Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:18:04.245Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Resources and Techniques the Second Maratha War*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

John Pemble
Affiliation:
University of Leicester

Extract

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Marathas and the British confronted each other in India like two finalists after a series of elimination bouts. The East India Company had reduced the native princesBengal and the Carnatic to ciphers, crushed Mysore and emasculated Oudh and Hyberabad. The Marathas, under the leadership of the Sindia dynasty, of Ujjain, had extinguished the last pretensions of the Mughal emperor and reduced the Rajput states to surly submission. The defeat of Sindia and the confederated Maratha princes of Nagpur and Indore in the Anglo-Maratha war of 1803–5 was therefore historic. It confirmed the British as inheritors of the old Mughal supremacy and extinguished all hopes of a native hegemony in the subcontinent for 140 years. This defeat has hitherto been attributed to strategic error. The Marathas should, it has been argued, have adhered to their ancestral cavalry warfare and spread fire and devastation in the traditional Asiatic manner, instead of trying to beat the Europeans at their own game, with infantry and guns. Re-examination of the evidence leads to the conclusion that this argument is unsound. It underestimates the competence of the Marathas in their new style of combat and misplaces the blame for their failure. Traditional methods had paid off in the past; but things had changed by 1803, and had those methods been used in the second Maratha war the margin of defeat would probably have been much wider. As it was, the British victory must be described as hard won.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Duff, James Grant, History of the Mahrattas (London, 1826), III, 92.Google Scholar

2 Sen, S., The Military System of the Marathas (Calcutta, 1928), p. 145.Google Scholar

3 Sen, S. P., The French in India (Calcutta, 1958), p. 547.Google Scholar

4 E.g. An Advanced History of India, by Majumdar, Raychaudhuri and Datta; The Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India, by Thomson and Garrett.

5 Cited, by Compton, Herbert, A Particular Account of the European Military Adventurers of Hindustan (London, 1892), p. 89.Google Scholar

6 SirSarker, Jadunath (ed.), English Records of Maratha History: The Poona Residency Correspondence (Bombay, 19361951), 1, 254. This series is hereafter referred to as PRC.Google Scholar

7 ‘Memorandum Relating to the Maratha Army’: India Office Records, Home Miscellaneous, vol. 242, f. 50.

8 Tone, W. H., Some Particular Institutions of the Maratha People (Bombay, 1795), p. 34.Google Scholar

9 Gleig, G. R., The Life of Sir Thomas Munro (London, 1830), III, 193, 199.Google Scholar

10 Gurwood, (ed.), Despatches of Wellington (London, 1837), 1, 507–8.Google Scholar

11 Duff, Grant, op. cit. III, 246.Google Scholar

12 Martineau, Alfred, Le Général Perron (Paris, 1931), p. 147Google Scholar; Fraser, J. B., Military Memoir of Lieutenant-Colonel James Skinner (London, 1850), 1, 247Google Scholar; Malcolm, J., Mernoir of Central India (London, 1824), 1, 233Google Scholar; Duff, Grant, op. cit., III, 270.Google Scholar

13 Sen, S.. op. cit. p. 145.Google Scholar

14 Twining, Thomas, Travels in India a Hundred Years Ago (London, 1893), p. 281.Google Scholar

15 Martin, R. M. (ed.), The Despatches of the Marquess Wellesley (London, 1836), v, 283–5.Google Scholar

16 Malcolm, , op. cit. 1, 255.Google Scholar

17 Gurwood, , op. cit. 11, 392–3.Google Scholar

18 Ibid. 1, 415.

19 Thorn, William, Memoir of the War in India (London, 1818), p. 278Google Scholar; Duke, of Wellington, (ed.), Supplementary Despatches of the Duke of Wellington (London, 1858), iv, 187.Google Scholar

20 Martin, , op. cit. III, 445–6.Google Scholar

21 Ibid. iv, 251; Thorn, , op. cit. pp. 394–9Google Scholar; Pearse, H. W., Memoir of the Life and Services of Viscount Lake (London, 1908), pp. 338–42.Google Scholar

22 Thorn, , op. cit. p. ix,Google Scholar

23 Sen, S., op. cit. p. 111.Google Scholar

24 Moor, Edward, A Narrative of the Operations of Captain Little's Detachment (London, 1794), pp. 28, 78–9Google Scholar; Tone, , op. cit. p. 35.Google Scholar

