An overwhelmingly outnumbered Mughal force prevailed at Panipat. This was due to the resourcefulness of its commander, Babur, demonstrated in his use of field fortifications and his instinctive sense of the value of the firepower of gunpowder. The victory enabled him to lay the foundations for the Indian Mughal Empire.
A descendant of Timur, Babur became a refugee at the age of twelve when the Uzbeks seized Samarkand in 1494. At age fifteen he was back with his own warband. He laid siege to his home city, but without success. Undaunted, he headed south into Afghanistan. Capturing Kabul in 1504, he made it his base for raids into Central Asia’s Transoxania region. Increasingly, however, he found himself tempted by the unimaginable wealth of India. In the years that followed, he mounted a series of incursions into the Punjab. Second And Third Battles Of Panipat (1556, 1761)
The Mughal Empire’s expansion, stalled after the death of its founder Babur in 1530, began anew under Babur’s grandson, Akbar. Fighting on a field that had proved so propitious for his grandfather, the young Akbar won a vital victory over the powerful Hindu ruler, Hemu.
Babur’s son Humayun had encountered serious setbacks, even losing his kingdom after it was conquered by the Pashtun warlord Sher Shah Suri in 1540. Rebuilding his forces in exile, he eventually took back his realms fifteen years later, leaving his son and successor, Akbar, with a great empire.To the east of Akbar’s realms, the Suri general Hemu had set himself up as a strongman ruler; calling himself a king, he built a powerbase in Bengal. Aged just thirteen, Akbar seemed singularly ill-equipped to cope with this threat. However, he had rare gifts—and the support of his guardian, the accomplished general Bairam Khan. Hemu had unstoppable momentum, it seemed—having already taken Agra and the strategic fortress of Tughlaqabad, in October 1556 he captured Delhi. Too late to save the city, Akbar’s army let it go and stopped on the plains to the north, at Panipat.
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First Battle Of Panipat (1526)
An overwhelmingly outnumbered Mughal force prevailed at Panipat. This was due to the resourcefulness of its commander, Babur, demonstrated in his use of field fortifications and his instinctive sense of the value of the firepower of gunpowder. The victory enabled him to lay the foundations for the Indian Mughal Empire.
A descendant of Timur, Babur became a refugee at the age of twelve when the Uzbeks seized Samarkand in 1494. At age fifteen he was back with his own warband. He laid siege to his home city, but without success. Undaunted, he headed south into Afghanistan. Capturing Kabul in 1504, he made it his base for raids into Central Asia’s Transoxania region. Increasingly, however, he found himself tempted by the unimaginable wealth of India. In the years that followed, he mounted a series of incursions into the Punjab. Second And Third Battles Of Panipat (1556, 1761)
The Mughal Empire’s expansion, stalled after the death of its founder Babur in 1530, began anew under Babur’s grandson, Akbar. Fighting on a field that had proved so propitious for his grandfather, the young Akbar won a vital victory over the powerful Hindu ruler, Hemu.
Babur’s son Humayun had encountered serious setbacks, even losing his kingdom after it was conquered by the Pashtun warlord Sher Shah Suri in 1540. Rebuilding his forces in exile, he eventually took back his realms fifteen years later, leaving his son and successor, Akbar, with a great empire.To the east of Akbar’s realms, the Suri general Hemu had set himself up as a strongman ruler; calling himself a king, he built a powerbase in Bengal. Aged just thirteen, Akbar seemed singularly ill-equipped to cope with this threat. However, he had rare gifts—and the support of his guardian, the accomplished general Bairam Khan. Hemu had unstoppable momentum, it seemed—having already taken Agra and the strategic fortress of Tughlaqabad, in October 1556 he captured Delhi. Too late to save the city, Akbar’s army let it go and stopped on the plains to the north, at Panipat.