VMCW Battle 2: Dara Against Murad

The last battle was in turn 2 of the campaign and featured the routing of the army of Bijapur by Mir Jumla of Golconda. The dice suggested that the commander of the Bijapur army, Afzal Khan was a casualty of the rout, and the dice indicated that he was alive but a prisoner of Mir Jumla.

In the next few months, there was no overt military action, but there was a lot going on. In March Aurungazeb moved to Bijapur, while, in the north, Jai Singh moved the Rajput army to Allahabad. In April Aurungazeb drew a subvert card (he is rolling really well for a 50% initiative character) and Bijapur surrendered to him with no further fighting. His ally, Mir Jumla also moved to Bijapur.

May saw Dara move from Agra towards Murad’s forces in Gujerat. He was allied with Jai Singh who was watching Shah Suhoh in the east, so he felt his rear was secure enough to engage with one of the others. It was also a fact that he was already at war (a 1 on the diplomacy table) with Murad, as was the latter with him. In June, however, Murad scored a subversion success against Dara when he induced Jai Singh to abandon his allegiance to the oldest prince and become hostile to him. This does not, at present, make much material difference to the campaign but leaves Dara a bit exposed. In the south the new (currently nameless leader of Bijapur drew a subvert card and managed to switch Mir Jumla and Aurungazeb to being hostile to each other.

In September Aurungazeb attempted to subvert Mir Jumla, with only limited success, while Bijapur rebelled against its squabbling conquerors (this was a fumbled initiative roll). Meanwhile, Murad has plundered the city of Champanar, and the now-active Marathas tried some diplomacy in the south.

It all came to a bit of a head in October. Both Aurangzeb and Mir Jumlam drew plunder cards. Given that they could not really both plunder the same city in the same turn, I decided that they came to blows over who was going to take the spoils. At the same time, Dara contacted Murad’s army outside Champanar. Meanwhile, Shah Suhoh subverted Jai Singh, who was now not only hostile to Dara but an ally of his. The Marathas plundered Poona, creating an army. It was all getting a little busy.

There were, therefore, two wargames to resolve: Murad against Dara and Aurangzeb against Mir Jumal. I decided on dealing with the two princes first, so wargame 2 of the campaign was staged.

The deployment is above, Dara to the left and Murad to the right. The forces are mirror images of each other. Dara’s plan was to get his rocketeers and archers (on the far side) onto the hill in front of them to take on and disrupt Murad’s cavalry, while his own cavalry swept the centre. Murad’s plan was to take the hill and Dara’s forces on it with the said cavalry, and then outflank the rest of his army while holding the hill on his left (right front of the picture) with his shot, militia and rocketeers.

The picture shows the action developing. Murad’s cavalry have charged some of Dara’s in the centre (brick red counters) while the rest of Murad’s cavalry are manoeuvring to assault the hill. The rocketeers of both sides have opened up, totally ineffectively.

The cavalry clash developed slightly unusually, in that, despite the early shock of being charged, Dara’s cavalry rallied rather magnificently and more than saw off the enemy. The action with the brick red counter shows Murad’s squadron losing rather badly, while just up from them in the picture Dara’s cavalry, despite being shaken, have recoiled their opponents. On the other hand, Murad’s elephant has just arrived to sort things out, while on the hill at the top of the photograph, Murad’s cavalry have taken out the rocketeers, although they are finding the resistance from the archers had to overcome.

The ongoing cavalry combat in the centre was resolved in Dara’s favour, and Murad’s army managed a horrendous morale throw, which meant they had to fall back. The pressure on Dara’s left was relieved, while the latter had the opportunity to bring the rest of the cavalry, and himself, to the fray. As Murad tried to advance his archers to assist, Dara and his cavalry charged Murad’s elephants and routed them, sweeping away a cavalry squadron into the bargain.

I did debate whether it was fair to have Dara charge with his cavalry and the general’s bases are combat units in these armies. I thought it was reasonable enough, and, as it happened, the odds were so stacked against the elephant once the charge was resolved that any other result would have been a surprise.