25 Smith, Lewis Ferdinand, Sketch of the … Regular Corps Formed by Europeans in the Service of the Native Princes (Calcutta, 1805), p. 62Google Scholar. Smith says that Perron raised a fifth brigade, but it appears obvious from other sources that this brigade was not under his authority but commanded independently by Brownrigg – see Perron's own account in Martineau, , op. cit. pp. 165–6Google Scholar, and Skinner's in Fraser, , op. cit. 1, 188–90Google Scholar. The number of these supplementary brigades has been variously estimated. In 1802 Col. Collins reported that there were two, commanded by Filoze and Hessing, though which of the three Filozes and which of the two Hessings he did not specify – see House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1803/4, xii, 17. Collins later reported that Perron had taken over four each of Filoze's and Hessing–s battalions – ibid. p. 22. Hessing's brigade subsequently disappeared as a result, it seems, of re-organization, and Hessing was appointed to the command of one of the brigades under Perron.

26 Smith, , op. cit. p. 77Google Scholar; Thorn, , op. cit. p. 78Google Scholar; Compton, , op. cit. pp. 87, 388.Google Scholar

27 These figures, save for the artillery and brigade cavalry, are Perron's own – see Martineau, , op. cit. p. 165Google Scholar. The artillery and cavalry figures are from an earlier return of De Boigne's brigades, PRC, 1, 392–4, and Smith, , op. cit. pp. 62–3. Col. Collins reported in April and May 1802 that Perron was striving to increase each brigade to ten battalions of 716 firelocks, but that the battalions were ‘very incomplete’ at that time – Sessional Papers, 1803/4, xii, 17–22.Google Scholar

28 Stuart, a deserter from Sindia's service, gave the number as four or five battalions from Brownrigg's and four for Filoze's. He reckoned the guns at three per battalion – see Selections from the Nagpur Residency Records (Nagpur, 1950), 1, 374. This series is hereafter referred to as SNRR.Google Scholar

29 Stuart's information: loc. cit. 374; Collins's information: Gurwood, , op. cit. 1, 253.Google Scholar

30 Martineau, , op. cit. pp. 165–6.Google Scholar

31 PRC, v, 34; Tone, , op. cit. p. 30.Google Scholar

32 Gurwood, , op. cit. 1, 253.Google Scholar

33 Fraser, , op. cit. 1, 198–9Google Scholar; Smith, , op. cit. p. 77Google Scholar; Compton, , op. cit. pp. 87, 337–419. Harding was killed at Poona and replaced by Dodd.Google Scholar

34 See Smith, , op. cit. p. 77Google Scholar. It appears from the memoirs of Amir Khan that Afghan horse were attached to Dudrenec's original brigade – Baswan Lal (trans. Prinsep), Memoirs of the Patkan Soldier of Fortune (Calcutta, 1832), p. 109.Google Scholar

35 Malcolm, , op. cit. 1, 238Google Scholar; Martin, , op. cit. v, 293.Google Scholar

36 Smith, , op. cit. pp. 62Google Scholar, 86; Tone, , op. cit. p. 28Google Scholar; Col. Murray, to Dundas, H., 15 May 1794: Home Miscellaneous Records, vol. 388, ff. 75–83.Google Scholar

37 Moor, , op. cit. p. 83Google Scholar; Tone, , op. cit. p. 33. The Company later reduced this supply by adopting the policy of returning unserviceable arms to Europe.Google Scholar

38 Gurwood, , op. cit. 1, 553Google Scholar; Thorn, , op. cit. p. 307.Google Scholar

39 Martin, , op. cit. III, 313.Google Scholar

40 Ibid. pp. 443, 445.

41 Gurwood, , op. cit. 1, 390.Google Scholar

42 de Saint-Genis, Victor, Le Général Comte De Boigne (Poitiers, 1873), pp. 203–4.Google Scholar

43 Calcutta Chronicle, 29 July 1790: cited in Compton, , op. cit. p. 53.Google Scholar

44 Gurwood, , op. cit. 1, 419Google Scholar; Thorn, , op. cit. pp. 116–18, 190, 232–3, 398–9.Google Scholar

45 SNRR, 1, 37.

46 Martin, , op. cit. III, 445Google Scholar; Stubbs, F. W., History of the Bengal Artillery (London, 1877), III, 535.Google Scholar

