The Battle That Shaped the Maratha Empire

This week marks the anniversary of a battle fought nearly three centuries ago that marked the high tide of an emerging Empire. The Battle of Palkhed (in present-day Sambhajinagar district) fought between February 25 and March 6, 1728, is a masterclass in the art of war when a young general outmanoeuvred his seasoned adversary to establish the supremacy of his people.

Much like Napoleon’s early campaigns or Rommel’s desert warfare, Peshwa Bajirao I’s triumph at Palkhed over the crafty Nizam-ul-Mulk, Asaf Jah, was a defining moment in Indian history and one of the most brilliant feats of strategic mobility in military history. The Nizam was among the last great commanders of the rapidly collapsing Mughal Empire, whose decline set in after Aurangzeb’s death in 1707.

If Chhatrapati Shivaji was the founder of Maratha power, Bajirao, the audacious Peshwa of Chhatrapati Shahu, was its architect. When he became Peshwa in 1720 aged twenty, the Marathas were a divided people, held together more by memory than by strength. The Mughal Empire, a sprawling giant in decline, still cast a long shadow over the subcontinent and its satraps like the formidable Nizam-ul-Mulk sought to carve their own fiefdoms from its crumbling edifice. In the Deccan, the Nizam saw himself as the rightful heir to Mughal authority, and the Marathas as upstart challengers to be tamed. It was Palkhed that shattered that illusion.

The historian Sir Jadunath Sarkar described Bajirao a “Carlylean Hero as King.” And yet, until 1930, when the Peshwa State Papers were finally made available to scholars, no comprehensive study of this great captain’s achievements had been possible. It was V.G. Dighe in his 1944 work ‘Peshwa Bajirao and Maratha Expansion’ who first mapped Bajirao’s genius in full.

Palkhed even drew the attention of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, the victor of El Alamein during World War II. In his 1968 book ‘A History of Warfare,’ Montgomery dissected Bajirao’s campaign with admiration. “The lightly equipped Marathas moved with great rapidity, avoiding the main towns and fortresses, living off the country, burning and plundering,” he observed. It was a war of movement that left the Nizam’s larger, heavier force stumbling in confusion.

Bajirao understood terrain and momentum in a way few Indian commanders before him had. His cavalry was unburdened by artillery or supply trains, allowing it to move at astonishing speeds. The Marathas struck deep into enemy territory, raiding and pillaging, then vanishing before a counterattack could be mustered. The Nizam, exasperated, chased shadows.

Desperate for a decisive engagement, he turned to a time-honoured strategy - rather than pursue Bajirao, he would strike at the heart of his power. His forces marched west to Poona, the Peshwa’s stronghold, and razed it in retaliation. This made Shahu nervous, and he urged Bajirao to return home and confront the invaders. But the young Peshwa, with the instincts of a master strategist, ignored the summons and instead launched a counterattack on the Nizam’s capital, Aurangabad, inflicting the same devastation on the enemy’s lands.

Forced onto the defensive, the Nizam now found himself in a trap of Bajirao’s making. As he attempted to turn back and engage the Marathas, Bajirao’s forces executed a textbook envelopment manoeuvre. The Marathas cut off the Nizam’s supply lines, surrounded his army, and harried them from all sides. By March 6, 1728, the Nizam had no choice but to sue for peace. Palkhed, much more than a military triumph, was a defining moment for Maratha supremacy in the Deccan. The Nizam, later humbled again at Bhopal in 1738, was forced to seek a modus vivendi with the Marathas.

Palkhed reshaped power dynamics across the subcontinent. Such was the Peshwa’s awe that even in 1735, when the Marathas were locked in fierce campaigns against Mughal officials, his mere name commanded respect across northern India. That year, his pious mother, Radhabai, undertook a pilgrimage without fear in northern India, receiving invitations from Rajput princes like Sawai Jaisingh and Mughal nobles eager to host her. Muhammad Shah, the Mughal emperor, ordered a personal escort of a thousand troops for her journey while Muhammad Khan Bangash, whom Bajirao had decisively routed just years before, accorded Radhabai every respect when she passed through his jurisdiction.

Palkhed made the Maratha cavalry a terror across the subcontinent, from Malwa to Delhi. Within a generation, the Mughal emperor himself would be reduced to a puppet in Maratha hands.