Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Failed Siege of Maratha Fortresses
Transcript
- Lucas: So last time we talked about the Deccan campaigns in broad strokes, but I want to zoom in on something that really broke the Mughal back: the sieges of the Maratha hill forts. Luna: The ones in the Western Ghats, right? Lucas: Exactly. These weren't your typical forts. They were built on sheer cliffs, often with only one narrow approach. The Marathas under Shivaji and later his successors had fortified dozens of these natural strongholds. And Aurangzeb, after capturing Shivaji's son Sambhaji in 1689, thought he could just march in and take them. Lucas: The first major test was Raigad, Shivaji's capital. Aurangzeb sent a massive army under Zulfiqar Khan to besiege it in 1689. The fort sits on a hill 1,400 meters high, with walls that look like they grow out of the rock. Luna: How long did it take? Lucas: Over a year. And the Mughals only succeeded because they bribed a Maratha officer named Ganoji Shirke, who was Sambhaji's brother-in-law. He showed them a secret path. Even then, the garrison fought to the last. When the Mughals finally entered, they found mostly women and children — the warriors had slipped away through the jungle. Lucas: But that was just the beginning. After Raigad, Aurangzeb turned his attention to the forts of the Deccan plateau: Satara, Wai, Khelna, and dozens more. Each one was a separate nightmare. Luna: What made them so hard to take? Lucas: Terrain, for one. The Marathas knew every mountain pass and cave. They'd raid Mughal supply lines at night, then vanish into the forests. The Mughals had heavy artillery, but dragging cannons up those slopes was nearly impossible. Often they had to dismantle them and carry the pieces on bullocks. Lucas: Then there was the monsoon. For four months every year, the rain turned the trails into mudslides. Diseases like cholera and dysentery swept through the Mughal camps. Aurangzeb himself, who was in his seventies by then, insisted on staying in the Deccan year-round, but his soldiers weren't so resilient. Luna: So he was personally overseeing these sieges? Lucas: He set up his court at a place called Galna, later at Daulatabad, but he rarely left the Deccan after 1682. He was determined to finish the Marathas. But the Maratha commanders — Santaji Ghorpade and Dhanaji Jadhav in particular — were masters of guerrilla warfare. Luna: Santaji and Dhanaji — I've heard those names before. Lucas: They were brilliant. Santaji Ghorpade was known for his lightning cavalry raids. In 1695, he actually surprised the Mughal prince, Bidar Bakht, in his camp at night and nearly captured him. Dhanaji Jadhav was the strategist, coordinating the defense of the forts. Lucas: The siege of Satara is a great example. It started in 1699. The Mughals built a siege wall around the fort, but the Marathas inside had stocks of grain and water. Meanwhile, Santaji and Dhanaji's cavalry harassed the Mughal foraging parties. The siege dragged on for two years. Luna: Two years? That's insane. Lucas: And it eventually fell, but not before the Mughals lost thousands to disease and desertion. The pattern repeated at Wai, at Khelna, at Rajgad. Each fort cost the Mughals months or years of effort, and many they never took at all. The Marathas simply abandoned them and moved to the next stronghold. Lucas: Aurangzeb's strategy was to capture the forts one by one, but he never had enough troops to garrison them effectively. As soon as his army moved on, the Marathas would retake the fort through a combination of bribery and surprise. Luna: So it was a war of attrition that the Mughals couldn't win. Lucas: Exactly. The Mughal treasury was hemorrhaging money. In the last decade of Aurangzeb's reign, his empire lost control of most of the Deccan countryside. The Marathas never faced him in a pitched battle — they didn't need to. They just had to outlast him. Lucas: And outlast him they did. When Aurangzeb died in 1707, the Marathas were stronger than ever. Within a decade, their Peshwa — Balaji Vishwanath — would become the de facto ruler of the Deccan. The Mughal failure to subdue those hill forts was the turning point. Luna: It's almost like the Mughals were victims of their own success. They'd conquered so much, but the Deccan just swallowed them. Lucas: Right. The forts were more than just stone and mortar. They were symbols of Maratha resilience. And by trying to take them all, Aurangzeb bled his empire dry.