Place · Imad Shahi hill fort · India
Gāwilghur
Also known as Gawilgarh, Gavilgad, Gawilghur
A Gond and then Imad Shahi fort on a spur of the Gawilgarh hills above the Berar plain, with a double gateway, carved Persian inscriptions and a plateau large enough to hold a town — taken by Wellesley in December 1803 six weeks after Assaye, in an assault up a ravine that ended the Second Anglo-Maratha War in the Deccan.
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 21.360, 77.320
Worth knowing
Wellesley's brigade major at Gawilghur was John Blakiston, whose account of the escalade is the fullest description of Indian fortress warfare from the attacking side. The fort is now inside the Melghat tiger reserve and reached on foot.
Connections (1)
- CampaignAssaye
Gawilghur, a Deccan hill fort of the Imad Shahis in the Berar hills, fell to Wellesley in December 1803, six weeks after Assaye and a month after Argaon. The two together ended the Second Anglo-Maratha War in the Deccan. Wellesley said afterwards that Assaye was the hardest fighting he had seen, and he said it after Waterloo.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Gawilghur”. Ferishta, Tarikh-i Ferishta; Richard Eaton, A Social History of the Deccan (2005); George Michell and Mark Zebrowski, Architecture and Art of the Deccan Sultanates (1999).
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