Was the conquest of India comically easy? We can perhaps contest that premise using the very words of the men who led said conquest. Let’s focus specifically on the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803 – 1805) as it featured several spectacular and decisive clashes between the Marathas and the East India Company which often ended in the favor of the latter. Were these victories cakewalks? Arthur Wellesley, who led the British triumph at Assaye (1803), said of the battle: “The battle was the most severe that, I believe, ever was fought in India.” Examining the casualties of the battle supports Wellesley’s assertion – 4500 of Wellesley’s troops undertook the assault on the Maratha positions and a full third (approximately 1500 troops) were either killed or wounded during the course of the battle. The brutality of the battle is captured by surviving accounts of the fighting:

“The Brave 74th Regiment displayed their bravery to the last moment for the Regt. had only 63 men left when they retreated, non [sic] one single Officer but was killed and wounded lying on the plains except Major Swinton and he was wounded in the back, but he retreated with what few of the regiment that was left. The other two regiments suffered very severe, the enemy then charged our infantry on the retreat and advancing in front of their own [artillery] park, gave No quarter to any of our wounded, then only cutting and shooting them as they came up with them.”

The Marathas in turn suffered at least 1200 killed and their tenacity was noted by the future Duke of Wellington, “Sindia’s [the Maratha leader] infantry behaved well; they were driven from their guns only by the bayonet and some of the corps retreated in good order and formed again.” Wellesley’s fellow general, Gerard Lake was also having a similarly difficult time in the north against Sindia as well. He suffered 824 casualties (out of 5500 men) defeating the Marathas at Laswari. He wrote of the battle: “I never was in so severe a business in my life, or anything like it, and pray to God I never may be in such a situation again.” The battle took an extraordinarily personal toll on Lake as his own son was severely wounded by Maratha artillery and Lake himself narrowly avoided death. Several officers under Lake’s command were less lucky such as the long serving Major General Ware who was decapitated by Maratha cannon fire. All in all thirteen officers were laid to rest at Laswari. Another decisive but bloody victory at Dig resulted in the mortal wounding of the British commander and Lake exclaiming, “I have every reason to believe that the action of the 13th instant was a very near business.” Lake attributed the victory to the leadership and courage of Colonel William Monson.

As can be seen by the casualty rolls and grisly anecdotes, the conquest of India wasn’t an easy affair and the fact that it was achieved can be attributed to the extraordinary willingness of the British officers to place themselves in danger and lead from the front. This was also coupled with a certain reckless aggressiveness which could yield tremendous dividends such as when the British seized the formidable fort of Gwalior as well as several other fortresses via escalade, though it should be noted that this aggressiveness did backfire on occasion such as Lake’s botched siege at Bharatpur. The Maratha officer corps, a motley band of mercenary Europeans and Eurasians, were comparatively less daring, less decisive and verging on treacherous. This leadership differential could perhaps account for the outcomes discussed above – for instance, as Wellesley was rallying his badly battered troops to press the attack at Assaye, the nominal commander of the Marathas, an adventurer named Pohlman was not even present on the battlefield (Pohlman would later defect to the British). While there were several standout mercenary officers that served loyally under the Marathas, many defected under British inducement and some officers of British origins refused to prosecute a war against their countrymen.

Despite the compromised leadership of the Maratha armies, the soldiers fought tenaciously. While they were mercenaries much like their officers and eclectic in origins (there were very few Marathas in the Maratha infantry), they demonstrated an admirable espirit de corps which resulted in stubborn resistance and these brutal near run affairs. The sepoys of the East India Company were not too dissimilar in motivation or origin to their Maratha counterparts and as such, defeated or former Maratha soldiers were easily integrated into the East India Company’s body of sepoys (for example, Pohlman brought over two battalions of former Maratha infantry with his defection). The Marathas were also not too dissimilar in arms or doctrine compared to their EIC counterparts. While the mercenary officers had failed against the British, they had nonetheless raised infantry and artillery formations which had triumphed against all other powers in the region (such as the Mughals and Rajputs) and they narrowed the technological gap by assisting in building gun foundries and manufactories to output cannon and firearms on par with Europe. This technology transfer combined with French artillery doctrine introduced by the Savoyard adventurer Benoit de Boigne, accounted for the deadliness of the Maratha artillery demonstrated in the battles above.

I have also discussed the lack of leadership and other factors contributing to the defeat of indigenous Indian powers in this [thread] (https://np.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7de1gj/many_indian_armies_in_the_late_1700s_adopted/) alongside some of the modernization efforts undertaken by the European mercenaries under the employ of the Marathas and other powers.

In short, the argument is that by the early 19th century, the troops, the arms and the way of war between the EIC and its indigenous counterparts had more or less converged. The possible X factor which delivered victory to the British was their leadership as can be seen in the case of Lake and Wellesley and certain deficits in leadership both locally and strategically for the native Indian powers.

Sources:

Cooper, Randolf G.S. The Anglo-Maratha Campaigns and the Contest for India: The Struggle for Control of the South Asian Military Economy. Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Pemble, John. “Resources and Techniques the Second Maratha War.” The Historical Journal, vol. 19, no. 2, 1976, pp. 375–404.