The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c11.49

c11.49

The cupidity of the foreigners did not constitute the only danger to the State that employed them. The *gardi*, at the worst, cared for his own interest and he was not definitely identified with any power other than his master. But however ill-educated or ill-born the Frenchman or the Englishman might be, he was imbued with a certain amount of patriotism with which the average Indian in those days was unfamiliar. War with the French was a remote possibility but war against the English was a certainty, and the Marathas ought to have been prepared for such a struggle after the treaty of Salbye. But in such a war the Maratha employer could not rely on the services of his English captains. They would not and could not not fight against their countrymen and in such a contingency the military secrets known to these officers were sure to be used against their previous masters. When war broke out in 1802, not only the English but the French officers as well of the Maratha army, took advantage of the Governor General’s offer. They had come to seek fortune and not to lose it. The strong fort of Aligarh was captured with incredible ease, for while the French commander of the garrison was not particularly anxious to defend it, its reduction was rendered easy by the local knowledge of Lieutenant Lucan who led his countrymen to the weakest points.¹ Skinner complains that the ‘conduct of the Europeans in the Mahratta service totally ruined their own character and led to the destruction of their comrades who had remained staunch to their master’s cause’. ² The powerful army organised by Mahadaji and De Boigne, which had served so well against Indian rivals, proved utterly useless at the moment of the greatest need, because its officers would not fight. And the Maratha empire was so easily shattered because its defence had been entrusted to foreign mercenaries.