47 Blakiston, J., Twelve Years' Military Adventure London1819Google Scholar

48 Thorn, , op. cit. p. 410Google Scholar; Stubbs, op. cit. 1, 262.Google Scholar

49 Fraser, , op. cit. 1, 132–5, 172–3, 230.Google Scholar

50 Thorn, , op. cit. pp. 377–9Google Scholar; Pearse, , op. cit. pp. 3048.Google Scholar

51 Martin, , op. cit. III, 445.Google Scholar

52 Ibid. 11, 42, 6223; Stubbs, , op. cit. III, 5324. The number of officers actually available for service in Bengal was only 33 out of 126.Google Scholar

53 See Stubbs, , op. cit. III, 50110. The Maratha artillerists enlisted by Lake in 1804 ordered to be disbanded by the Court of Directors first in 1814 and again in 1817 – Military Letter to Bengal, 7 Jan. 1817, paras. 50–1: India Office Records.Google Scholar

54 Carey, W. H.. The Good Old Days of Honorable John Company (Simla, 1887)Google Scholar, Stark, H. A., Hostages to India (Calcutta, 1936), pp. 57–8.Google Scholar

55 Information of Stuart: SNRR 1, 376.

56 Longford, Elizabeth, Wellington: The Years of the Sword (London, 1971), p. 333.Google Scholar

57 Lake, Edward, The Sieges of the Madras Army (London, 1828), p. 210.Google Scholar

58 Martin, , op. cit. iv, 242.Google Scholar

59 They were at a distance of 700 yards. E. Lake reckoned that no breaching battery should be more than 150 yards from its target – op. cit. p. 231.

60 The best account of the siege of Bharatpur is in Stubbs, , op. cit. 1, 265–88.Google Scholar

61 The sieges of Seringapatam, in 1792 and 1799, demonstrate this. For details see Vibart, H. M., The History of the Madras Engineers and Pioneers (London, 1881), 1, passim.Google Scholar

62 Gurwood, , op. cit. 1, 305.Google Scholar

63 Ibid. 1, 550–4.

64 Gleig, , op. cit. III, 199.Google Scholar

65 Sen, S., op. cit. p. 125.Google Scholar

66 Martin, , op. cit. v, 293. See also iv, 199–202.Google Scholar

67 Ibid. 1, 137–42, 202.

68 Gurwood, , op. cit. 11, 361.Google Scholar

69 Wellington, , op. cit. iv, 216.Google Scholar

70 Bengal Military Consultations, 16 April 1811, nos. 36, 37: India Office Records. Commissariats on the same pattern were established in Bombay and Madras in 1810.

71 Horsford, ‘Memoirs on Artillery’ (MS/15): Royal Artillery Institution, Woolwich. Wellesley's complaints fully substantiate this picture. See Wellington, , op. cit. 1, 433Google Scholar; iv, 214–17. The proportion of drivers with the Mysore bullocks was one to three-ibid, iv, 217.

72 PRC, 1, 392–3; Smith, , op. cit. p. 63.Google Scholar

73 Martin, , op. cit. II, 445–6Google Scholar. Wellesley used 22 bullocks per gun and tumbril – Gurwood, , op. cit. ii, 75 fn.Google Scholar

