British-India Armies from 1740 to 1849 (Military History)

Introduction
The British, in the guise of East India Company (EIC; also referred to as “the Company”) came to India (South Asia/subcontinent) as traders during the mid-17th century. They established small fortified enclaves at Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta. At that time, the EIC had neither the intention nor the capability to establish a large land empire in South Asia. In the occasional skirmishes between the “native” powers and the EIC’s forces, the latter were always worsted. However, the scenario started changing in the 1740s. The pan-Indian Mughal Empire broke up, and several indigenous powers started fighting against each other to establish their independent domains. The power vacuum and the prospect of acquiring economic concessions from the indigenous potentates encouraged the French and the British to intervene in local politics and penetrate inland into the interior of the subcontinent. By the 1750s, the French East India Company (Compagnies des Indies) was defeated by the EIC. Between the 1760s and 1849, the EIC fought and destroyed the three large indigenous powers—Mysore, Maratha Confederacy, and Khalsa Kingdom—and established subcontinental hegemony.
General Overviews
The principal pillar of British imperialism in South Asia was the British-controlled armed forces. On average, about 33 percent to 50 percent of the budget of the EIC went to finance its armies. Besides importing bullion from England, the EIC sustained its armies with the land revenue sucked from its large agrarian bureaucratic empire in the subcontinent. Heathcote 1995 portrays the evolution of the various armies of the EIC. Whereas Heathcote focuses on the British officers, Menezes 1993 highlights the role of the Indians in the making of the British-led Indian Army. The presence of EIC’s capital-intensive infantry-artillery oriented army also resulted in extensive modernization/Westernization of the forces of the indigenous powers during this period.
Heathcote, T. A. The Military in British India: The Development of British Land Forces in South Asia 1600–1947. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995.
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This volume provides a snapshot of the development of British armies in South Asia from 1600 until 1947. However, Heathcote’s focus remains the British officers.
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Menezes, Lieutenant-General S. L. The Indian Army: From the Seventeenth to the Twenty-First Century. New Delhi: Viking, 1993.
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This volume provides an overview of the evolution of the land army in British India. While the Indians provided muscle power, the British officers constituted the brains of the army.
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Journals
Several journals published both from and outside India carry articles on the British military establishment in India. Among the Indian journals, the important ones are the Indian Economic & Social History Review and the Indian Journal of History of Science, and Studies in History, while the non-Indian journals that are of interest to researchers are The Historical Journal, the International History Review, the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Journal of Military History, and Modern Asian Studies.
The Historical Journal. 1958–.
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The Historical Journal of Cambridge University Press, published quarterly, occasionally has pieces dealing with armies and warfare in British India.
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Indian Economic & Social History Review. 1964–.
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Published four times annually by SAGE, this journal at times carries articles that contextualize armies and warfare in the broader social context.
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Indian Journal of History of Science. 1966–.
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Published by the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, four times a year. As is evident from the title of the journal, it at times carries essays on Indian warfare that are a bit technical.
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International History Review. 1979–.
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Previously sponsored by the Simon Fraser University and now published by Routledge, this journal comes out four times a year. Like The Historical Journal, it occasionally contains articles on South Asian warfare in a broader context.
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Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 1972/1973–.
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Published five times per year by Routledge. Frequently, there are articles on the various British-controlled Indian armies and the different British formations that served in India. The articles mostly deal with the EIC’s forces from an imperial perspective.
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Journal of Military History.
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From the Society for Military History in the United States, this journal is published four times annually. Articles on organizational issues of the EIC’s armies are included in it.
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Modern Asian Studies. 1967–.
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A Cambridge University journal published six times every year (previously it was published quarterly) contains research articles on social and cultural dimensions of the armed forces and society of British India.
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Studies in History1985–.
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Published by SAGE two times per year. Occasionally, it carries articles on Indian military history. Again, as evident from the name of this journal, the focus of such articles remains on the social matrix of military affairs.
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Military Revolution Theories
Following Geoffrey Parker’s military revolution model, a group of historians, including Bryant and Lorge (Bryant 2004, Lorge 2008) claimed that the British initiated a military revolution in early modern South Asia. The EIC introduced handgun-equipped infantry supported by field artillery that swept away the feudal cavalry levies of the indigenous potentates. According to Greenhut 1976, stagnation characterized the Indian way of warfare. For 3,000 years, cavalry remained the centerpiece of Indian warfare. Some historians (see Barua 1994, Gommans 1995, Gordon 1998) argued that pre-British indigenous warfare was not stagnant. In addition, some of the Indian powers tried to ape the military revolution model introduced in South Asia by the EIC. Thanks to the Persians and the Afghans, the indigenous military systems absorbed the latest technological inputs during the first half of the 18th century. However, the failure of the Indians lay in the sphere of the culture of warfare. The Indians never realized that the Western aim in warfare was complete annihilation of the enemy’s combat force. Following Gommans, Kolff 2008 claims that the Hindu dharma (cosmological world view) and Islamic fitna (struggle within the Islamic polities) caused continuous internecine struggle within the Hindu and Islamic regimes of pre-British India. The objective of such struggle was not destruction of the political system but to gain hegemony over the other competing elements. Hence, the indigenous rulers had no concept of destruction of the enemy forces in the battlefields for complete destruction of the opposing regimes. At the cost of being polemical, one can argue that the West’s inheritance of the Clausewitzian concept of decisive battles gave them military supremacy in the non-Western world. Barua 1994 shifts the focus to the organizational limitations of the indigenous polities for failing to Europeanize their militaries. Roy 2005 claims that rather than a military revolution, the British initiated a military synthesis in South Asia by blending Western and Eastern elements of warfare.
Barua, Pradeep. “Military Developments in India, 1750–1850.” Journal of Military History 58.4 (1994): 599–616.
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Lack of political modernization, says Barua, undid the military modernization of the Indian powers.
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Bryant, G. J. “Asymmetric Warfare: The British Experience in Eighteenth-Century India.” Journal of Military History 68.2 (2004): 431–469.
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Bryant asserts that though cavalry charges became irrelevant in mid-18th-century Europe, the indigenous militaries remained cavalry-oriented.
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Gommans, Jos. “Indian Warfare and Afghan Innovation during the Eighteenth Century.” Studies in History, n.s. 11.2 (1995): 261–280.
DOI: 10.1177/025764309501100204Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The Indian rulers, writes Gommans, failed to grasp the new attitude toward warfare that emerged in early modern West Europe. Rather than complete destruction of the enemy force in the battlefield, the objective of warfare for the Indians remained fluid and open. Defeating rather than destroying the enemy for negotiating from a position of strength was the Indian way of warfare. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Gordon, Stewart. “The Limited Adoption of European-Style Military Forces by Eighteenth Century Rulers in India.” Indian Economic and Social History Review 35.3 (1998): 229–245.
