsot. De Boigne surprised the Rathore camp near Merta at dawn. The Marwar chiefs, many of them drugged with opium as was the old custom before a fight to the death, mounted and charged through the guns into the infantry. They broke the first line and were then shot down by the squares and the guns reloaded behind them. Thousands of Rathore horsemen died, and de Boigne stormed the town of Merta the same day.

02The end of an old way of war

Vijay Singh sued for peace, paid a heavy indemnity and gave up Ajmer to the Marathas. Merta, the old seat of the Mertiya Rathores and the town of Mirabai, saw the end of the age in which a Rajput charge decided battles in Rajasthan. Mahadji Scindia was now the strongest ruler in north India, and he went south to Pune in 1792 at the height of his power.

Person · c. 1730 – 12 Feb 1794Mahadji Shinde (Scindia)A son of Ranoji Shinde, Mahadji came out of Panipat lamed for life and spent the next thirty years putting Maratha power back in the north. He turned the British back at Wadgaon, brokered the Treaty of Salbai, and from 1784 ran the Mughal empire in the Peshwa’s name with an army trained in the European manner.Read →