How to feed an Indian army?

[Jens Nordlunde]

You are right Fernando, It was not a marching 'stream' of soldiers. A king asked his supporters to send armies, and so they would arrive in 'drops' so to say - if they arrived at all.
About an army of one million, I would say that maybe it was a 'wee bit' over estimated. Anyway they could muster a lot of soldiers when needed - not all well trained - but still armed. If they themselves had the arms, or if they were armed from the royal armoury is not quite certain, but at least some must have been armed from the armoury.
This would, of course, mean that a lot of the 'soldiers' had no battle training what soever - thay were armed, but that was it.

Now here it is interesting to notice, that some left the fight and went home during the battle, while others went over to the 'enemy' during the fight - for several reasons


Now if you read the article Saadat Khan Bahadur the First Nawab of Oudh in A Passion for Indian Arms, you will see, that he had an army so big that the Mughul ruler was afraid of him, and only the Nizam of Deccan could match him.
But at that time, the armies seem to have been a lot smaller than under the very early rulers of south India - maybe a tenth.
However, when you read that someone who had won a battle had thousands slaughtered and their heads put into stables - then I think one gets an idea of what religious wars wer in India at the time.