The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c18.21

c18.21

The employment of European officers involved a serious change in the Maratha army. Their method of fighting was fundamentally opposed to the Maratha military traditions. Whether those two opposite methods could be profitably combined remains a doubtful question, but it is unanimously agreed that the Maratha military leaders never made a serious effort to find a satisfactory solution, and both at Panipat and at Assaye their discomfiture was largely due to their attempts to reconcile their old tactics with those they had recently introduced in their army but had not assimilated. In the meantime their reliance on trained infantry had led them to neglect their cavalry, and two competent military critics like Sir Thomas Munro and Sir John Fortescue agree that the defeat of Assaye was due to the degeneration of Maratha cavalry. Sir Thomas Munro wrote to his brother¹ on 12 February 1804: ‘I calculated, at the opening of the campaign, two years for the complete conquest of all the possessions of Scindia and the Berarman. I thought their cavalry would have shown a little more enterprise; but they ruined it and destroyed its spirit, by teaching the troopers that they did not depend upon cavalry, but upon infantry. By coming forward with regular infantry, they gave us every advantage we could desire. They opposed to us men that never could be made so good as our own, from the want of a national spirit among the officers, and of the support of European battalions; and they trusted the success of the war to the event of close engagements. More credit has been given to the firmness of their infantry than it deserved. They seem to have made but little opposition, except during the short time our army was forming, and to have relied more upon their artillery than their musketry, as is fully proved by our horse having suffered little loss, unless by round and grape-shot’. Sir John Fortescue’s criticism is not so detailed, but he is equally positive about the mistakes made by the Marathas. ‘Had Pohlman done his duty,' he remarks, 'he might at least have embarrassed Wellesley greatly; and if the Mahratta cavalry had behaved with even a show of spirit, the issue would have been certainly doubtful, and most probably disastrous to the British arms.'¹