Murad was now 3 bases down, and another poor morale roll meant that his forces fell back again. At this point, he had some strategic thinking to do. He still had the loot from sacking Champaner (the ox carts at the rear of his position, by the mosque), and most of his army intact. Staying on the field could lose him the war, as well as his life, and almost certainly the money. His army was also getting a bit scattered while Dara’s was a little more coherent, and he had lost half his cavalry. If this had been a stand-alone game, he would probably have fought on; his position was tricky but not hopeless, and a change in luck could have gone in his favour. But in a campaign, the risk is not worth it. Murad retreated, keeping the loot and his life while conceding the battle.

As for Dara, he can always claim the kudos of having led the charge that clinched the battle, with the caveat above. In campaign terms, Murad will retreat to Chambar while Dara decides whether to follow up his victory or retreat back to Agra after the defection of Jai Singh. Meanwhile, in the south, I have to resolve the fate of Bijapur.

A Very Mogul Civil War Battle 1

For those of you who have been waiting with bated breath for the first installment of the Mogul campaign, as outlined last week, here it is. The non-Mogul battle between Bijapur and Golconda, in the south of India beyond the empire. The Bijapur-ains consist of a general on an elephant (of course!), an elephant, three bases of cavalry, three militia levy, two archers, two swordsmen bases, and a base of musket-armed skirmishers. The Golcondans have the inevitable elephant-mounted general, an elephant base, a base of guard lancers, a base of light horse, 4 bases of archers, three levy militia, and two bases of swordsmen. Different, slightly, but fairly balanced, I think.

The terrain turned out to be fairly simple. A stream marks the near-side of the battlefield. The Bijapurians are to the left, their cavalry and elephants furthest from the stream. The infantry and militia are ordered to advance on the enemy archers and militia, while the elephants and cavalry try to defeat the Golcondan right. That right-wing is held by the guard cavalry and elephant, while the left is screened by the light horse. The idea was to hold off whatever Bijapur threw at the line with firepower and disruptive skirmishing, while the general and swordsmen are in reserve.

The above picture shows the Bijapur attack developing. The cavalry on the far side has charged in, with reasonable success, aside from the Golcondan elephant, a charge at which was declined. The Golcondans have brought up their swordsmen to stiffen the line, as well as the general. Elsewhere the Golcondan light horse are doing a good job in delaying the Bijapur militia, but the archers and swordsmen are getting into position.

Most battles I have run in these eastern settings have tended to the chaotic after the opening exchanges, and this one was no different. The next picture shows this increasing chaos rather nicely, I think, from behind Golcondan lines.

Working our way from right to left, you can see that the Golcondan elephant has charged the lagging Bijapur cavalry base and has the upper hand in combat. Next along, the Golcondan guard cavalry have snuck into position to flank the Bijapur centre, including their elephants, who have got stuck in front of the Golcondan swordsmen. Nearest the camera, a base of Golcondan archers are fleeing from some pursuing cavalry. On the Golcondan left contact, at least between some of the infantry is about to happen. It was tight, as you can also see a base of Bijapur cavalry fleeing back right-ish.

The guard cavalry turned out to be the Golcondan ace-in-the-hole. With the supporting cavalry for the Bijapur elephants gone, they had a clear run at the flank of the nellies locked in combat with the Golcondan swordsmen. Charge home they did indeed, and they caused much human head-scratching when they recoiled the base into the general next door. This situation is not explicitly covered in my rules – elephants can recoil while war wagons cannot – so I had to be a bit careful. I decided that the elephants recoiled and pushed the general along half a base width rather than get themselves eliminated or even eliminate themselves and the general’s base.

The results of the battle can be seen above. The Golcondan cavalry charge, supported by an advancing base of swordsmen, eliminated the Bijapur elephant. However, before the end of the move, the Bijapur general had decided to get out of the firing line and advanced on a stray base of Golcondan bowmen, who are now fleeing. Behind that the Golcondan general has advanced on the base of Bijapur cavalry that was rallying from their earlier charge and routed them as well. On the far side, incidentally, the Golcondan elephant base has routed the opposing cavalry.

