Place · battle · India
Karnal
The 24 February 1739 battle at Karnal in Haryana, 125 kilometres north of Delhi, where Nadir Shah's Persian army of 55,000 destroyed the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah's much larger force of 300,000 in a single afternoon through superior Afsharid cavalry tactics and Persian flintlock musketry. Nadir Shah then marched on Delhi, massacred an estimated 30,000 of its citizens in a day in reprisal for a riot, looted the city, and carried off the Peacock Throne, the Koh-i-Noor diamond, the Darya-i-Noor and much of the Mughal treasury — enough gold and jewels to fund the Persian state for a generation and to exempt Persian subjects from tax for three years. The Mughal empire never recovered its military credibility.
- Date
- 1739 CE
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 29.690, 76.990
Worth knowing
Nadir Shah destroyed a much larger Mughal army in a single afternoon, then took Delhi, the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor. The Mughal empire technically continued for another 118 years and never again controlled its own capital's revenue.
Connections (10)
- Succession in timeSamugarh
From the succession war at Samugarh in 1658 to the sack of Delhi in 1739 is eighty-one years — two generations between the Mughal empire at its territorial maximum and a Persian adventurer carrying off the Peacock Throne after destroying a far larger army in an afternoon. What happened between was the Deccan wars, which consumed Aurangzeb's last twenty-six years, the treasury, and the loyalty of the nobility.
- Siege ofRed Fort, Delhi
Nadir Shah destroyed a far larger Mughal army at Karnal in an afternoon in 1739, entered Delhi, and after a riot ordered a general massacre in which tens of thousands died. He left with the Peacock Throne, the Koh-i-Noor and enough treasure to suspend taxation in Persia for three years. The Mughal empire continued nominally for another century and never again controlled anything much beyond the city.
- Power passed toKollur / Golconda diamond fields
The Koh-i-Noor came out of the alluvial workings of the Krishna valley, probably at Kollur, entered the Mughal treasury from Golconda, and left India with Nadir Shah in 1739 after Karnal. It then went to his Afghan general Ahmad Shah Durrani, to Ranjit Singh at Lahore in 1813, and to Queen Victoria in 1850. Every stage of that route is a conquest or an extraction, which is why the question of returning it has no clean answer.
- Siege ofAgra Fort
Nadir Shah took the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor out of Delhi in 1739 after Karnal, and both had been at Agra before Shah Jahan moved the capital. The throne was broken up in Persia within a few decades; the stone went on through Afghan hands to Ranjit Singh at Lahore and then to London. Nadir's sack is the single event that empties the Mughal treasury and ends the empire as a financial proposition.
- Power passed toLahore Fort & Shalimar
The Koh-i-Noor left Delhi with Nadir Shah in 1739, passed after his assassination to his Afghan general Ahmad Shah Durrani, and came back into India at Lahore in 1813 when Ranjit Singh extracted it from the exiled Shah Shuja in return for sheltering him. It was surrendered to the Company on the annexation of Punjab in 1849 and sent to Queen Victoria, arriving by way of a Bombay steamer.
- CampaignRed Fort, Delhi
Nader Shah's army came down the northern highway from the Khyber through Lahore to Karnal on 24 February 1739, beat the Mughal army in an afternoon, and marched down the same road to Delhi to sack Shahjahanabad — the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor went back with him. The trunk route was as much a corridor of invasion as it was of imperial supply, and Abdali used it nine times over the next thirty years.
- Site withinEuropean Soldiers Graves, Karnal
The European soldiers' cemetery is in the old Karnal cantonment on the Delhi-Lahore highway.
- Site withinCantonment Church Tower, Karnal
The Cantonment Church Tower is the surviving tower of St James's Church inside the old Karnal cantonment.
- Site withinAncient Stupa, Asandh (Karnal)
Asandh village with its Mauryan-Kushan stupa is in Karnal district about 50 km west of Karnal city.
- Site withinSarai Gharaunda
Gharaunda sarai gateways stand on the Delhi-Lahore trunk road 20 km south of Karnal city.
On these journeys
Sources
List of wars in the Indian subcontinent; standard reference accounts
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