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The failure of the indigenous princes to evolve cultural codes that would integrate the mercenary European officers in charge of the Westernized contingents and the monarchies proved to be the principal limitation of the modernizing/Westernizing polities of South Asia. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Greenhut, Jeffrey. “Armies of India from the Aryans to the Marathas.” Journal of the United Service Institution of India 106 (1976): 30–41.
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Geographical insularity and “Oriental fatalism,” infers Greenhut, prevented any change in the Indian way of warfare during the last three millennia, until the arrival of the British in the 18th century.
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Kolff, Dirk H. A. “A Millennium of Stateless Indian History?” In Rethinking a Millennium: Perspectives on Indian History from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Century, Essays for Harbans Mukhia. Edited by Rajat Datta, 51–67. New Delhi: Aakar, 2008.
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The Islamic and Hindu political cultures, asserts Kolff, prevented the emergence of centralized polities and permanent armies in the subcontinent during the pre-British era.
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Lorge, Peter. The Asian Military Revolution: From Gunpowder to the Bomb. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 2008.
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In chapter 6, Lorge claims that the British East India Company initiated a military revolution in India between 1750 and 1850.
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Roy, Kaushik. “Military Synthesis in South Asia: Armies, Warfare, and Indian Society, c. 1740–1849.” Journal of Military History 69.3 (2005): 651–690.
DOI: 10.1353/jmh.2005.0187Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Rather than a military revolution, the EIC initiated a military synthesis by balancing imported Western elements of war with traditional indigenous mechanisms for conducting warfare in South Asia.
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Garrison State
The rising consensus among the historians is that the EIC established a centralized bureaucratic state geared for continuous warfare. By the end of the 18th century, land revenue from the territories annexed from the indigenous rulers rather than profit from commerce, according to Marshall 1975 and Tammita-Delgoda 1996, became the mainstay of the EIC’s finance. Influenced by John Brewer’s concept of early modern Britain as a fiscal-military state, Peers and Bayly (Peers 1995, Bayly 1998) assert that the EIC state was a fiscal-military entity geared toward sucking out more and more land revenue for maintaining the rising number of soldiers. The ever-expanding armed establishment was required for further expanding the domains in order to raise larger amounts of revenue, which in turn resulted in continuous warfare. After the defeat of the indigenous powers, the EIC spent a lot of military assets in pacifying the countryside. One of the characteristics of the EIC’s garrison state was that, compared to the pre-British rulers, the British maintained a greater degree of control over the countryside. This was considered necessary for eliminating any chance of internal rebellions and also to extract more revenue from the “native” chiefs. The emerging consensus among the scholars is that all the pre-British polities were shadow states with segmentary armies. Private war bands, some of them religious (Nagas and the Vaishnava and Saiva armed ascetics), offered themselves to the highest bidders (Pinch 1998, Pinch 2006). These war bands frequently changed sides. The Company’s garrison state, by disbanding these private religious armed war bands, secularized warfare and also established a public monopoly on organized violence in South Asia. The Dutch historian Kolff claims that the presence of numerous armed peasantry and large number of horses prevented monopolization of military power and the emergence of a centralized bureaucratic state (Kolff 1990). The EIC for the first time in Indian history was able to demilitarize the countryside by the mid-19th century. Bryant 1985 notes that Pax Britanica involved continuous small-scale expeditions against the recalcitrant chiefs and their armed retainers. Since long-distance marching under the sun proved debilitating to the British soldiers, the sepoys bore the brunt of counterinsurgency campaigns.
Bayly, C. A. “The British-Military-Fiscal State and Indigenous Resistance: India 1750–1820.” In Origins of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India. Edited by C. A. Bayly, 238–275. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.
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The EIC’s polity in India, writes Bayly, was single-mindedly engaged in maximizing revenue for maintaining a coercive apparatus. Against this dynamic and vigorous state, the segmented armies of the “native” states with their divisible sovereignty and friable loyalties had no chance of success.
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Bryant, G. J. “Pacification in the Early British Raj, 1755–85.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 14.1 (1985): 3–19.
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Military police units, with Indians as rank and file and officered by British officers and regular infantry regiments, were engaged continuously in demilitarizing the countryside. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Kolff, Dirk. H. A. Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labor Market in Hindustan, 1450–1850. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
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Most of India’s peasantry, as descendants from pastoral nomadic communities, were armed. During failure of the monsoon, the marginal peasants, unable to sustain themselves, took to soldiering and offered themselves to the power brokers. The result was continuous private warfare. By 1850, the EIC was able to disarm the countryside.
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Marshall, P. J. “British Expansion in India in the Eighteenth Century: A Historical Revision.” History 60 (1975): 28–43.
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The British, to maintain the armies, were always ready to use organized, coercive force for extracting trading and territorial concessions from the Indian princes. Available online by subscription.
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Peers, Douglas M. Between Mars and Mammon: Colonial Armies and the Garrison State in Nineteenth-Century India. London: Tauris, 1995.
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The EIC was caught in a never-expanding cycle of expansion. More revenues were required for maintaining a larger armed establishment, made necessary for conquering more territories and for expanding the fiscal base of the polity. This process continued until the mid-19th century.
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Pinch, William R. “Who Was Himmat Bahadur? Goasains, Rajputs and the British in Bundelkhand, ca. 1800.” Indian Economic and Social History Review 35.3 (1998): 293–335.
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Himmat Bahadur Anupgiri Gosain started his military career as a chela (disciple) of Rajendragiri Gosain near Jhansi in Bundelkhand. Anupgiri served in the Awadh Army during the 1750s and 1760s and in 1775 left the Awadh Army and joined the Persian adventurer Najaf Khan. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Pinch, William R. Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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The ascetic warriors in north and central India were trained in the akharas. Pinch traces the activities of Anupgiri Gosain (a branch of the Saiva sect of Hinduism), a warlord of 18th-century India and how his private war band was disbanded by the EIC.
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Tammita-Delgoda, Sinharaja. “Disillusionment and Decline: A Picture of the Changing Face of British India.” Indo-British Review 21.2 (1996): 36–41.
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The author shows the tension between the mercantilist lobby and the annexationist lobby within the EIC and its political handlers at London regarding expansion in India.
