Reasons
- Our understanding of the enemy was inferior.
Grand strategy
- British grand strategy and understanding of the enemy was much superior to ours.
“The British had been planning on how to colonize India as far back as early 1700’s while the Marathas were in their life and death struggle with the Mughals.” “Besides, the British Plan already had the solid backing of a very thorough study of India by now and evaluation of its people. Consider this: Captain James Tod had already surveyed the history and geography of the entire rAjapUta country with every single one of its clan – even though they were politically still independent – and had already produced in the first two decade his celebrated ‘Annals and Antiquities of rAjapUtAnA’, not to mention that the European Indology as a discipline was already flourishing with its second generation with the likes of Colebrooke and Schlegel now in chairs, William Jones dead just a couple of years back. In contrast, we seriously doubt if there was even one Hindu at the time who properly knew the basic history and geography of Britain!” [BE]
Perimeter strategy
- Fed by sea lanes they dominated.
- “The above point leads naturally to the most important issue – by controlling the trade routes by sea the English could develop a perimeter strategy in which they could hem the Hindus on all sides using their control of key coastal centers – Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. Thus, the marATha-s came to be naturally surrounded by the English, who could indefinitely keep themselves supplied by sea, even as they cut off the Hindu communication lines inside the country. They completed the perimeter strategy by the third Anglo-Maratha war and this more or less doomed the first war of independence in 1857."MT11
Leadership
- There was more incentive for the British limited-term appointed leadership to gain glory during their term in office.
- Turns out this is an ancient ancient trick. It was observed in the first punic war, where the annually appointed Roman consuls had great incentive to make bold moves and grab glory before their appointment was up. See YT_P.
Losses
- Maratha losses contrasted with battle hardened British leadership.
- Death of experienced Maratha leaders at Panipat
- marATha sikh relations: only occasional cooperation [SE].
Such men leading their companies as Maj. General Charles Cornwallis, who had resisted George Washington in battles of New York, Princeton, Philadelphia and Virginia, before now coming to India to redeem his repute; Arthur Wellesley, whose war-resume boasted of extremely diverse experience across the continents ranging from the Flanders Wars along side the Austrians against the French, the naval war against Spanish in Philippines, action in Iberian peninsula, and finally the Waterloo campaign that ended the career of Napoleon, besides being a superb politician – he retired as the PM of UK; Thomas Hislop who had seen action on the British side during the American as well as French Revolutionary Wars, had commanded naval operations against Dutch in West Indies, had successfully led the Siege of Gibraltar defeating joint armies of Spaniards and French, now leading British action against the maharaTTA-s; General Gerard Lake, veteran of American, French and Irish wars; General David Ochterlony, an American colonial product born in Boston and veteran of a variety of battles in America and Europe before arriving in India (famous for his harem in dillI of over a dozen women). [BE]
Merceneries
- Betrayal by European officers hired by Marathas into their army. W16
- “The truth is the Indians were not ethnocentric enough, whereas the Europeans were just beginning to evolve a sense of white identity. " … “It needs to be emphasized again that the Hindu shortfall in this regard was not due to the lack of Hindu identity as the leukosphere would like to claim, but simply due to the Hindu failure to properly read the developing identity of the “other” in their payroll.” MT11
Military Administration
- Better revenue collection and army payment system by the British W16.
- Use of reliable Indian merceneries and forces by the British, using their colonial money.
- “Indeed, a key ability of the English was to purchase loyalties for money.”
- Indians had kept up the ancient Indo Eurpean mercenary tradition to the advantage of the enemies.
Maratha disunity and infighting.
Non reasons
- Technological differences were not a major factor, neither was military technique.
Technology
- “The technological difference explanation doesn’t wash as far as land armies go, in fact I would say the gap is greater today than it was back then. Yes navally we were surpassed but on land the Marathas could hold their own.”
As far as the marAThA english conflict R. Cooper’s work still remains useful. I think the marAThA attention to military modernization has been vastly ignored.
e.g. the English sources themselves record indigenous production by mahAdjI shinde of ordnance at Agra. His forces were equipped with these weapons in battle & much latter Duke of Wellington remarks about their successors: “ordnance so good and so well-equipped that it answers for our service” Thus he systematically took up marAThA artillery into English formations.
Moreover, marAThA’s sought foreign experts not to just buy weaponry but to obtain advice on making their own. For example, shinde consulted extensively with Scottish engineer Sangster while establish 1 of the largest arms production centers in the country at Agra. His khArkhAna had 5 divisions producing good quality flintlocks, cannons, balls and gunpowder. When shinde & hoLkar saw that the Brits lighter artillery pieces were making a difference (the older H model was heavy gun – mainly coming from the tradition of counter-fort warfare) they quickly started incorporation of such for example with elevating screws into their own production.
We also see a rush for indigenous sourcing: e.g. the rAjmahal flint mining for flintlocks which in tests proved equal or better than the English counterparts. So that technological element by itself is overplayed in naive presentations of the situation. Finally, it should be noted that the final battles between the marAThA-s and the brits before 1857 CE were lost by the former by a whisker.
However, I do admit that there were factors underlying the technology that were important in the ultimate defeat of the marAThA-s. As I pointed out, how many marAThA-s by themselves were interested in cataloging and classifying the land snails or pseudoscorpions of India. Therein lay the English genius that ultimately brought down the H. - MT
Battles
the battle of Assaye had only 9k Maratha infantry, 500-1k cav vs 10k EIC infantry +2k cav. Of these, 4500 of EIC engaged ~3-4k Marathas, rest marched on to Ajanta.
“Contradicts mainstream accounts” - mainstream based on Wellesley’s imagination? Or the accountant accompanying the Shinde paltans who was an eyewitness to the battle? Since illiteracy is rife obviously the latter’s existence is to be ignored.
- prathamesh Godbole