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The First Anglo-Maratha War Is One of the Most Important Events of the If

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The First Anglo-Maratha War Is One of the Most Important Events of the If CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The first Anglo-Maratha War is one of the most important events of the If^th century from the point of view of history of India in general and of the Marathas in particular. It covers the period of about a decade after the murder of Narayanrao Peshwa in August 1773. The war was precipitated by the political asylum offered by the British to Raghunathrao Peehwa alias Raghoba at Surat and the wanton British attack on the fort of Sashti (Salsette) in December, 177i». These two actions of the British led to a chain of some major battles and minor encounters between the Marathas and the British^which were fought on a very wide area in .lalawa, Gujarat and i^aharashtra (Konkan and Khandesh). These battles and encounters con­ stitute what is known as the first Anglo-Maratha War. The native powers like the Nizam and Haidar All were dragged into the War at a later stage, but the roles they played in it were subsidiary. The main contenders were the Marathas and the British. The V.ar which started in December 177i»,ended with the treaty of Salbai in 17^3. Every war has two main aspects, political tdiplomatic) and military. So far, the political (diplomatic) aspect of the first Anglo-i^aratha Var has been exhaustively studied by two scholars, Dr. Shanti Prasad Varraa and Dr. Shailendra Nath Sen. While the former’ s book entitled Study in Maratha Diplomacy^ analyses mainly the diplomatic aspect of the first Anglo-Maratha ^ar, giving secondary importance to the military aspect, the latter has concentrated only on its political aspect in his book ^Anglo-Maratha Rela­ tions During the Administration of Warren Hastings, 1772- 17^5"^. Consequently, the works of both the scholars are replete >?ith minute details of political events as well as diplomatic moves and countermoves covering a wide area from ivialawa in the North to Karnatak in the r?outh. The present thesis radically differs from the above two works in its approach to the subject under study. It mainly deals with the military aspect of the first Anglo-Maratha War,which is yet to be studied. It attemp&s to give a picture of the War as it was fought on the battle­ fields rather than on political and diplomatic fronts. Therefore, it studies in detail the day-to-day inovements and actions of the Maratha and British armies on different battlefields from the military point of view, taking into consideration the strategy and tactics adopted by che Maratha and British commanders. In other words, it tries to view the first Anglo-Maratha War as an art and of warfare. It refers to the political and diplomatic issues of the War very briefly wherever absolutely neces­ sary. Ihus it may be said that the present work is complementary to the earlier w r k s of Dr. S .P , Varma and Dr. S, N. Sen, In the present work, six battles, five of them fought in the Konkan region of Maharashtra and one that took place in Gujarat have been selected for study. The other military operations during the course of the War tt in M a la w a , Gujrat, Orissa and Karnatak have not been taken into consideration for some specific reasons. Firstly, the present work being confined only to the battles betvreen the .%rathas and the British, the encounters between the latter and Haidar Ali in Karnatak, are beyond its scope. Secondly, most of the encounters between the Marathas and the British in Malawa, Orissa and Gujrat (except the battle of A d a s ) are not major military opera- tions worth independent study. They are supplementary to the major battles in the Konkan region, which were des­ perately fought by the two contestants for controlling Pime (Poona), the capital of the Marathas, Thirdly, whatever information is available regarding these supple­ mentary minor military operations in the historical records, has been sufficiently discussed by Dr, S,P, Varma in his book. It is needless to repeat the same. The present work is divided into following nine chapters. Chapter I discusses critically all the published and unpublished source-material on the first Anglo-Maratha VIar and the ne%< information it has brought to ligh t. Chapter I l lmakes a brief comparison between the m ili­ tary traditions and systems of the Marathas and the ^V»st British prior to the fiaai Anglo-Maratha War, which affected their respective modes of warfare during the l>var. Chapters IIIto VII divide the War into three phases and make a m ilitary study of the battles and sieges given b e lo w : Chapter III - Siege and capture of Sashti (Thane) fort and the battle of Adas (177ii-177?). Chapter IV - First Borghat Expedition