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Military Orientalism
Knowing the other (enemy) was an integral part of empire building. The British, in accordance with their preconceived notions, acquired and interpreted a vast storehouse of knowledge about the “natives” and the flora and fauna of South Asia. The idea was that knowledge about the “Orientals” would not only aid the British to draw collaborators to defeat the indigenous powers but would also aid in good governance once the “country” powers were defeated. Thus, a process of categorization, collaboration, and myth making about the different indigenous communities, which was a part of the Enlightenment quest, started almost as soon as the sahibs landed in South Asia and continued until the demise of the British rule in the subcontinent. Tammita-Delgoda 1992 shows that Company ideologue Robert Orme’s argument about moral and mental degeneration in India’s hot climate was derived from the Enlightenment theorists. This later became the core idea of the martial race theory. The gentlemen officer-scholars, who constructed the Orientalist image of India, blurred myths and history while describing South Asia (Peers 2005). They dabbled at the quasi-scientific theories and, egged on by romanticism, merged facts and fictions in their accounts.
Peers, Douglas M. “Colonial Knowledge and the Military in India, 1780–1860.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 33.2 (2005): 157–180.
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Most of the Orientalists came from the ranks of the army. The quest for knowledge about India and the Indians emerged from the military’s requirements for information about the physical geography and the inhabitants in order to conduct operations and for purposes of recruitment. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Tammita-Delgoda, Sinharaja. “‘Nabob, Historian and Orientalist.’ Robert Orme: The Life and Career of an East India Company Servant (1728–1801).” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3d ser. 2.3 (1992): 363–376.
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Influenced by Montesquieu’s theory of climactic determinism, Robert Orme attributed the degeneration of the Indians to the hot climate that enabled the British to dominate the subcontinent. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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British Army and the Company’s European Army in India
The Britons were lost in the vast sea of India’s human resources. During the first half of the 19th century, India’s population numbered to 200 million. Holmes 2005 states that there were about 41,000 Britons in India, and of them 37,000 were soldiers. There were two types of British units stationed in India. One was the British Army units deployed in India and the other was the private British/European Army maintained by the EIC until 1859. Peeler 1973 shows the sorry state of EIC’s army during the 17th century. However, by the end of the 18th century, from a miniscule group of factory guards, the EIC’s private European contingent had evolved into a well-disciplined force. Due to shortages of British males willing to serve in the EIC’s private European Army, often Portuguese and French deserters were also employed. Gilbert 1975 shows that until the last decade of the 18th century, even after lowering the physical standard, only felons and unskilled men joined the Company’s European force. Further, the EIC’s private European Army faced competition from the British Army as far as recruitment was concerned. Generally, men without connection and money became the officers of the Company’s European Army (Bryant 1978). The King’s officers looked down on the private European Army’s officer corps as men with low education lacking honor. Most of the officers of the EIC’s European Army were lower middle class compared to the aristocrats and scions of the gentry who filled the officer cadre of the British Army. Though men lower down the social and economic scale joined the officer corps of the Company’s European Army, the rank and file was much better than the privates of the British Army during the first half of the 19th century. Stanley 1998 shows that rather than laborers being forced to join the Company’s European Army, literate artisans, clerks, and skilled workers joined the military service in an attempt to improve their career prospects.
Bryant, Gerald. “Officers of the East India Company’s Army in the Days of Clive and Hastings.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 6.3 (1978): 203–227.
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Bryant shows the evolution of a professional officer cadre in the EIC’s European Army and tension between this officer corps and the King’s officers who were deployed in India. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Gilbert, Arthur N. “Recruitment and Reform in the East India Company Army, 1760–1800.” Journal of British Studies 15.1 (1975): 89–111.
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Qualitatively and quantitatively, the British military manpower in the EIC’s private European Army, writes Gilbert, was disappointing at least until the end of the 18th century. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Holmes, Richard. Sahib: The British Soldier in India, 1750–1914. London: HarperCollins, 2005.
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Holmes’ account is an easy read and gives a picture of day-to-day activities of the British soldiers who served in India.
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Peeler, Sue Pyatt. “Land Forces of the English East India Company in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of Indian History Golden Jubilee Volume (1973): 549–564.
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Manpower shortage and lack of discipline plagued the EIC’s force during the initial period.
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Stanley, Peter. White Mutiny: British Military Culture in India. London: Hurst, 1998.
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The Australian historian provides a social history of the rise and fall of the Company’s private European contingent attached to the Bengal Army.
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Construction of the Sepoy Army
The EIC had to use Indians because each Indian soldier was three times cheaper than a British private. Also, the sepoys (infantry) and sowars (cavalry) were able to march longer and proved to be healthier than the British soldiers in India’s climate. Finally, adequate numbers of British soldiers were not available for garrisoning India. One of the ironies of British imperialism in South Asia was that the subcontinent was conquered mostly by the indigenous mercenaries who fought under the British-officered EIC’s army known as the Sepoy Army. Actually, there were three British-officered indigenous armies: the Bombay, Madras, and Bengal Armies. In addition, there were many local units geared for policing duties in particular localities. In the local unit, tribal and clan leaders as the viceroy’s commissioned officers exercised greater power compared to the regular units. Numerically, the Sepoy Army was bigger than the British units stationed in India. The Sepoy Army numbered about 200,000 and comprised long-term volunteers. About 20,000 Indians were recruited annually. Bryant 2000 shows how the EIC used indigenous martial cultural traditions and a Western organizational framework for constructing a cohesive, combat-effective Sepoy Army during the second half of the 18th century. For introducing Western discipline, Bryant 1997 shows the replacement of indigenous officers with commissioned British officers. Wickremesekera 2002 claims that despite drilling and disciplining the sepoys, their cohesiveness in the field of battle fell short of the British units deployed in India. About the day-to-day life and conditions of the Bengal Army’s sepoys, Barat 1962, an archive-based monograph, remains the best. One of the crucial lynchpins of the Sepoy Army was the sahib–sepoy relationship (i.e., the relationship between the white [British] officers and Indian soldiers). Cohen 1991 asserts that from the late 18th century, the EIC, in halting stages, evolved a professional British officer corps. Mason 1988 portrays the British officer and Indian soldier’s relationship as a father–son relationship. Greenhut 1984 proposes that the sepoys perceived the relationship in terms of dharma (religio-cultural worldview), while the British officers viewed the relationship as a sort of paternalism tinged with racism. Crowell 1990 notes that the British officers gained the sepoys’ confidence after learning their vernacular languages and showing deference to their cultural sensibilities.
Barat, Amiya. The Bengal Native Infantry: Its Organisation and Discipline, 1796–1852. Calcutta: Firma KLM, 1962.
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Though dated, this still remains the most thorough study of the social and organizational dimensions of the “native” infantry units of the Bengal Army.