74 PRC, v, 37.

75 Tone, , op. cit. p. 38.Google Scholar

76 Sen, S., op. cit. pp. 75, 172.Google Scholar

77 Duff, Grant, op. cit. 11, 239Google Scholar; Sen, S., op. cit. pp. 78–9.Google Scholar

78 PRC, v, 33–7; Thorn, , op. cit. p. 306.Google Scholar

79 Sessional Papers, 1803/4, xii 532.

80 See especially Martin, , op. cit. III, 216, 221.Google Scholar

81 Personal Records, vol. 6, ff. 95–8.

82 The Personal Records list, which was compiled some time after 1811, contains 79 names, of which 60 are shown as belonging to commissioned officers. To these can be added Lt. Lucan, who came over to the British and was killed during Monson's retreat; nine officers from those mentioned by Wellesley as fighting against the British at Assaye (Wellington, , op. cit. iv, 190)Google Scholar; eight of the officers on the earlier pension list given by Smith, (op. cit. p. 61)Google Scholar; the three officers executed by Holkar in 1804 and four officers serving Sindia not mentioned elsewhere (gleaned from Compton, op. cit., Appendix); Perron himself; and the four officers who surrendered with Bourquin at Delhi (ibid. p. 314). This total of 91 commissioned officers must include almost all those with the Marathas on the eve of the war. Even at full strength Perron's four brigades would have contained no more than 104 officers, and we know from Perron's own account that the officer quota was incomplete (Martineau, , op. cit. p. 166). The other brigades had a much smaller officer component. An idea of the depleted state of the commissioned ranks in Sindia's brigades is given by Stuart, who stated that there were, including himself, only fifteen (out of a possible twenty-six) officers with the first brigade. He recollected ten in the fourth and only four in Brownrigg's brigade – SNRR, 1, 374–7.Google Scholar

83 Perron confirms that ‘the greater part of the majors, captains and lieutenants were English or the natural sons of Englishmen by native women’ – Martineau, , op. cit., p. 166Google Scholar. In his unofficial correspondence the governor-general acknowledged that most of Sindia's officers were British, and that they were ‘much more favourable to the British than the French interests': Ingram, E. (ed.), Two Views of British India (Bath, 1970), p. 28.Google Scholar

84 Wellington, , op. cit. iv, 130.Google Scholar

85 Sessional Papers, 1803/4, XII, 213, 216, 532–4.

88 Smith, , op. cit. p. 60.Google Scholar

87 Fraser, , op. cit. pp. 129–30, 171, 302–3.Google Scholar

88 Martin, , op. cit. III, 401–3. Dudrenec was reviled as a renegade throughout northern India. He had already deserted both Kasi Rao Holkar and Jaswant Rao Holkar-Martineau, op. cit. p. 78 and fn.Google Scholar

89 Smith, , op. cit. pp. 58–9Google Scholar; Fraser, , op. cit. 1, 190.Google Scholar

90 Martineau, , op. cit. pp. 166–7; information of Stuart: SNRR, 1, 337.Google Scholar

91 Fraser, , op. cit. 1, 250–4Google Scholar; Martin, , op. cit. III, 285.Google Scholar

92 Information of Stuart: SNNR, 1, 375–6. Stuart heard that Pohlman was not present at the battle of Assaye and that the brigade was commanded by his deputy, Major Dorson, who was killed. This information is suspect, since Dorson was not killed. His name appears in the Personal Records list.

93 Compton, , op. cit. p. 379.Google Scholar

94 Martineau, , op. cit. p. 174.Google Scholar

95 Martin, , op. cit. III, 291, 293.Google Scholar

96 Ibid, III, 393–6, 400.

97 Ibid, III, 446.

98 Compton, , op. cit. p. 318.Google Scholar m Sessional Papers, 1803/4, XII, 17, 534; Tone, , op. cit. p. 33.Google Scholar

100 Cadell, patrick, History of the Bombay Army (London, 1938), p. 14.Google Scholar

101 Barat, Amiya, The Bengal Native Infantry (Calcutta, 1962), pp. 35–8.Google Scholar

102 Cardew, F. G., A Sketch of the Services of the Bengal Native Army (Calcutta, 1903), p. 56Google Scholar. The injunction, of course, remained a dead letter. The trouble seems to have been caused by the high cost of grain in the Carnatic, which was rice country. The Bengal troops were grain-eaters, and consequently found their pay inadequate for subsistence in Madras. See Dodwell, H., Sepoy Recruitment in the Old Madras Army (Calcutta, 1922), pp. 36–7.Google Scholar