and the battle of Talegao (177«-1779). « Chapter V - Siege of Malanggad ( l ? ^ ) . Chapter VI - Siege and capture of Vasai (Bassein) f o r t ( 1 7 ^ ) . Chapter VII - Second Borghat Expedition (17^1).. Chapter VIII - gives a fresh treatment to the Treaty of Salbai. It makes a critical analysis of the important clauses of the treaty from the m ilitary point of view, emphasizing a comparative study of the roles of Nana Phadnis and Mahadaji Shinde in the conclusion of the treaty. Chapter II - makes a comparative study of all the three phases of the Vfar, leading to certain generalisations and observations regarding the War as a whole in the light of universally accepted Principles of War. 5 Sourcgg of Information The present thesis Is mainly based on original un­ published Marathi sourcts which hare not been consulted so far in any of the earlier works on the first Anglo- Maratha War. It has attempted not only to bring new facts to the stirface with the help of these new Marathi sources, but also to treat the entire episode in a new perspective as has been shown in the earlier part of this chapter. The Marathi records are supplemented by various other publtished and unpublished records.^ In consulting all these records, the emphasis has been laid on military rather than political details. Dr. Varma and Dr. Sen, by relying primarily'on English records, have discussed the ¥ar in their works from the British point of view. The present work, however, by emphasizing the ^'arathi records, has tried to explain the course of the War from the native (Maratha) point of view without in any way neglecting the British view point or minimising the importance of English records. The purpose behind this is to give a comprehensive and more balanced picture of the War under study. The unpublished Marathi sources brought to light for the first time in this thesis are as follows: ^ A list of these records is given in the Bibliography at the end of the present thesis. (A) Unpublished Marathi records in the Daccan r.ollege Archives. Pune The Archives of the Deccan College, Pune, was formerly a private collection of the late Mr. D.B, Parasnls, a well- known collector of historical material and a historian of the Marathas. The main bulk of the Parasnis Collection, comprising nearly 25,000 loose Marathi papers, and docu­ ments in /lodi script, arranged in 101 K\mals, was the official record of Nana Phadnis, known as the Menavali Collection, This Collection contains thousands of news­ letters sent by Nana*s agents-cum-spies from various quar­ ters in India as well as the correspondence of Nana Phadnis himself, the Shindes, the Holkars, the Bhonsales of Nagpur, the Nizam, Haidar Ali, Tipu, the Peshwas, the Chhatrapatis and so on, covering the period 1772-1^0. Therefore, it is very useful for the study of political, social and military history of the Marathas during the latter half of the l^th century. In the present work, more than a thousand Marathi papers from Rumal Nos. 1*9, 52, 53, ^9, 90 and 100 in the Menavali Collection have been consulted. Out of these Rumals, Rumal No. 80 is specially related to the first Anglo-Marathi War and is very important. The papers from all the above mentioned Humals are in the nature of day-to-day reports of what happened on different battle-fields and in various military quarters. They may be classified as: (1) Newsletters sent by Nana*s commanders like Haripant Phadke, Parashurambhau Patwardhan, Balaji Vishwanath Phatak, Bajipant Anntt Joshi and many others to Nana, (2) Newsletters by Nana’ s civil officers like Oangadhar Ram Karlekar, Govind Ham Karlekar, etc. to Nana, (3) Spy-reports sent to Nana, Haripant Phadke and Parashu­ rambhau Patwardhan by their agents-cura-spies, (k) M u tu a l correspondence between Nana’s commanders and officers, (5) Jabanis i.e. statements or confessions made by the prisoners of war. As all these newsletters were sent by persons who were either direct participants iri or indirectly associated with different military operations of the first Anglo-%ratha War, they can be treated as most authentic. Most of these letters are original and prooerly dated. il This enhances their autheneity and value. A special feature of these newsletters is that their writers seldom exaggerate. They describe events and situations as they are. They very often express their introspective tendencies by boldly admitting their weaknesses as well as mistakes. The above news-letters pertain to the period from 1 7 7 9 to 17^2, 4s they throw new light on the third or last phase of the first Anglo-Maratha Vvar, they are extremely valuable in studying the military activities of the Marathas during that phase. They furnish rich informa­ tion regarding routes of march, tactics, strategy, manoeuvres, deployment of forces, mode of warfare, logistics.
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