Many were slain, and fell in the battle, and some giving up their lives for

lost, turned to the desert of ruin, and became the food of crows and kites;
and hillocks were formed of the slain, and towers raised of their heads.
-Sheik Zain, contemporary historian

R ana Sanga, King ofMewar

and leader of the Rajput
Confederacy, turned his single eye
The bulk of Rana's army would
remain outside effective cannon
range, prepared to deliver the
toward the Mogul camp at coup de grace as the Mogul posi-
Khanua. The Muslim invaders of tion unraveled. This seemingly
India, led by their brilliant gener- so u n d plan suffer ed from two
al, Babur, were busily preparing BENGAL_ major defects. It did not take
for battle: digging entrenchrnents, advantage of Rana's overwhelm-
chaining wagons together along ing superiority in numbers-esti-
their front to forrn an impromptu mates of Mogul strength are unre-
battlernent, and erecting wooden Bay of liable, but Babur's army could not
palisades for their musketeers. In Bengal have contained more than 20,000
the center of the Mogul army, or so quality troops-and it mis-
great-mouthed cannon gaped Indian takenly assumed that Babur would
ominously, pointing outward. Ocean passively await developrnents.
Rana's battered frame testified to Rana Sanga possessed animal
his participation in innumerable cunning, great bravery, and a killer
battles. One ernpty eye socket, instinct, but he, like Francis 1,
two dozen scars, a badly set leg, and a In the early sixteenth century. the Mogul could not resist taking part in the day's
missing arrn gave proof of his willing- emperor Babur descended from what is first great charge. The left wing of the
ness to lead men into even the worst today Afghanistan to carve out an empire in Rajputani army thundered forward at
fighting. But the grizzled Rajput lord northern India. about 9:00 A.M. on March 16 or 17
had never faced an enemy armed with (authorities differ on the exact date),
gunpowder weapons, though he home. He decided, instead , that he 1527. The highborn Afghan and
undoubtedly had secondhand knowl- should found an Indian ernpire. Why Turkish troops of Babur's right awaited
edge of the "lightning-darters," the rely on periodic forays for plunder, he it, fronted by a line ofTurkish muske-
Indian term for cannon. reasoned, when one could gain as much teers who were using wheeled wooden
In the spring of 1527 Rana had booty systema tically and more easily rampar ts for protection. On the far
raised a great host of Rajput cavalry, through taxation? The battle at Khanua right, sitting patiently astride their
which numbered almost 80,000 horse- would determine who ruled the nor th- steppe ponies, was a strong corps of
men and represented India's warrior ern Indian plains. Mongol cavalrymen, proud deseen-
elite, with which he intended to evict The Rajput leader, with his horse- dants of Genghis Khan's feared horde.
the Moguls from north-central India. men drawn up in glorious battle array, Details of the battle are hazy,
Babur, however, had other ideas. After wisely decided to avoid the Mogul cen- par ticularly at the points of contact
bringing his force of Turks, Mongols, ter, which was well dug in and bristling berween the two arrnies, but this rnuch
and Afghans so u thwa r d on wh a t with cannon. He decided instead to is clear: Rana Sanga 's cavalrymen
appeared to be a traditional raid, the break one wing of the Mogul army and pressed Babur's right wing hard, but
Mogulleader realized that it would be roll the line up (envelop it) from the were unable to break or envelop it.
foolish to abandon the lands he had fla nk , thereby negating the Mogul Probably frustrated by a cornbination
brought under his control and return advantage in firepower and position. of muske tr y, earthworks, m o un ted
 "W"arin the Age of Gunpovvder 37

