The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c4.7

c4.7

Nor was their fall due to their policy of aggression. An imperial power in a country like India must be aggressive, until its supremacy is fairly established over the whole country. In pursuance of such a policy they had often recourse to diplomacy of a kind condemned by their critics. Whatever may happen in future, in the past abstract principles of morality played little or no part in diplomacy oriental or occidental. Neither Clive nor Cavour, nor Bismarck, nor Napoleon III would hesitate to hoodwink a rival or dupe an enemy. In the eighteenth century the standard of diplomatic morality in Europe was certainly not very high, as Albert Sorrel tells us. In India things were no better and no worse. If the Marathas coveted the lands of their neighbours, their neighbours on their part were not free from land hunger. Every envoy that the Bombay Government sent to Poona was instructed to take advantage of the disunion and dissension that existed among the Marathas. Vansitart seriously contemplated a general invasion of the Maratha empire from all sides when he learnt of the disaster of Panipat, although there was peace between the two powers at the time. It is true that had the issue of that battle been different, Vansitart’s protege at Murshidabad would almost immediately have felt the weight of the Maratha military power.