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Bryant, G. J. “The Early Years of the East India Company’s Armies to c. 1800.” In Soldiers of the Raj: The Indian Army, 1600–1947. Edited by Alan J. Guy and Peter Boyden, 28–38. London: National Army Museum, 1997.
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This small piece shows how the Indian soldiers were initially recruited along with their officers, but later the indigenous officers were replaced by British officers.
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Bryant, G. J. “Indigenous Mercenaries in the Service of European Imperialists: The Case of the Sepoys in the Early British Indian Army, 1750–1800.” War in History 7.1 (2000): 2–28.
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Bryant shows how the British made cultural compromises while drilling indigenous manpower in the Western art of warfare. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Cohen, Stephen, P. The Indian Army: Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991.
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In this longue duree study, the author shows the gradual evolution of professionalism among the British officer corps. Originally published in 1971 (Berkeley: University of California Press).
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Crowell, Lorenzo M. “Military Professionalism in a Colonial Context: The Madras Army circa 1832.” Modern Asian Studies 24.2 (1990): 249–273.
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Acquisition and retention of the loyalty of the sepoys were the acid test of professionalism of the British officers. The colonial context required a generation of a unique type of professionalism. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Greenhut, Jeffrey. “Sahib and Sepoy: An Inquiry into the Relationship between the British Officers and Native Soldiers of the British Indian Army.” Military Affairs 48.1 (1984): 15–18.
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Greenhut offers a culturalist interpretation of the officer–soldier relationship in the Sepoy Army. While the sepoys belonging to the warrior castes in accordance with their dharma were under obligations to display courage and obedience, the British officers considered themselves racially superior and were duty-bound to lead the sepoys in the battlefields.
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Mason, Philip. A Matter of Honour: An Account of the Indian Army, Its Officers and Men. Dehradun, India: EBD Educational Private Limited, 1988.
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The author takes a liberal Victorian perspective and paints the relationship between the sahibs and the sepoys as a mai–bap (father–son) relationship. Originally published in 1974.
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Wickremesekera, Channa. “Best Black Troops in the World”: British Perceptions and the Making of the Sepoy, 1746–1805. New Delhi: Manohar, 2002.
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The author claims that the combat effectiveness of the Sepoy Army’s units was lower than that of the British formations stationed in India.
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Mutinies
Alavi 1995 argues that the British success in integrating their military machine with the interests of certain indigenous communities resulted in a generation of a disciplined Sepoy Army. Rosen 1996 asserts that the host society shapes the military structure. An army reflecting social fissures proves loyal to the employer but is generally militarily ineffective. Indian society was divided along caste lines, and most of the traditional pre-British Indian armies reflected that social reality. Hence, they proved to be politically loyal but militarily ineffective. The British, writes Rosen, separated the Sepoy Army from indigenous social fissures. The result was a combat-effective army but one that proved to be disloyal and mutinied in 1857. Peers 1995 notes that the high-caste sepoys of the Bengal Army considered soldiering an honorable profession. The British administrators believed that lashing them would destroy their martial spirit and would also discourage the high castes from joining the Bengal Army. Hence, lashing was abolished for the sepoys by Governor-General William Bentinck (b. 1828–d. 1835). Nevertheless, during the first half of the 19th century, a mutinous spirit grew among the sepoys of the Bengal Army. Peers 1991 claims that deterioration in the material conditions of the sepoys generated indiscipline among them. Hoover 1996 notes that increasing land revenue demand of the EIC pushed the high-caste small peasants of Awadh, who constituted the personnel of the Bengal Army, toward collective indiscipline by the mid-19th century. Though the Madras Army remained loyal during 1857, cases of indiscipline also rocked this force. On 10 July 1806, collective indiscipline occurred in the Madras Army at Vellore. Frykenberg 1987 and Hoover 2007 state that the insensitiveness of the British toward the religious and cultural sensibilities of the soldiers of the Madras Army caused the mutiny. Tension emerged between the British officers of the Bengal Army and the Company’s civilian officials during the last decade of the 18th century. The penny-pinching policies of the EIC, according to Peers 1990, clashed with the pecuniary interests of the British officers.
Alavi, Seema. The Sepoys and the Company: Tradition and Transition in Northern India, 1770–1830. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995.
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The author shows, that by accommodating the cultural symbols of the high castes (Brahmins and Rajputs) of north India and also by accepting to a great extent the traditional remuneration system of pre-British India, the EIC was able to keep the Bengal Army loyal and effective until the 1830s.
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Frykenberg, Robert Eric. “Conflicting Norms and Political Integration in South India: The Case of the Vellore Mutiny.” Indo-British Review 13 (1987): 51–63.
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Military service in south India was a high-status profession. The failure of the EIC to respect the caste obligations of the sepoys and sowars resulted in the latter’s loss of face in their local society. In response, they revolted in 1806.
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Hoover, James W. “The Recruitment of the Bengal Army: Beyond the Myth of the Zamindar’s Son.” Indo-British Review 21.2 (1996): 144–156.
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The Bhumihar Brahmins (those Brahmins who practiced agriculture) and the Rajputs were small peasants in Awadh. Their younger sons joined the Bengal Army to supplement their families’ income from land. However, increasing land pressures due to continuous fragmentation and increasing rigidity in the EIC’s revenue settlement turned them against the Company.
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Hoover, James W. Men without Hats: Dialogue, Discipline and Discontent in the Madras Army, 1806–1807. New Delhi: Manohar, 2007.
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An amalgamation of economic and religio-cultural grievances caused the outbreak. Stagnation of wages in an era of inflation, and discrimination in the wages of the British versus the Indian soldiers, raised the tempers of the Indian soldiery. In addition, the order to shave their whiskers and replace the traditional turbans with leather cockades forced the Indian personnel of the Madras Army to rebel.
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Peers, Douglas M. “Between Mars and Mammon: The East India Company and the Efforts to Reform Its Army, 1796–1832.” The Historical Journal 33.2 (1990): 385–401.
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X00013388Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
During the first half of the 19th century, the British officers rebelled several times over the question of batta (extra pay for field duty) due to them for service in the faraway regions. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Peers, Douglas M. “‘The Habitual Nobility of Being’: British Officers and the Social Construction of the Bengal Army in the Early Nineteenth Century.” Modern Asian Studies 25.3 (1991): 545–569.
DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X00013925Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Lack of batta and stagnation of wages created discontent among the sepoys of the Bengal Army. However, the British officers’ perceptions, tinged with racial assumptions, failed to decipher the root causes behind the increasing discontent among the sepoys. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Peers, Douglas M. “Sepoys, Soldiers and the Lash: Race, Caste and Army Discipline in India, 1820–50.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 23.2 (1995): 211–247.
