Back معركة كارنال Arabic Karnal döyüşü Azerbaijani کارنال دؤیوشو AZB Schlacht von Karnal German Batalo de Karnal Esperanto نبرد کرنال Persian Bataille de Karnal French Battaglia di Karnal Italian カルナールの戦い Japanese കർണാൽ യുദ്ധം Malayalam

Battle of Karnal

Battle of Karnal
Part of Nader Shah's invasion of India

Painting of the Battle of Karnal from the palace of Chehel Sotoun
Date24 February 1739
Location
Karnal, Haryana, India
29°43′36.5″N 77°04′00.7″E / 29.726806°N 77.066861°E / 29.726806; 77.066861
Result Persian victory[1]
Territorial
changes		 The Mughal capital of Delhi is occupied, and then sacked. All Mughal territories north of the Indus River are annexed by the Afsharid Empire.
Belligerents
Afsharid Iran
 Kingdom of Kakheti		 Mughal Empire
Hyderabad
Oudh
Commanders and leaders

Nader Shah
(Shāhanshāh)

Persian officers

Muhammad Shah
(Mughal Emperor)

Mughal officers
Strength

55,000 with a war-camp of 160,000 (mounted and armed)[6][7][8][9]

75,000[6][10][11][12] to 300,000 (including non-combatants)[9][13][14][15]

Casualties and losses
1,100 to 2,500 with 5,000 wounded[10][16][17] 8,000–10,000[10][16] to 20,000–30,000[13]

The Battle of Karnal (Persian: نبرد کرنال) (24 February 1739)[18] was a decisive victory for Nader Shah, the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran, during his invasion of India. Nader's forces defeated the army of Muhammad Shah within three hours,[19] paving the way for the Iranian sack of Delhi. The engagement is considered the crowning jewel in Nader's military career as well as a tactical masterpiece.[13][20][21] The battle took place near Karnal in Haryana, 110 kilometres (68 mi) north of Delhi, India.[1]

The battle was the culminating point of Nader Shah's invasion of the Mughal Empire. After his conquest of eastern Afghanistan and invasion via Kabul and Peshawar, Nader led his forces south towards the Mughal capital. At Delhi Muhammad Shah gathered an extremely large force with which he marched north before his cumbersome army ground to a halt at Karnal. Nader gave battle and won a crushing victory. In the negotiations following the catastrophic defeat, Muhammad Shah agreed to pay a large indemnity in exchange for maintaining his imperium over his lands. Nader, however, forced the Mughal emperor to submit utterly and marched him to his capital, Delhi, where the Mughal treasury was plundered. An uprising against Nader's soldiers by Delhi's citizens ended in a bloody massacre in which the entire city was sacked and looted. The enormous plunder gained in Delhi caused Nader to issue an imperial decree removing all taxes for a total of three years. The Persian army soon departed and left behind 30,000 dead. Muhammad Shah was also forced to concede all his lands west of the Indus, which were annexed by Nader Shah.

As a result of the overwhelming defeat of the Mughal Empire at Karnal, the already-declining Mughal dynasty was critically weakened to such an extent as to hasten its demise. According to Axworthy, it is also possible that without the ruinous effects of Nader's invasion of India, European colonial takeover of the Indian subcontinent would have come in a different form or perhaps not at all.[13]

  1. ^ a b Dupuy, R. Ernest and Trevor N. Dupuy, The Harper Encyclopedia of Military History, 4th Ed., (HarperCollinsPublishers, 1993), 711.
  2. ^ David Marshall Lang. Russia and the Armenians of Transcaucasia, 1797–1889: a documentary record Columbia University Press, 1957 (digitalised March 2009, originally from the University of Michigan) p. 142.
  3. ^ Valeri Silogava, Kakha Shengelia. "History of Georgia: From the Ancient Times Through the "Rose Revolution" Caucasus University Publishing House, 2007 ISBN 978-9994086160 pp. 158, 278.
  4. ^ Zahiruddin Malik (1973). A Mughal Statesman Of The Eighteenth Century. p. 101.
  5. ^ Yadava, S. D. S. (2006). Followers of Krishna: Yadavas of India. Lancer Publishers. ISBN 978-81-7062-216-1.
  6. ^ a b Sarkar, J., Nadir Shah in India, p. 38 [1].
  7. ^ Floor, Wiilem(2009). The rise & fall of Nader Shah: Dutch East India Company Reports 1730–1747, Mage Publishers.
  8. ^ Floor, Willem(1998). new facts on Nadir Shah's campaign in India in Iranian studies, pp. 198–219.
  9. ^ a b Jaques, Tony (2006), "Karnal-1739-Nader Shah#Invasion of India", Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: A Guide to 8,500 Battles from Antiquity through the Twenty-first Century, Westport, CT: Greenwood, p. 512
  10. ^ a b c Kaushik Roy, War, Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia, 1740–1849, p. 32 "75,000"&pg=PA32.
  11. ^ A Comprehensive History of India: 1712–1772, p. 69 "75,000".
  12. ^ Sinha N.K, Bannerjee A.C., History of India, p. 458 "75,000".
  13. ^ a b c d Axworthy, Michael (2009). The Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, from tribal warrior to conquering tyrant, p. 254. I. B. Tauris.
  14. ^ Mohammad Kazem Marvi Yazdi, Rare views of the world" 3 vols., Ed Amin Riahi, Tehran, Third Edition, 1374.
  15. ^ "History of Nadir Shah's Wars" (Taarikhe Jahangoshaaye Naaderi), 1759, Mirza Mehdi Khan Esterabadi, (Court Historian).
  16. ^ a b Sarkar, J., Nadir Shah in India, p. 51 [2].
  17. ^ Axworthy, Michael (2009). The Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, from tribal warrior to conquering tyrant, p. 263. I. B. Tauris.
  18. ^ "India vii. Relations: The Afsharid and Zand – Encyclopaedia Iranica". iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  19. ^ Sarkar, Jagadish Narayan. A Study of Eighteenth Century India: Political history, 1707–1761 Saraswat Library, 1976. (Volume 1 of A) original from the University of Virginia. p. 115.
  20. ^ Quoted in Christopher Bellamy, The Evolution of Modern Land Warfare: Theory and Practice (London, 1990), 214.
  21. ^ Moghtader, Gholam-Hussein(2008). The Great Batlles of Nader Shah. Donyaye Ketab.

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