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| First Anglo-Maratha War | |||||||
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| Part of theAnglo-Maratha Wars | |||||||
 A mural depicting a British officer surrendering to Mahadaji Scindia following the Maratha victory at the Battle of Wadagaon | |||||||
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| 93,000 troops total[5][1] 23 ships[1] | Around 146,000 troops total[5][1] 14 ships[1] | ||||||
Part ofa series on the |
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| Wars of Great Britain |
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TheFirst Anglo-Maratha War (1775–1782) was the first conflict fought between theBritish East India Company andMaratha Empire in India. The war, fought in betweenSurat andPoona, began with the 1775Treaty of Surat after the East India Company agreed to support the recently-deposedRaghunathrao's claim aspeshwa of the Maratha Empire. Several years of intermittent and largely inconclusive campaigning followed, in which the East India Company failed to decisively defeat the highly mobile Marathas. The war ended in 1782 following theTreaty of Salbai.[1] As per the treaty, both sides returned each other's captured territory, and the British withdrew their support for Raghunathrao. The British and Marathas would not fight against each other again until theSecond Anglo-Maratha War 20 years later.
After the death ofMadhavrao Peshwa in 1772, his brotherNarayanrao becamepeshwa (prime minister) of the Maratha Empire. Narayanrao's palace guards murdered him in August 1773, and his uncleRaghunathrao (Raghoba) became the Peshwa. However, Narayanrao's wife,Gangabai, gave birth to a posthumous son, who was the legal heir to the throne. The newborn infant was named'Sawai' Madhavrao (Sawai means "One and a Quarter"). Twelve Maratha chiefs, known as the Baarbhai[6] and led byNana Phadnavis, directed an effort to install the infant as the new Peshwa and to rule in his name asregents.
Raghunathrao, unwilling to give up his position of power, sought help from theBritish atBombay and signed theTreaty of Surat on 6 March 1775. According to the treaty, Raghunathrao ceded the territories ofSalsette andBassein (Vasai) to the British, along with part of the revenues fromSurat andBharuch districts. In return, the British promised to provide Raghunathrao with 2,500 soldiers.
At the same time, the Marathas tried to form a military alliance with the French. Two Frenchmen, Saint-Lubin and M. Montigny acted as intermediaries between France and the Poona Regency. Although the alliance proposals went nowhere, British suspicions of a global anti-British front increased in the midst of the concurrentAmerican War of Independence.[7]
TheBritish Calcutta Council condemned the Treaty of Surat, sending Colonel Upton toPune to annul it and make a new treaty with the regency. TheTreaty of Purandhar (1 March 1776) annulled that of Surat, Raghunathrao was pensioned and his cause abandoned, but the revenues of Salsette and Bharuch districts were retained by the British. The Bombay government rejected this new treaty and gave refuge to Raghunathrao. In 1777, Nana Phadnavis violated his treaty with the Calcutta Council by granting the French a port on the West coast. The British retaliated by sending a force towards Pune.
British troops under the command of Colonel Keating, leftSurat on 15 March 1775, for Pune. But they were checked by Haripant Phadke at Adas and were totally defeated on 18 May 1775.[8] Casualties for Keating's force, accompanied byRaghunathrao, included 96 killed. The Marathas casualties in the Battle of Adas (Gujarat) included 150 killed.[3]: 53–56
Warren Hastings estimated that direct actions against Pune would be detrimental. Therefore, theSupreme Council of Bengal condemned theTreaty of Surat, sending Colonel Upton toPune to annul it and make a new treaty with the regency. An agreement between Upton and the ministers of Pune calledTreaty of Purandar was signed on 1 March 1776.
TheTreaty of Purandar (orTreaty of Purandhar) was a doctrine signed on 1 March 1776 by thepeshwa of theMaratha Empire and theBritish East India Company'sSupreme Council of Bengal inCalcutta.[9] Based on the terms of the accord, the British were able to secureSalsette.[10]Treaty was signed between the then Governor General Warren Hasting who sent Colonel Upton and Nana Fadnavis of Peshwa in which British accepted Sawai Madhav Rao as a new Peshwa and Maratha accepted not to recognise existence of French in India.
The Treaty of Purandhar (1 March 1776) annulled that of Surat, Raghunath Rao was pensioned and his cause abandoned, but the revenues of Salsette and Broach districts were retained by the British.
Following a treaty between France and thePoona Government in 1776, theBombay Government decided to invade and reinstate Raghoba. They sent a force under Col. Egerton reachedKhopoli and made its way through theWestern Ghats atBhor Ghat and onwards toward Karla, which was reached on 4 January 1779 while under Maratha attacks. Finally the British were forced to retreat back to Wadgaon, but were soon surrounded. The British surrendered[11] and were forced to sign theTreaty of Wadgaon on 16 January 1779, a victory for the Marathas.[3]: 56–58
Reinforcements from northern India, commanded by Colonel (later General) Thomas Wyndham Goddard, arrived too late to save the Bombay force. The BritishGovernor-General inBengal,Warren Hastings, rejected the treaty on the grounds that the Bombay officials had no legal power to sign it, and ordered Goddard to secure British interests in the area.