DOI: 10.1080/03086539508582951Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Unlike the British privates who were considered “scums of the earth,” the high caste sepoys of the Bengal Army were considered by the British officers as sturdy yeomen and gentleman farmers. Hence, corporal punishment was abolished for the sepoys but not for the British privates during the first half of the 19th century. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Rosen, Stephen Peter. Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996.
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In the author’s framework, the political elites were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. If an army is separated from the host society, then it would prove to be combat-effective but disloyal. In contrast, an army mirroring social trends would be militarily ineffective but politically loyal.
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Cavalry, Small Arms, and Artillery
Cavalry was important for conducting warfare in 18th-century India due to the presence of wide plains and the large distance that needed to be covered. Heavy cavalry was necessary for conducting attack on the flanks of the enemy as a battering ram, and light cavalry was required for skirmishing, foraging, and reconnaissance. Bryant 1995 shows how inadequate cavalry on the part of the EIC during the second half of the 18th century prevented the British from pursuing the defeated indigenous armies. In close-quarter cavalry combat, swords and lances were necessary. The British dragoons found that their straight swords were less effective than the tulwars (curved swords designed for slashing) of the Indian cavalrymen. Talwar 1994 depicts the presence of an Islamic influence that shaped the edged arms of Mysore’s sowars. Firepower constituted one of the crucial components behind British military supremacy in South Asia. In the 18th century, the EIC imported ordnance from Britain. Gradually, as Gupta 1976 notes, the British established an ordnance establishment in India that was capable of manufacturing brass and iron guns, mortars, and howitzers. The artillery of the indigenous powers was not stagnant. Mughal, British, Portuguese, and especially French influence, according to Chatterji 2001, shaped the evolution of the field and siege guns of the indigenous powers who confronted the EIC. Balasubramaniam and Brown 2010 claims that the Sikhs did not merely copy the French or British designs. Rather, the Sikh gun makers absorbed the technical details of the British and French guns and improved on them. As Butalia 1998 shows, the British had to continuously upgrade their field artillery to retain the technological lead. The use of rockets by Tipu Sultan of Mysore (Ghosh 2002) forced the British to imitate this weapon system. Besides artillery, the handgun of the infantry was another area where the Company was interested in having a lead over the indigenous powers. In 1760, the EIC adopted a musket that was shorter and lighter than the British Army’s long land pattern musket. Toward the end of the 18th century, as Harding 1997 shows, the British Army copied the India pattern muskets in use by the Company’s force in South Asia.
Balasubramaniam, R., and Ruth Rhynas Brown. “Artillery in India: 1800–1857.” In The Uprising of 1857: Before and Beyond. Edited by Kaushik Roy, 103–128. New Delhi: Manohar, 2010.
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The development of Sikh artillery, assert the authors, was the product of both indigenous innovations and the French mercenary officers in Ranjit Singh’s Punjab.
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Bryant, G. J. “The Cavalry Problem in the Early British Indian Army, 1750–1785.” War in History 2.1 (1995): 1–21.
DOI: 10.1177/096834459500200101Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Since the EIC lacked cavalry, the armies of the indigenous powers after being defeated were not pursued and destroyed but allowed to retreat and reorganize. The result was that the country powers’ armies came back to fight the EIC again after a short interval. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Butalia, R. C. The Evolution of the Artillery in India: From the Battle of Plassey to the Revolt of 1857. New Delhi: Allied, 1998.
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This monograph details the organization, technology, and tactics of the artillery employed by the EIC and its indigenous opponents between 1757 and 1857.
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Chatterji, S. K. Vintage Guns of India. New Delhi: Macmillan, 2001.
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Well-illustrated with color photographs, this oversized volume depicts the various types of field and siege guns used by both the European and the indigenous powers in early modern South Asia.
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Ghosh, Amitabha. “Rockets of the Tiger: Tipu Sultan.” In Tipu Sultan and His Age: A Collection of Seminar Papers. Edited by Aniruddha Ray, 166–179. Seminar and Public Lecture Series. Kolkata: Asiatic Society, 2002.
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Tipu’s rockets encouraged William Congreve to conduct his research on this weapon system.
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Gupta, Major A. P. “Artillery under the East India Company.” Journal of the United Service Institution of India, 106 (1976): 174–191.
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Gupta shows that the British were very nervous about employing the Indians in the artillery establishment for the fact that the latter might desert and join the “country” powers. However, shortages of British artillery personnel forced the EIC to employ the “natives” in the Company’s artillery establishment.
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Harding, David. “Arming the East India Company’s Forces.” In Soldiers of the Raj: The Indian Army, 1600–1947. Edited by Alan J. Guy and Peter Boyden, 138–147. London: National Army Museum, 1997.
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The best snapshot available of the gunpowder weapons and edged weapons used by the EIC’s forces.
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Talwar, H. T. Arms and Armoury of the Mysore Palace. Mysore, India: Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, 1994.
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Well illustrated with color photos, this slim volume depicts the various types of lances and swords used by the Mysore Army when it fought the EIC.
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Logistics
Like all the armies, the EIC’s armies also marched on their stomachs. Logistics involved food, money, medicines, shots, and shells. The EIC’s military establishment adapted itself to the South Asian environment and also adopted certain indigenous traits connected with the supply system. Bullocks and coolies recruited from Maharashtra, shows Randolf G. S. Cooper (Cooper 1997, Cooper 1999), carried rice, ghee (clarified butter), and shots required by Arthur Wellesley’s detachment that fought the Marathas in Deccan during the Second Anglo-Maratha War in 1803. The Company’s cash enabled Arthur to hire Parsi brokers, carpenters, and banjaras (mobile traders who used to supply the pre-British indigenous armies), along with the porters who braved India’s heat and the drenching monsoon rains. Crowell 1992 and Bryant 2004 show the complex adaptations made by the Madras Army’s logistical infrastructure between the second half of the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries to meet the requirements of conducting warfare in south India. More British soldiers died in South Asia due to health hazards than in battles and sieges conducted by the EIC against its opponents. Chakrabarti 2006 claims that medical practice by quacks and ignorance about local conditions shaped British military medicine. To overcome boredom, the British soldiers freely indulged in country liquor and engaged in sexual relationships with Indian women. From the first decade of the 19th century, the British considered the “native prostitutes” and bazaar liquor as mainly responsible for disease and death among the British military manpower. Cherian 2004 notes that the British constructed cantonments for ordering the lives of the soldiers. Conducting warfare required access to financial resources. The agency houses in Calcutta funded European trade in India. The procedures of account and audit of the EIC in British India, according to Peers 1989, were far superior to those of the British government due to use of a single and uniform financial year and double-entry bookkeeping by the Company. Initially, the EIC imported the munitions of war from Britain. However, importing guns and shells from the United Kingdom proved to be costly and inadequate due to lack of shipping space. So, from the first decade of the 19th century, the EIC, as Roy 2009 shows, set up an elaborate ordnance establishment in India. Saltpeter was available in large quantities in Bengal and Bihar. Hence, the first manufactories were set up in Fort William and Cossipore in Bengal. The ordnance factories streamlined the supply of the sinews of war to the EIC’s armies.
