Its armies drew soldiers from all parts of India. The infantry was not of good quality; but its cavalry was really an enormous force, numbering fully a hundred thousand in all. The horsemen were splendidly audacious in riding for long distances into the heart of a hostile country, without support, striking some terrific blows, and then returning rapidly beyond reach of pursuit. They could truly boast of having watered their horses in every Indian river from the Cauvery to the Indus. If attacked, however, in a competent manner, they would not stand; and afterwards, in conflict with the British, whole masses of them behaved in a dastardly manner. As their ambition grew the chiefs began to organize their troops after the system learnt from the English and French. In this way several Frenchmen—Benoit de Boigne, Perron and others—rose in the Mahratta service to a position dangerous to the British. But the new system was unsuited to the Mahratta genius; it hampered the meteoric movements of the cavalry, which was obliged to manœuvre in combination with the new artillery and the disciplined battalions. Mahratta elders hence uttered predictions of military disaster which were in the end more than fulfilled.
The rapid and amazing success of the Mahratta confederation rendered it the largest Hindu power that ever existed in India. But it lacked the elements of true greatness. It was founded by plundering expeditions, and its subsequent existence was tainted by the baseness of this predatory origin. With the exception of the pēshwas, its chiefs were little more than free-booting warriors, for the most part rude, violent and unlettered. Their custom was to offer their neighbours or victims the alternative of paying chouth, that is, one-fourth of the revenue, or being plundered and ravaged. Thus the Mahratta chouth came to have an ominous significance in Indian history. Desultory efforts were made to establish a civil government, but in the main there was no administration formed on statesmanlike principles. The pēshwas, on the other hand, as Brahmans, were men of the highest education then possible in India. But they were absorbed by the direction of military and political combinations, and by intrigues for the preservation of their own power; and, even allowing for all this, they failed to evince the civil capacity which might have been anticipated. While several displayed commanding abilities, and some possessed many virtues, one alone attempted to conduct an administration in an enlightened manner, and he died prematurely.
There were at the same time powers existing in India to keep the Mahrattas in check, and some parts of India were excepted from their depredations. The English power was rising at Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. The nascent Sikh power prevented Mahratta incursions from being permanently successful in the Punjab. As the Mogul Empire broke up, some separate Mahommedan powers rose upon its ruins. The nizam of the Deccan established himself at Hyderabad, comparatively near the headquarters of the pēshwa. Hyder Ali was proclaimed sultan of Mysore in the south. Ahmed Shah Abdali burst upon India from Afghanistan. The Mahrattas bravely encountered him at Panipat near Delhi in 1761, and were decisively defeated. The defeat, however, did not essentially shake the Mahratta confederation. It was collision with the English that broke that wonderful fabric to pieces.
The first collision with the English occurred in 1775, arising from a disputed succession to the pēshwaship. The English government at Bombay supported one of the claimants, and the affair became critical for the English as well as for the Mahrattas. It was at this conjuncture that Warren Hastings displayed his political genius and rendered signal service to his country, by succouring from Bengal the defeated Bombay army and negotiating a peace (in 1782) that restored the status quo.
The next collision happened in 1803. The pēshwa had fallen into grave difficulties with some of the principal members of the Mahratta confederation. He therefore placed himself under British protection, and this led to the great Mahratta War, in which the Marquis Wellesley displayed those talents for military and political combination which rendered him illustrious. It was during the campaigns which ensued that General Arthur Wellesley defeated Sindhia and the Bhonsla raja at Assaye, and General Lake won the victories of Farrukhabad, Dīg and Laswari over Sindhia and Holkar. The three confederates, Sindhia, Holkar and the Bhonsla, concluded peace with the British government, after making large sacrifices of territory in favour of the victor, and submitting to British control politically. It was during these events that the British won the province of Orissa, the old Hindustan afterwards part of the North-Western Provinces, and a part of the western coast in Gujarat.
The third collision came to pass between 1816 and 1818, through the conduct, not only of the confederates, but also of the pēshwa (Baji Bao) himself. During the previous war the pēshwa had been the protégé and ally of the British; and since the war he had fallen more completely than before under British protection—British political officers and British troops being stationed at his capital. He apparently felt encouraged by circumstances to rebel. Holkar and the Bhonsla committed hostile acts. The predatory Pindaris offered a formidable resistance to the British troops. So the pēshwa ventured to take part in the combination against the British power, which even yet the Mahrattas did not despair of overthrowing. After long-protracted menaces, he attacked the British at Kirkee, but failed utterly, and fled a ruined man. Ultimately he surrendered to Sir John Malcolm, and was sent as a state pensioner to Bithūr, near Cawnpore. The British, however, released the raja of Satara from the captivity in which he had been kept during the pēshwa’s time, and reinstated him on the throne, with a limited territory. Owing to these events the British government became possessed of the Konkan and of the greater part of the Deccan.
It remains to mention briefly the fortunes of each remaining member of the once imperial confederation. The principality of Satara was held to have lapsed in 1848 by the death of the raja without lineal heirs, and was annexed by the British government. The Bhonsla raja of Nagpur died without lineal heirs in 1853, and his territory was likewise annexed. The house of Holkar remained faithful to its engagements with the British government, and its position as a feudatory of the empire was maintained. In Sindhia’s territory, by reason of internal feuds, the British had to undertake measures which were successfully terminated after the battles of Maharajpur and Panniar in 1843. But on the whole the house of Sindhia remained faithful. Sindhia himself was actively loyal during the Mutiny. The gaekwar gradually fell under British control towards the close of the 18th century, and his house never engaged in hostilities with the British government. The ex-pēshwa lived to old age at Bithur, and died in 1857. His adopted son grew up to be the Nana Sahib, of infamous memory, who took a leading part in the Mutiny.
See J. Grant Duff, History of the Mahrattas (3 vols., 1826); T. D. Broughton, Letters written in a Mahratta Camp (1813); M. G. Ranade, Rise of the Maratha Power (Bombay, 1900).
(R. T.; J. S. Co.)
