Q1.
Why do you think such locations were chosen for many of the medieval forts? Discuss pros and cons. (Hint: think of issues of strategy, security, vulnerability, etc.)
Answer
Because height and difficult ground do for a defender what extra soldiers do — and they do it permanently, without pay. Kumbhalgarh (Fig. 2.10) is the chapter's example: built by Rana Kumbha in the 15th century in the Aravalli hills, “surrounded by forests and steep slopes”, with a massive 36-kilometre wall.
| In favour of a hill-and-forest site | Against it |
|---|---|
| You see the enemy first. From a height you can watch an approaching army for a day or more, and send warning to the villages below. | Supply is the weak point. Food, and above all water, must be stored inside or carried up. A siege does not have to breach the wall; it only has to wait. |
| Steep slopes multiply your men. Attackers must climb in single file along narrow paths, so a small garrison can hold a gate that a large army cannot rush. | A long wall needs many men. Thirty-six kilometres of rampart cannot all be manned; a determined enemy probes until he finds the thin stretch. |
| Forests hide and slow. They conceal the defenders' movements and make it very hard to drag siege engines and, later, heavy guns into position. | It is off the main road. The very isolation that protects the fort keeps it away from the trade routes and farmland where revenue is actually collected. |
| Stone and springs on site. Hills provide building material and often water, so the fort can be built where it stands. | Enormous cost. Building and garrisoning such a fort ties up money and men for generations. |
| A refuge of last resort. The ruler, the treasury and the families of the kingdom have somewhere to go when the plains are overrun — which is why Kumbhalgarh “served as a stronghold for the rulers of Mewar”. | If it falls, everything falls with it. Putting the ruler, treasury and families in one place makes a single defeat catastrophic — as at Chittorgarh. |
Why it happens: a medieval kingdom could not defend a border the way a modern state does, with a continuous line of troops. It defended points — and then made the ground between those points expensive to cross. A hill fort turns geography into a permanent part of the army. That is the same reasoning the chapter shows working on a larger scale for Maharana Pratap in the Aravallis and for the Ahoms in the forests and rivers of Assam.
Check it yourself: find your nearest fort on a map — Gwalior, Daulatabad, Golconda, Chittorgarh, Kumbhalgarh, Junagadh, or a local one. Ask two questions: what could its garrison see? and where did its water come from? Those two answers explain most of why it was built where it was.