Rejecting Gunpo-vvder
The Hindu horsemen of Rana Sanga
were not the only army who chose not
to embrace the destructive advantage
afforded by gunpowder weapons. The
samurai of feudal Japan, for instance,
banned outright the use or importa-
tion of muskets as a threat to the cul-
tural supremacy of the sword-wielding
warrior class. The Mamluks of Egypt,
mounted warriors who became the de
facto rulers of that region for several
centuries, considered the employment
of firearms beneath their dignity. Both
of these military elites ultimately paid
the price for their aversion to modern
technology.
Perhaps the oddest case of reject-
ing gunpowder occurred in Italy in the
fifteenth century. There, wars were
fought by multinational bands of mer-
cenaries known as condotter. In con-
flicts in which both sides used these
soldiers for hire, the various bands had
developed a cozy system of coopera-
tion with their erstwhile "foes" where-
by wars were dragged
'1 out for as long as the
, ~) ernployer's purse lasted.
'11, After all, hard fighting and
decisive battles brought
victory, victory meant
peace, and peace led to
unemployment for the
mercenaries. These
m e r c e n a r i e s wore
extremely heavy
armor to protect
themselves during "battles" that their armor. Firearms, obviously, were too dangerous to
were little more than well-orchestrat- use in such wars-they would produce an uneconomi-
ed farces designed to hold down casu- cal number of casualties, not to mention rendering the
alties rather than decide campaigns. expensive suits of armor obsolete-and so the merce-
During one such struggle, at Zagonara nary captains carne to something of a gentleman's agree-
in 1423, a daylong battle produced no ment to avoid their use. This worked fine until 1494,
deaths except for three mercenaries when foreign armies invaded Italy, using modern
who fell from their horses and smoth- firearms and artillery to demolish the condottieri in a
ered in the mud under the weight of very unbusinesslike manner.
archery, and Mogul countercharges, army. Once more, the gallant Rajputs new threat. Mogul heavy cavalry swung
Rana led his cavalry repeatedly into the nearly penetrated the Mogul Iines, but around the Rajput army, lancing into
fray, while at least two-thirds of his the king of Mewar again neglected to Rana's reserve, which had been point-
army stood idle. For his part, Babur, employ the bulk of his force in the lessly held back all day-the deploy-
stationed in the center of his army, fed assault, allowing Babur to frustrate the ment of a few additional squadrons
in reinforcements as necessary to sup- Indian charge simply by shifting troops might have brought him success on
port the right and finally dispatched his to the threatened sector. Si m u l- either wing. As the Rajputs struggled to
own household guards to separate the taneously, the Mogul commander avoid complete encirclement, Babur
Rajput left wing from its center. pushed his artillery and some muske- unleashed a final, killing blow.
His attack on the Mogul right frus- teers forward and began to tear apart The Mogul line of wagons had sev-
trated, Rana galloped over to his own the Rajput center. eral gaps wide enough to allow about a
right and obstinately repeated the With both wings beaten and his hundred cavalrymen to ride through
process on the left wing of the Mogul center weakened, Rana now faced a abreast. From these portals Babur's
own reserve horsemen now issued,
carefully avoiding his cannons' line of
fire. Already demoralized by prolonged
bombardment and the spectacle of
Rajput defeats on either wing, Rana's
center could not withstand the fury of
this final Mogul charge. The collapse of
the center, followed closely by a gener-
al rout, signaled the close of the action
at Khanua and the foundation of the
Mogul Empire.
The bravery of Rana Sanga and his
Rajput horsernen, nurtured by cen-
turies of tradition among India's war-
rior caste, was indisputable. The out-
come of the battle at Khanua hung in
the balance a dozen times, and the
Rajputani might have purchased victo-
ry at any time with a handful of rein-
forcements, but Rana had neither the
presence of mind nor the inclination to
hang back from the fighting long
enough to properly employ his consid-
erable numerical superiority. Instead, he
led his men forward piecemeal to
destruction before the Mogul guns,
mesmerized by the slim margin divido
ing him from triumph.

.. .. ..

A little over a hundred years later at

Rocroi, France, a Spanish commander
made an error similar to that cornrnit-
ted by Rana Sanga: he became en-
tranced by the prospect of imminent
victory and forgot that even gunpow-
der had not changed everything.

A depiction o/ the battle between Mogul and

Rajputaniforces at Khanua from a Persian
illustrated manuscript o/ the time.