Bryant, G. J. “British Logistics and the Conduct of the Carnatic Wars (1746–1783).” War in History 11.3 (2004): 278–306.
DOI: 10.1191/0968344504wh301oaSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The contract system for obtaining supplies, says the author, allowed both the EIC’s officials and “native” officials of the British client rulers to indulge in corruption. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Chakrabarti, Pratik. “‘Neither of meate nor drinke, but what the Doctor alloweth’: Medicine amidst War and Commerce in Eighteenth-Century Madras.” Bulletin of History of Medicine 80.1 (2006): 1–38.
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Local acquisition of bazaar medicine such as musk, camphor, and opium along with “native” doctors initially found a place in the British military medical system. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Cherian, Neema. “Spaces for Races: Ordering of Camp Followers in the Military Cantonments, Madras Presidency, c. 1800–64.” Social Scientist 32.5–6 (2004): 32–50.
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Cherian comments that the ordering of spaces for different races (“white” and “brown") in the cantonments, which resulted in the segregation of Indian soldiers and Indian women from British soldiers and their families, strengthened racism. Available online by subscription.
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Cooper, Randolf G. S. “Logistics in India 1757–1857: The Achievement of Arthur Wellesley Reconsidered.” In Soldiers of the Raj: The Indian Army 1600–1947. Edited by Alan J. Guy and Peter Boyden, 68–77. London: Army Museum, 1997.
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Rather than plunder, the EIC utilized the bazaars and banjaras to feed its armies between the second half of the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries.
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Cooper, Randolf G. S. “Beyond Beasts and Bullion: Economic Considerations in Bombay’s Military Logistics, 1803.” Modern Asian Studies 33.1 (1999): 159–183.
DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X99003169Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Arthur Wellington used cash and the Indian porters to acquire and transport rice for his sepoys who marched into northern Maharashtra to fight the combined armies of the Maratha sirdars Sindia and Bhonsle. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Crowell, Lorenzo, M. “Logistics in the Madras Army circa 1830.” War & Society 10.2 (1992): 1–33.
DOI: 10.1179/072924792791198922Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The Madras Army’s logistical establishment, says Crowell, was a cross between the Mughal bazaar and the western European intendant system. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Peers, Douglas M. “War and Public Finance in Early Nineteenth-Century British India: The First Burma War.” International History Review 11.4 (1989): 628–647.
DOI: 10.1080/07075332.1989.9640527Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
By the second decade of the 19th century, thanks to the public financial infrastructure of the Company, its military finance was put on a sound footing. This gave the British an edge over its indigenous opponents in financing warfare. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Roy, Kaushik. “Technology Transfer and the Evolution of Ordnance Establishment in British-India: 1639–1856.” Indian Journal of History of Science 44.3 (2009): 411–433.
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The gunpowder factories established by the Company in Bengal not only supplied the EIC’s armies in India but also catered to demands in Britain itself.
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Military Leadership
Several larger-than-life figures played an important role in the foundation and consolidation of the Company’s rule in India. The military figures that come to mind are Robert Clive, the conqueror of Bengal, Eyre Coote, and Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington), the man who vanquished the Marathas. Sheppard 1956, a biography of Coote, shows the gradual rise of the Irishman in EIC’s service. He joined the British Army and when deployed in Bengal, there was constant tension between the King’s service officer and Clive, who belonged to the private military force of the Company. Later as commander-in-chief, Coote also ran into trouble with Governor-General Warren Hasting and the governor of Madras. Nevertheless, Coote’s generalship against Haidar Ali during the Second Anglo-Mysore War was impressive. The presence of a professional officer corps gave the EIC a definite edge in combat over its indigenous opponents. However, the process of evolution of professionalism in the EIC’s officer cadre was slow and tortuous. Bryant 1984 shows that there was a continuous tussle between the officers of the British Army units (i.e., the King’s officers) and the British officers who held commissions from the EIC and commanded the Company’s private European units and the Sepoy Army. In addition, the King’s officers frequently failed to obey the civilian bureaucrats of the EIC. Occasionally, the British officers resorted to mass agitation and collective bargaining with the Company officials to get their way. Despite the fact that most joined the Company’s officer cadre to make money, Guy 1997 shows that a sense of corporate ethos was instilled among the British officers by the end of the century. Bennell 1985 and Cooper 1989 assert that the Maratha Confederacy was humbled during the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803–1805), not because of technological inferiority but due to the superior British hierarchical command system. Napoleon contemptuously described Wellesley as the “Sepoy general.” The Sepoy general’s fine tuning of conducting aggressive diplomacy simultaneously while displaying battlefield leadership is brought out nicely in Bennell 1997, a biography of Wellesley. The process of adaptation to local conditions and proper utilization of local military and nonmilitary manpower as conducted by Arthur Wellesley is the subject of Weller 1970. Regarding the Maratha Army, which modernized itself for fighting the EIC, one European mercenary named Benoit de Boigne stands head and shoulders above the others. According to Lafont 2000, Boigne, a Savoyard, introduced the Gribeauval artillery pattern and square formation in the Maratha force.
Bennell, Anthony S. “The Anglo-Maratha War of 1803–5.” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 65 (1985): 144–161.
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Bennell asserts that the Maratha defeat during the crucial Second Anglo-Maratha War was not inevitable. Had all the Maratha sirdars remained united and displayed the same aggressive daring as Jaswant Rao Holkar, history might have taken a different turn.
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Bennell, Anthony S. The Making of Arthur Wellesley. Mumbai: Orient Longman, 1997.
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The most recent political and military biography of the dynamic Arthur Wellesley. Bennell covers in depth Wellesley’s career in India.
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Bryant, G. J. “The East India Company and the British Army: The Crisis at Madras in 1783.” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 62 (1984): 13–27.
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The Royal officers regarded the private trading activities of the EIC’s officers as dishonorable, and the Company’s officers hated the fact that, despite possessing seniority and greater combat experience, they were placed below the King’s officers during campaigns, nor were the King’s officers were willing to take orders from the governor. Matters came to a head at Madras in 1783.
