First, it’s important to point out that the outcome of a battle depended on chance, or what might be called good fortune in the vast majority of cases. The one who won was just a bit luckier at a critical moment, but not stronger or better trained. There were some genuinely real circumstances that made this factor of good fortune prevail, which will be mentioned below.

Fencing skills honed by the Europeans in fencing halls often remained irrelevant, as in equestrian fights, for example, the horseman was not always the main target. Wounding and injuring horses with cold steel was a common practice, similar to cutting elephants’ legs with a sword-khanda in earlier times. Another trick that helped to get the same result, namely to make the horseman a better target, was cutting the reins. The last one was widespread among foot Indian warriors. Because of this or maybe not, English cavalrymen considered infantrymen, even single infantrymen, more dangerous enemies than horsemen.

The following case illustrates the points above, including the necessity of good luck and fortune, is illustrated by a case in which a brilliant English officer, upon noticing a single Indian foot warrior, separated from the others and decided to deal with the “villain” (the epithet that was often used in descriptions written right after the events) alone. After the first unsuccessful swoop, the reins of the horse were cut, and the horse started spinning round, thus giving the horseman no opportunity to make another attack. Then the Indian warrior cut the officer on his thigh (also a very widespread trick) and ran away. Consequently, the femoral artery was badly damaged, so the officer died with no opportunity to apply his fencing skills.

Another English officer witnessed a scene when five British dragoons were spinning around an Indian infantryman, but he defended himself from their attacks very successfully and even managed to tease them.

English military men respected the Indian cavalry and considered that they looked better in a battle than the English cavalry. Of course, it’s important to take into consideration that the Anglo-Indian wars took place before the advent of secure revolver systems, so they differed a lot because only cold steel was used in battles. As for the superiority of the Indian cavalry over the English, one can also mention the fact that the Indians handled horses better. They could handle horses without reins, which explains the numerous iconography and descriptions that depict Indian horsemen fighting with a sword and a shield (or two swords) without holding the reins.

The following description of an Indian horseman’s tactics can illustrate a non-standard approach to cavalry combat. Directing the horses at the charging rank of the British cavalry at the moment of the combat contact, the Indians leant over to the horse’s neck and were not afraid to take a sword blow on their shields, which were often behind the back and protected them during the battle. The head was protected by the turban, under which there often was a metal helmet, but usually a turban alone was enough for protection. By letting the enemy go past, they gave a horizontal blow onto his back.

As for fencing itself, it’s worth pointing out that it seldom came down to the exchange of blows, parry or counter-attacks, which are commonly considered the essence of fencing. The outcome of the fight was more often reached by the first and the only blow, both in a foot and horse battle. In case of a prolonged exchange of blows, it was the European fencers who had the advantage according to the statistics of the described cases. But it’s necessary to pay attention to two things here. First, we don’t have any descriptions of fights left by victorious Indian warriors or British soldiers who lost the battle, and it’s quite clear why. Second, the technique of thrusts, used by Europeans in the overwhelming majority of cases, was not always effective even in the case of the enemy’s defeat. Thrusts (like revolver bullets of that time) didn’t have the necessary stopping power compared with slashing wounds. Moreover, Indians had a superstitious idea that as long as the weapon was in the wound, they would stay alive. Anyway, it’s quite common to come across some descriptions when an Indian wounded by a thrust paid little attention to that, or even grabbed and held the weapon that had thrust into his body and was able to inflict a fatal wound on his opponent.

But the most significant factor leveling any individual advantages was a mass, group battle where these fights took place. In the vast majority of described cases, the outcome of a fight depended on someone else, who cut, thrust or shot their fellow soldier’s opponent. In such a situation, it’s impossible to speak about the superiority of one of the opponents or about the fencing system in general. However, we can speak about the presence or lack of certain means in this or that system, which would somehow let it resist attacks of several enemies or, at least, have minimal chances to do that.

In battle descriptions, one finds episodes that may seem odd. However, these did not surprise English soldiers, nor were they ascribed merely to the ‘exotic’ or ‘savage’ nature of Indian warriors. Thus, we can assume that it was a usual, practical, and easily explained thing. That was formulated in the following way. When approaching the opponent and during the fight, an Indian warrior started to move in an odd way, “dance in Indian manner”, move in circles, dance around, and so on. There are even more detailed descriptions like that: an Indian moved around, first, he attacked from the right, then, like lightning, moved around to the left and attacked from the left side. With no opportunity to see what these “dances in Indian manner” looked like on the battlefield, there’s only one way to imagine that, which is to pay attention to techniques similar to some degree to those in the surviving practices. It’s possible that what is meant here is the style of movements, which is the basic movement skill called “pentra” in the military practices of Rajasthan. It lets warriors move fast, with perfect coordination and random technical actions with the weapon, in a circle, in any direction, without slackening the pace. The ability to move in this way gives not only an advantage over a static opponent, but also lets defend oneself from a sudden attack of a second, third opponent, and some others too. At least it gives some chances for defense; otherwise, the warrior standing in one place is absolutely vulnerable from outside, as his attention is concentrated on his opponent. This opinion is confirmed by the system of military practices of control over space when moving around, which exists in Rajasthan, and also by the tradition of imitating the fight against many opponents, when formal complexes are done. Consequently, we can presume that “Indian dances”, described by English military men, and the technique of movements in this system have a common root at a minimum.