103 Martin, , op. cit. v, 291.Google Scholar

104 Ibid. iii, 312.

105 Ibid. iii, 396.

106 Gurwood, , op. cit. 1, 533.Google Scholar

107 Martin, , op. cit. v. 181.Google Scholar

108 Pearse, , op. cit. p. 385.Google Scholar

109 Cunningham, J., History of the Sikhs (reprint, Delhi, 1955), p. 155.Google Scholar

110 Gleig, , op. cit. III, 199.Google Scholar

111 Sen, S., op. cit. p. 125.Google Scholar

112 Smith, , op. cit. p. 177Google Scholar; information of Collins: Gurwood, , op. cit. 1, 253. Lake estimated Holkar's horse in 1804 at 10,000; but this tallies with no other estimate. Malcolm's figure of 66,000 (op. cit. 1, 238) would include Pindaris and the cavalry reckoned to have come over from Sindia. The latter amounted to 15,000 men according to information obtained by Malcolm shortly after the war – see PRC, x, 214. All these estimates exclude the cavalry attached to the regular brigades, with which this part of the discussion is not concerned.Google Scholar

113 Duff, Grant, op. cit. III, 235.Google Scholar

114 PRC, x, 214–5.

115 Tone, , op. cit. p. 23.Google Scholar

116 Ibid. p. 24; Moor, , op. cit. p. 95.Google Scholar

117 George Watt, A Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, iv, s.v. ‘Horses’; Broughton, T. D., Letters from a Maratha Camp (London, 1813), pp. 45–6.Google Scholar

118 Gleig, , op. cit. III, 57.Google Scholar

119 Addington, R. A., ‘Notes on the Remounting of the Madras Cavalry in the Days of the Company Bahadur’ & ‘Remounting of the Madras Cavalry’: Cavalry Journal, xvii (1927), 80–6; xix (1929), 580–8. A study of the history of horse breeding and trading in India is badly needed.Google Scholar

120 Moor, , op. cit. p. 224Google Scholar; Blacker, E. V., Memoir of the Operations … in the Maratha War of 1817, 1818 and 1819 (London, 1821), p. 21.Google Scholar

121 Tone, , op. cit. pp. 22–3; Memorandum by Malet: Home Miscellaneous Records, vol. 242, ff. 30–1. The state cavalry also contained bargirs, since officers would mount followers of their own and contract with the government for the services of a troop. This practice prevailed in the silahdar regiments raised by the Company, until abolished in 1840.Google Scholar

122 Figures from the official returns, printed in Thorn, op. cit.

123 SirFortescue, John, A History of the British Army (London, 1921), v, 67.Google Scholar

124 Gurwood, , op. cit. 1, 391.Google Scholar

125 Gleig, , op. cit. 1, 120.Google Scholar

126 Home Miscellaneous Records, vol. 242, f. 43.

127 Nolan, L. E., Cavalry: Its History and Tactics (London, 1853), P. 61.Google Scholar

128 Fullarton, William, A View of the English Interests in India (London, 1787), pp. 55, 223–4.Google Scholar

129 ‘Memorandum Relating to the Sources Whence Horses Were Formery Procured for this Establishment’: Nugent MSS, Library of the Royal United Services Institution, London.

130 Fraser, , op. cit. 11, 45.Google Scholar

131 Wellington, , op. cit. III, 432.Google Scholar

132 Minute of Evidence taken before the Select Committee of the House of Commons (printed by order of the Court of Directors, London, 1833), v, 161Google Scholar, 172; Stubbs, , op. cit. 1, 251.Google Scholar

133 Home Miscellaneous Records, vol. 242, f. 35.

134 Report of Sir George Nugent: Bengal Secret Consultations, 6 August 1813.no. 4, para. 43: India Office Records. See also Minutes of Evidence, v, 80Google Scholar; Thorn, , op. cit. pp. 84–5.Google Scholar

135 Gurwood, , op. cit. 1, 6773Google Scholar; Wellington, , op. cit. 1, 290 ff.Google Scholar

136 Gleig, , op. cit. III, 192.Google Scholar

137 Gurwood, , op. cit. 1, 528–31.Google Scholar

138 Stubbs, , op. cit. 1, 251Google Scholar. For Lake's account see Martin, , op. cit. v, 296–9.Google Scholar

139 Thorn, , op. cit. p. 447.Google Scholar

140 Details in Stubbs, , op. cit. IIIGoogle Scholar, 550ff.; Hughes, B. P., The Bengal Horse Artillery (London, 1971), passim.Google Scholar

141 Gurwood, , op. cit. 11, 364. The Marathas had no horse artillery, save a few gallopers with Perron's brigade of regular cavalry – Sessional Papers, 1803/4, xii, 22.Google Scholar