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Cooper, Randolf G. S. “Wellington and the Marathas in 1803.” International History Review 11.1 (1989): 31–38.
DOI: 10.1080/07075332.1989.9640499Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The disintegration of Maratha C3I (Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence) in 1803 resulted in the defeat of the Marathas. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Guy, Alan J. “‘People Who Will Stick at Nothing to Make Money’? Officers’ Income, Expenditure and Expectations in the Service of John Company.” In Soldiers of the Raj: The Indian Army, 1600–1947. Edited by Alan J. Guy and Peter Boyden, 39–56. London: National Army Museum, 1997.
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In the 18th century, the Company’s officers were mostly interested in making their private fortune. However, by the last decade of the 18th century, a sense of patriotism and professionalism was hammered into the British officer cadre.
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Lafont, Jean-Marie. “Benoit de Boigne in Hindustan: His Impact on the Doab, 1784–1795.” In Indika: Essays in Indo-French Relations, 1630–1976. By Jean-Marie Lafont, 177–204. New Delhi: Manohar, 2000.
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This essay offers a snapshot of Benoit de Boigne’s career in the service of Maratha Sirdar Mahadji Sindia during the latter half of the 18th century.
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Sheppard, Eric William. Coote Bahadur: A Life of Lieutenant-General Sir Eyre Coote. London: Werner Laurie, 1956.
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Though dated, this military biography is still valuable for showing how Coote dealt with the threat that Haidar Ali’s Mysore posed to the Madras presidency during the 1770s and 1780s.
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Weller, Jac. “Wellington against Abrams: Were the Old Ways Better?” Army Quarterly & Defence Journal 100.1 (1970): 60–70.
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Weller makes a comparative analysis of why British generals succeeded in 18th-century India and why the American generals failed in Vietnam during the 20th century.
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Carnatic, Bengal, and Bihar
Carnatic (Karnatak) was a Mughal province. As the Mughal central government in Delhi declined, its representative in Deccan (the nizam) became independent. The nizam’s representative in Carnatic, the Nawab of Arcot, also declared his independence. Taking advantage of the troubled times, both the French under Dupleix and the EIC intervened to put their own clients on the throne of Arcot. Lawford 1978 describes the campaigns and sieges conducted by the EIC’s armies in establishing British supremacy in Carnatic and Bengal. The confused fighting in the Carnatic during the 1750s between the British and the French and clashes between different Indian rulers who were in alliance with the two foreign powers is narrated in Rajayyan 1973. After establishing control over Carnatic, the EIC became more aggressive in Bengal. The victory at Plassey in 1757 established British domination in Bengal. When Shuja-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Awadh, intervened, the EIC defeated him at Buxar in 1764, and Awadh became a client state. Verma 1976 points out that technical and organizational superiority gave victory to the EIC over the Bengal and Awadh nawabis.
Lawford, James, P. Britain’s Army in India: From Its Origins to the Conquest of Bengal. London: Allen & Unwin, 1978.
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An interesting narrative showing the slow rise of British military power in south and east India until the 1760s.
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Rajayyan, K. “An Ill-Fated Adventure—A Turning Point in the History of Mysore.” Journal of Indian History Golden Jubilee Volume (1973): 565–576.
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In 1761, when Haidar Ali captured power in Mysore, the EIC, asserts Rajayyan, refused to intervene in Mysore. The British would rue this moment.
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Verma, Dinesh Chandra. Plassey to Buxar: A Military Study. New Delhi: K.B. Publications, 1976.
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A narrative account describing the military victories achieved by the EIC at Plassey and Buxar.
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Anglo-Mysore Wars
The EIC had to fight four wars with Mysore. The First Anglo-Mysore War (1767–1769) and the Second Anglo-Mysore War (1780–1784) were fought between the EIC and Mysore under Haidar Ali. The Third Anglo-Mysore War (1790–1792) and the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799 were fought between the EIC and Haidar’s son and successor Tipu Sultan. During the Second Anglo-Mysore War, the French, as noted in Hasan 1999, deployed a small army comprising French and Afro-Asian soldiers for cooperating with Mysore. According to Ambika 1981, the EIC deliberately provoked the Third Anglo-Mysore War to reduce Tipu. In 1791, Lord Cornwallis at the head of EIC’s force reached Tipu’s capital Seringapatnam but had to retreat due to the breakdown of his logistics. Thus, though Tipu was defeated, he survived. However, Mysore lost so much territory to the EIC that it was difficult for Tipu to maintain a large army again. By the end of the Third Anglo-Mysore War, Tipu was humbled. Nevertheless, the Wellesley brothers (Arthur Wellesley and his elder brother Lord Mornington, the governor-general of India), according to Ingram 1973, used Tipu’s vaunted French connection to destroy Mysore in 1799.
Ambika, P. “The Events Leading to the Third Anglo-Mysore War and the Treaty of Seringapatam.” Journal of Indian History 59 (1981): 259–280.
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This article depicts the deliberate policy of the EIC to provoke an invasion of Mysore that would destroy Tipu Sultan’s power.
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Hasan, Mohibbul. “The French in the Second Anglo-Mysore War.” In Confronting Colonialism: Resistance and Modernization under Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan. Edited by Irfan Habib, 35–48. New Delhi: Tulika, 1999.
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Mysore provided logistical support to the French force in south India, which cooperated with Haidar and Tipu against the EIC’s armies.
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Ingram, Edward. “The Defence of British India III: Wellesley’s Provocation of the Fourth Mysore War.” Journal of Indian History Golden Jubilee Volume (1973): 595–622.
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Tipu requested military and financial aid from the French in Mauritius. Governor-General Lord Wellesley informed London that the French from Egypt might move into India through Mysore. Hence, argued Wellesley, Tipu should be attacked.