In the centre, the infantry battle has been a bit mixed. You can see a severely damaged base of Golcondan archers, but also that the rest of the Golcondan infantry has been stalled (nearest camera) or is fleeing (next across). This was probably my mistake because the Bijapur swordsmen were behind their bowmen in the assault. If it had been the other way around (or rather, if the bowmen had been somewhere else) the results might have been different. On the near-side, the light horse are still delaying the Bijapur militia, just about, although the room for the light horse to manoeuvre is becoming limited.

At this point, morale rolls were called for on both sides. Having lost two bases the Golcondans went to ‘fall back’ on an admittedly bad roll. The Bijapur army, however, had been more severely reduced and was hanging on with a base morale of 1. A negative roll for them as well ensured that the whole army was routed and, looking at the situation, who can blame them?

That, then was the first wargame of the campaign, and a lot of fun it was as well, with interest all the way through. Reflecting on the battle seems to suggest that in this sort of action when the initial shock is over, the armies break up into smaller packets, and the action of a single base, such as the Golcondan guard lancers, can make a big difference. In a similar way the Golcondan light horse really did delay the enemy militia, while the Bijapur’s jezail-toting skirmishers faced the Golcondan bows and were lucky not to get routed as a result.

In this game, I did expect that the Bijapur cavalry would be decisive, and they were important, but cavalry charges are one-shot weapons in tight situations such as this game. Here, they managed to stop pursuing at the table edge but were kept from rallying by a base of Golcondan bows until the general was ready to see them on their way. On the other hand, the Golcondan elephant did charge home but as there were no other enemy units near got away with it, and did not, in fact, rally.

All good fun, anyway, and apart from pondering the recoil rules a bit, it is on to the next campaign turn.  

A Very Mogul Civil War

It might be an underappreciated fact, but politics in the rest of the world was not the same as it was in Europe in the ‘early modern’ period. As noted in the last campaign, the death of a ruler in Burma (or in Mexico) did not lead to the eldest son immediately gaining power. The situation was, perhaps, a bit more like what happened after the death of William the Conqueror, Henry II, or Alexander III of Macedon: a bit of a free-for-all.

Thus we come to India, towards the end of the reign of Shah Jahan, Mogul Emperor. He had four sons, Dara Shuhoh, Shah Shuja, Aurangzeb, and Murad Bakhsh (with all due apologies for the spelling…). Shah Jahan had become increasingly reclusive and stayed in the fort at Agra, so the empire was, more or less, under the control of his eldest and favourite son Dara. Shah Shuja, the second son was in Bengal, Aurangazeb governor of the Deccan and Murad in Gujerat. The Imperial army, therefore was under the control of Dara, but Aurangazeb also had an army, and stop–go orders from Agra to capture Golconda and Bijapur further south. The stop-go orders were because the rulers or those states tended to deliver massive bribes to Agra to call Aurangazeb off, much to his frustration.

In late 1657 Shah Jahan fell ill, and none of the brothers apart from Dara knew what was going on, and Dara decided not to let them know anything much. Thus they immediately became concerned for their own position and started jockeying for advantage. The fact was that only one of them, really, stood a chance of surviving. Only one could be the Emperor.

A glance at the map (above) might clarify matters. The yellow and red pins mark Agra, Dara, and the Rajput army under Jai Singh, while the blue pin is Shah Shuja, on the move with an army having plundered Calcutta to obtain funds. The orange pin is Murad while the pink is Aurangazeb. In the south, the white pin is the Maratha army, who are a bit of a disruptive force in the game but inactive at present, while the green and blue are Bijaper (Afzal Khan) and Golconda (Mir Jumla). If you look at the picture closely you can see my scribbled notes in the bottom margin.