Goddard with 6,000 troops stormedBhadra Fort and capturedAhmedabad on 15 February 1779. There was a garrison of 6,000 Arab and Sindhi infantry and 2,000 horses. Losses in the fight totalled 108, including two British.[12][13][14] Goddard also capturedBassein on 11 December 1780. AnotherBengal detachment led by Captain Popham and assisted by the Rana of Gohad, capturedGwalior on 4 August 1780, before Mahadji Scindia could make preparations. Skirmishes took place between Mahadji Scindia and General Goddard in Gujarat, but indecisively. Hastings sent yet another force to harassMahadji Shinde, commanded by Major Camac.[a]
After capturingBassein, Goddard marched towardsPune. But he was routed in the Battle of Bhor Ghat in April 1781 by Parshurambha,Haripant Phadke andTukoji Holkar.[1][4]
In central India,Mahadji stationed himself at Malwa to challenge Camac. Initially,Mahadji had an upper hand and British forces under Camac, being harassed and reduced, had to retreat to Hadur.[8]: 20
In February 1781, the British beat Shinde to the town of Sipri,[13] but every move they made after that was shadowed by his much larger army, and their supplies were cut off, until they made a desperate night raid in late March, capturing not only supplies, but even guns andelephants.[15] Thereafter, the military threat from Shinde's forces to the British was much reduced.
The contest was equally balanced now. Where Mahadji scored a significant victory over Camac atSironj,[3]: 62 the British avenged the loss through theBattle of Durdah[16] on 24 March 1781.
Colonel Murre arrived with fresh forces in April 1781 to assist Popham and Camac. After his defeat at Sipri,Mahadji Shinde - eager to broker an alliance with the British and avoid further conflict - proposed a new treaty, in spite of objections from within his camp.[17]
The war ended on 17 May 1782 with the signing of theTreaty of Salbai between Warren Hastings and Mahadji Shinde, and was later ratified by Hastings in June 1782, and by Nana Phadnavis in February 1783.
In exchange for the Maratha Empire recognising Raghunathrao's cession ofSalsette andBassein Fort to the East India Company, the British withdrew their support for him and recognised Madhavrao II as Peshwa of the Maratha Empire. The British also recognised Maratha claims west of the Jumna River, and agreed to return the territories it occupied over the course of the war. However, in return, the Marathas agreed to return the territories it had captured from the British, while also recognising British suzereinty over theNawab of Arcot. The Marathas also promised to continue upholding the prior trading privileges enjoyed by the British, whilst agreeing not to support any European power. This was at a time when the British were keen to prevent France - already providing support to Mysore - from gaining further influence in the region during the ongoingAnglo-French War.
The treaty ended the First Anglo-Maratha War, restored the status quo, and established a relative peace between the two parties for 20 years until the outbreak of theSecond Anglo-Maratha War.[3]: 63
The war ultimately highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the largely European style of warfare used by the East India Company, and theganimi kava style of warfare used by the Marathas. Despite being on the offensive throughout the war, the British lacked mobile cavalry capable of pursuing the highly mobile Maratha armies. Conversely, although the Maratha armies consistently harried the British while avoidingpitched battles, these alone were not enough to achieve a decisive victory. The Marathas' extensive use of scorched earth tactics against the British also exacted a considerable toll on the local population.
Nevertheless, in the immediate term, the Marathas had successfully frustrated British machinations in western India by thwarting the restoration of Raghunathrao in exchange for minor territorial concessions, while compelling the British to recognise its own claims west of the Jumna River.
However, the most significant consequence of the First Anglo-Maratha War was the resulting isolation of theKingdom of Mysore, which itself was fighting the East India Company in theSecond Anglo-Mysore War; with the war against the Marathas concluded, the East India Company was able to concentrate its efforts against the kingdom. Although the 1784Treaty of Mangalore between the British and Mysore similarly held Company ambitions at bay and forced it to remain neutral in theMaratha–Mysore war, Mysore would be soundly defeated by an Anglo-Maratha alliance 8 years later in theThird Anglo-Mysore War.
By the time of theSecond Anglo-Maratha War, the defeat of Mysore, the consolidation of its own strength, and the increasing division within the Maratha Empire, placed the East India Company in a much stronger position than it enjoyed in the 1770s.[17]
The 2013 Hollywood film titledThe Lovers is based on the backdrop of this war.[18]
This period also coincided with the First Anglo-Maratha War, which was settled only in 1782 with a Maratha victory over the British and their local allies.
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