Saturday, December 3, 2016

The Turk cavalry of Oudh (Mirza Abu Talib Tabrizi, [1796] 1885)

The Turk cavalry of Oudh




One of the military commandants was Saiyad Jamalu’d Din Khan Turani, a man endowed with all qualities of a commander, who had 2,000 Mughal cavalry, good soldiers, well mounted. Another was Murtaza Khan Barij, the son of the well-known Mustafa Khan, who was employed at the head of a similar contingent of well-mounted cavalry. Qasim Khan Mandal and other Afghan officers, to the number of four or six thousand, looked up to him as their leader and formed, as it were, one brigade. Jamshed Beg and Khwaja Ni’matullah commanded 2,000 Turk sawars with good horses and appointments, trained after the English style. This Jamshed Beg was of the stock of the Jat zamindars, and in his boyhood fell into my father’s hands and was brought up carefully among his slaves, but being discontented with my father’s service, he went to Aqa Tahir, a friend of my father’s in the service of the East India Company, and remained with him for some months and learned the drill of the Turk sawars. After Aqa Tahir’s and my father’s death and the disbanding of the Turk sawars by order of Council, be entered the service of the late Nawab, and at his request trained these 2,000 Turk sawars. He was a worthy commander. There were three other divisions (kampu) of firelockmen. The command of most of these lay with Basant, and the rest had commanders of repute and respectability. There was also Mir Ahmad, commander of the Najib battalions, which numbered about six or seven thousand horse. They were composed of reliable men with substantial means and well armed, because Mir Ahmad, who was their trainer and drew up for them regulations of military discipline and exercises, had brought together only men of good family, and arming them with matchlocks, drilled them and trained them in various maneuvers and practices, according to the duties imposed on English regiments in those days, and they could handle cannon and muskets rapidly and effectively. Other officers, such as Shaikh Ihsan and Bala Rao Marhata, and others like them, there were many, whom there is no special reason to mention. The officials of the late Nawab were not wanting in skill, despatch, and efficiency in the discharge of their duties, as will hereafter be seen. In a short time this whole circle of officials was broken up, and owing to the intrigues of self-seekers, men fit to fill their places were as impossible to find as though there had been a famine of men in the Subah.


Mirza Abu Talib ibn Muhammad — History Of Asafud Daulah Nawab Wazir Of Oudh [1796] (1885)



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