Putting the pins in the map actually helped to make sense of a number of things from the historical accounts. There is always something to be gained, I suppose, by setting it out visually rather than just reading about a situation. Murad and Aurangzeb are quite close together (relatively speaking – India is a big place), so it makes sense that historically they had some sort of ‘gentleman’s agreement’ and did not fight each other, at least initially. The other stand-out observation is that Shah Shuja is a long way from where he needs to be to influence events, so it is perhaps less surprising that he was the first to move, historically, and declared himself emperor.

The map actually shows the campaign after a couple of moves. There has been some diplomacy and some attempts at subversion already, with the results recorded on a diplomacy grid (see the book, p 121 for a brief outline of these). Here I have developed the idea a bit further. The four brothers and four non-brother forces (Shah Jahan is not active) have four option – to plunder, to move an army, to send out diplomats and to subvert. Aurangzeb was a well-known subverter, incidentally, on one occasion convincing the Rajputs that the Rajput allied brother and Aurangzeb himself were going to destroy the Rajput army, and it was a trap. The Rajputs fled, leaving Aurangazeb to face only the small forces of his brother.

On the diplomacy chart, a diplomatic activity gets you to a matched roll on the relevant row and column to see if your relationship with others (and theirs to you) goes up or down. Plundering a city costs you diplomatic points, however, and declaring yourself emperor (only open to a brother) also loses you DPs. Subversion matches your relationship with another with theirs with a friend or ally and reduces their DP relationship if successful. Lots of fun and games are possible here.

In the second turn, February 1658 (I am sure that India has a different month designation, but I don’t know it) Jai Singh has moved his army to Agra to support Dara, Shah Shuja has started to move as already noted and Afzal Khan has attacked Golconda.

The latter event of course sparked a wargame, although the thought of non-Mogul forces fighting each other outside the civil war context had not really occurred to me, except, perhaps, for Maratha raids. Anyway, the dice and cards determined the result, and so a wargame was to be fought. The armies are based on my original 100 AP condensed scale DBR forces, adjusted to 12 base plus a general forces. In this case, I had to raid the Burmese for some extra swordsmen, although in retrospect I could have raided my ancient Indians.

The raiding requirement came about because, during the great rebasing a few years ago, I put the Indian archers, musketeers, and swordsmen two (Irregular) strips to a base, hereby halving the numbers available. This was, in retrospect, probably a mistake, as much of the rest remains one strip to a base. On the other hand, the Aztecs were rebased one to a strip and really needed two. But I cannot, at present, face rebasing the Aztecs again, nor, for the matter of that, the Indians or Russians, who also really need it.

Actually, I am finding that only the Western Europeans of the 16^th and !7^th Centuries look better two deep. I am not entirely sure why that is, but it is the case. The problem here is, of course, that I could spend most of my wargaming time rebasing toy soldiers and not fighting wargames. Rebasing is fairly simple, granted, but it is a bit dull, so improvisation is the name of the game.

So, enough scene setting. Next time, the battle will have to commence.

The Personal Rule of Charles I

 When, historians ask, did the English Civil War (or the War of the Three Kingdoms) start? Well, there is an obvious answer, of course, which is when Charles I raised his standard in 1642. But historians tend to look further back. Was the cause of the civil wars the Scottish rebellion, the Irish rebellion, the general lack of money, the ship money demands, the ‘eleven year’s tyranny’ of Charles I, the state of religion or other causes? Similarly, if you look to structural explanations we can have the rise of the gentry, the decline of the gentry, the climatic conditions of the early 17^th Century, increases or decreases in trade, inflation due to the influx of silver from South America and, I am sure, many other ‘explanations’.

Another book which I wished, many years ago, that I could afford, was this:

Sharpe, K., The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven, Yale, 1992).

As I observed a long time ago on Facebook, this is a weighty tome: 954 pages of text, more or less. It has taken me ages to read but, as the Estimable Mrs P observed, I did rather enjoy it. She also asked whether I had changed my mind at all about Charles I. The date of his execution, commemorated in the lectionary of the Church of England, was fast approaching, and she wondered if I would say the collect that day. I might come back to that later.

