A few months ago an armchair defence analyst wrote 'Sadashiv Bhau a brash incompetent commander'.

That time I wrote a thread, countering the falsehood, which later got deleted. Rewriting the thread today:

In 1746, Peshwas were losing the control of Karnataka. Nawab of Savanur was becoming powerful and Maratha Chief Babuji Naik's campaign failed.

17 year old Sadashiv sought the Peshwa's permission to lead the Maratha Armies into battle. Bhau defeated the Nawab and returned back after capturing 36 parganas (districts).

Bhau was offered the post of Peshwa at Sambhaji's court in Kolhapur. Nanasaheb was irked by this as he didn't wanted his inherently honest General to join other Maratha faction.

Bhau was made second officer (only on the basis of competence). Bhau was a strict task master, chiefs not only respected him but also feared him.

We should read what English envoy to Pune, William Price wrote about Bhau (Sadoba).

Nanasaheb was himself not a warrior. He relied mainly on Bhau and Raghoba (Raghunath rao, Nanasaheb's younger sibling).
Raghoba was campaigning in north since 1753. He was at the helm of all the political affairs and dealings.

He had made several arrangements in north. He supported kings, he dethroned them, threatened them, extracted Chauth from them. But none of his arrangements were successful in tackling Abdali's invasions.

This was a still a small failure, his biggest failure is that he couldn't keep in check the growing influence of Maratha chiefs and their internal rivalries, particularly Holkars and Scindias.

Conflicts among kings who pay tributes to Peshwa and impending fear of Abdali's invasion grew so much that Maratha agents requested Peshwa to come himself or send Bhau to resolve disputes.

However Peshwa again chose to send Raghoba. Raghoba left Pune in October 1956 and was still in Indore in February 1957 while Abdali was massacred Hindus in Mathura.
Antaji asked Raghoba to pursue Abdali till Karnal.

Abdali left in April, Raghoba reached Agra in May. Several kings refused to pay any tribute to Maratha. Whereas the clever ones like Najib bribed Holkar and got away while Raghoba couldn't do anything.

The same time Abdali was facing a crisis in Afghanistan, Raghoba formed alliance with Sikhs and captured several forts till Attock.
However nothing significant was achieved other than helping Sikhs to oust Taimur Shah (Abdali's son).

This campaign brought a debt of 60-80 lakh rupees on Maratha empire.
When Abdali attacked again in 1959-60, Raghoba asked 1 crore rupees as well as 80000 troops.

This demand would have left Pune vulnerable to Nizam's attack. The same Nizam who was just defeated by Marathas at Udgir under the leadership of Sadashivrao Bhau.

Bhau was assigned the task with 50K troops (only 30K were regular) and 6 lakh rupees and two cheques of 2 lakhs each.
We all know how everything unfolded and how allies broke away.

Now coming to the point of strategy. Strategy chosen by Bhau was the best one could come up with at that point of time.
Bhau blocked Abdali route by the end of November. Nanasaheb also asked him to keep Abdali's route blocked till the time he arrives.

Nanasaheb took a lot of time to reach. Supplies were getting short as well as they were running low on cash.

They had no ally who could help them with supplies. Sikhs whom the Maratha helped earlier sent supplies, but on cash payment only.
This was the situation faced by Bhau.

Still on 14th January, 1761, the reached the closest to victory, one could ever get against Abdali.
Also to mention Raghoba never faced Abdali in a battlefield.

Bhau was the only Maratha General who took on this mighty task.

Finally for the armchair strategic experts suggesting a different kind of battle than a face to face in open battlefield. Please read.

Source: Solstice At Panipat by Uday S. Kulkarni

End of Thread.