Sharpe’s argument, so far as I can grasp it, is that 1637, the date of the Prayer Book riots in Scotland, was the key date in the personal rule. Before then there were the usual grumbles, but no one, puritan or high church, was really angry or upset enough about the government to take any action. In particular, Sharpe suggests, that the notorious cases which were portrayed as anti-Puritan, against the likes of Prynne, did not really establish any overall public sympathy for the Puritans, per se. Similarly, while the ship money case had raised legal questions about its validity, and hence the royal prerogative as the instrument of taxation, the tax was still paid and the fleet was taking shape, and, indeed, becoming a significant factor in diplomacy.

Sharpe paints a picture of England in the early 1630s as being at peace with itself. While a few radicals on both sides were trying to up the stakes, really, no-one wanted to get deeply involved in the wars on the continent. Charles followed a roughly pro-Spanish policy, on the basis that as the Spanish occupied the Palatinate, and English policy was directed to reinstating the Elector, it was the most pragmatic approach.

Pragmatic, perhaps, but not popular, at least among the more Protestant parts of the nation, who looked back to the good old days of war with Spain. On the other hand, English strategy had to be to keep the southern coast of the Channel in friendly hands, and that could mean either the French and Dutch (as they moved into alliance) or Spain. My interest in this part of the period arose due to the negotiations of 1636, where Charles sent envoys to Madrid, Paris, and Vienna, with different results.

Still, Sharpe argues that nothing much precipitated a crisis in England as much as the Scottish rebellion and Charles’ reactions to it. The First Bishop’s War exhausted the treasury and resulted in failure. Whether, as Sharpe suggests, the Scots were in a position to really fight, and a reverse at Kelso could have changed the whole complexion of the crisis is interesting and could deserve a wargame. However, the failure caused an acute fiscal crisis which needed a Parliament to address.

The problem with the Short Parliament was the argument as to whether taxes or grievances should come first. As taxes were not forthcoming the King dissolved Parliament and struggled on. Sharpe suggests that the dislocation in the provinces of this, the constant demands for money in various ways to pay the troops and the ultimate defeat in the Second Bishop’s War really caused the political crisis of the Long Parliament and led, ultimately, to the outbreak of civil war.

There were other factors, of course. Scottish and Puritan propaganda and fears of a Popish plot did not help. The activities of Pym and his allies, in probably treasonous correspondence with the Scots almost certainly led to Pym precipitating some of the crises just to stay out of prison. Whether, however, the crisis would have led to civil war without the Irish rebellion and the arguments about who was to control the army is a bit moot. Charles was proving to be untrustworthy and that cost him, initially at least, the support of quite a few moderate MPs who, in due course, became royalists (such as Edward Hyde, for example).

So far was wargaming goes, there are the obvious opportunities of the Bishop’s Wars, as noted above. There are also some items in the wars of the 1620s which could deserve attention, as Charles managed to arrange being at war with both the Spanish and the French at the same time. The problems that caused led to the personal rule in the first place as the Parliaments called to supply those wars proved to be unruly.

There are other, perhaps more far-fetched possibilities for the imaginative wargamer, however. For example, the Spanish were so desperate, particularly after the Battle of the Downs in 1639, to keep a supply route open to the Low Countries, that they were prepared to offer Charles 8000 troops to put the Scots down. That would be a political disaster for Charles, of course, but a fascinating wargame possibility. There are also possibilities of the fleet being used to either close or open the Channel to Spanish shipping, either in alliance with or opposition to the Franco-Dutch alliance. The possibilities are manifold.

This is a massive, and massively detailed work on the period. I am not sure that it made me much more sympathetic to Charles, however, although it did make me more sympathetic to Strafford and Laud, who were really made scapegoats for the crisis of the monarchy. Sharpe observes that Charles I was not a good politician, unlike his father and his son, and that made things more likely to unravel rather than less. But, perhaps, ruling three different kingdoms from London in the early modern period was always going to be problematic, especially without much money or military force.