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Anglo-Maratha Wars
Among all the indigenous opponents of the EIC, the Maratha Confederacy proved to be the hardest nut to crack. The Confederacy was a loose union of different sirdars (hereditary chieftains) who obeyed the de jure sovereignty of the Peshwa (hereditary prime minister). The Peshwa ruled Swarajya (homeland; i.e., Maharashtra). The important sirdars were Gaikwad at Baroda controlling Gujarat, Sindia at Gwalior controlling north India and eastern Rajasthan, Holkar at Indore controlling central India, and Bhonsle at Nagpur controlling Berar and Orissa. The sirdars and the Peshwa often fought against each other, which enabled the EIC to play one against the other. However, the British had to fight three wars to defeat the Confederacy. The First Anglo-Maratha War lasting from 1774 to 1783 ended in a draw, but Gaikwad in Gujarat was made a British client. Immense cavalry superiority on the part of the Marathas and the presence of Mysore as an ally of the Confederacy prevented the British from concentrating their military assets against the Marathas. While the Bombay Army fought the Marathas, the Madras Army had to tackle Haidar Ali’s Mysore. Fortunately for the British, this was the first and last war in which all the Maratha sirdars fought united against the British. However, Kantak 1993 points out that even the numerous cavalry of the Maratha sirdars could only delay and harass but not destroy the infantry-field artillery centric armies of the EIC. In reaction to this confrontation, several Maratha sirdars (especially Mahadji Sindia) started reorganizing a component of their armies on western European lines with the aid of the mercenary Eurasian and European (mostly French) officers. There is a debate regarding the Westernization/Europeanization of the Maratha armies. While Sen 1979 claims that instead of Westernizing their militaries, the Marathas should have conducted their traditional ganimi kava (mobile guerrilla warfare with light cavalry), others (see Kantak 1993) claim that ganimi kava had already became outdated by the 1780s and hence the Marathas had no other option except to Europeanize their forces. The Second Anglo-Maratha War, which lasted from 1803 to 1805, proved to be decisive. The three strongest sirdars (Sindia, Bhonsle, and Holkar) were humbled. Since the Second Anglo-Maratha War comprised several decisive battles and sieges, military historians (Pemble 1976, Pitre 1990, Cooper 2005) give the lion’s share of attention to this conflict. In this confrontation, the Peshwa sided with the EIC. Moreover, Holkar started the campaign against the British in 1804 when Daulat Rao Sindia and Raghuji Bhonsle were already defeated. While Pitre and Pemble focus on lack of unity of command on part of the Marathas, Cooper emphasizes the superior political economy of the British. The Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817–1818) resulted in the destruction of the power of the Peshwa and Bhonsle. For this war, the EIC concentrated the largest army in its history. More than 100,000 British and Indian soldiers were used for conducting two pincer movements that started from Deccan and north India. The Marathas mainly relied on the Pindaris, Muslim horsemen who were demobilized after the British annexation of the indigenous states in north India. They functioned as light cavalry, and their bases were in the jungles and ravines of central India. Roy 1973 and Sinha 1971 describe the EIC’s large-scale counterinsurgency campaign against the Pindaris in detail.
Cooper, Randolf G. S. The Anglo-Maratha Campaigns and the Contest for India: The Struggle for Control of the South Asian Military Economy. New Delhi: Foundation Books, 2005.
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Access to superior financial resources on the part of the EIC allowed the latter to buy off the Eurasian officer corps of the Westernized contingents of the Marathas. This resulted in the decapitation of their high command, resulting in successive battlefield defeats at the hands of the Company’s armies.
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Kantak, M. R. The First Anglo-Maratha War, 1774–1783: A Military Study of Major Battles. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1993.
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The author using Marathi sources gives the Maratha side of the story in his narrative of the First Anglo-Maratha War.
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Pemble, John. “Resources and Techniques in the Second Maratha War.” The Historical Journal 19.2 (1976): 375–404.
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X00010219Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Just before the onset of the Second Anglo-Maratha War in 1803, the Eurasian officer corps in charge of the Westernized contingent of Sindia’s army deserted. The British officers deserted the Marathas out of a sense of patriotism, and the French officers deserted because they had invested heavily in the EIC’s stocks and without aid of the Company, they could never go back to Europe. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Pitre, K. G. Second Anglo-Maratha War, 1802–1805: A Study in Military History. Pune, India: Dastane Ramchandra, 1990.
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Based on Marathi sources, the author provides a narrative of the Second Anglo-Maratha War, detailing the strategy and tactics of both the Company’s armies and the forces of the Maratha Confederacy.
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Roy, Mahendra Prakash. Origin, Growth and Suppression of the Pindaris. New Delhi: Sterling, 1973.
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Roy’s detailed narrative account shows how the Northern Army, commanded by Lord Hastings, and the Southern Army under Thomas Hislop zeroed in on central India, the base of the Pindari horsemen armed with sabers and matchlocks.
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Sen, Surendra Nath. The Military System of the Marathas. Calcutta: K. P. Bagchi, 1979.
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While Westernizing the forces, the Maratha armies became non-national in character. The transition to capital-intensive mercenary armies spelled doom for the Marathas. Originally published in 1928 (Calcutta: Book Co.).
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Sinha, Birendra Kumar. The Pindaris: 1798–1818. Calcutta: Bookland, 1971.
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After the Second Anglo-Maratha War, the Marathas mainly fought with their traditional arm: marauding light cavalry. Sinha’s monograph shows how drilled and disciplined firepower-heavy EIC armies in an attritional campaign cornered the Pindaris in the river valleys of Narmada and Chambal.
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Anglo-Sikh Wars
After the collapse of the Maratha Confederacy, the last important independent indigenous power was the Khalsa Kingdom of Ranjit Singh in Punjab. Ranjit, following Mahadji’s example, built up a Westernized army known as Fauj-i-Khas with the aid of the French and German mercenary officers. This Westernized army was a component of the Dal Khalsa (Army of the Khalsa Kingdom). The role of ex-Napoleonic French officers like Allard and Ventura in instilling French words of command, drill, discipline, and artillery is the subject of Lafont 2002. Due to enormous technological advancement, by the early 1840s, as Roy 2006 shows, there was no technical gap between the Fauj-i-Khas and the EIC’s armies. As long as Ranjit lived, the EIC maintained an uneasy truce with the Khalsa Kingdom. After Ranjit’s death in 1838, the relationship between EIC and the Khalsa Kingdom declined. Power struggles among the Sikh chieftains and disintegration of the durbar’s (court) control over the Dal Khalsa allowed the EIC to intervene in Punjab. The outcome was two wars. The First Anglo-Sikh War (1845–1846) resulted in the destruction of the Fauj-i-Khas, and the Second Anglo-Sikh War (1848–1849) was a mopping-up operation resulting in the annexation of Punjab and completion of British supremacy in South Asia. Demobilization of the Sikh soldiers and increasing land revenue demand on the part of the British-controlled durbar resulted in an uprising of the Sikh sirdars in 1848. This time the sirdars fought with their traditional weapons: light cavalry armed with tulwars, lances, and zamburaks (camel swivel guns). The EIC’s horse artillery plus drilled and disciplined sepoys and British privates made mincemeat of the Sikhs. The clash between the Dal Khalsa and the EIC’s armies in the various confrontations of the two Anglo-Sikh Wars are portrayed in Bruce 1969. Defeat of the Sikhs was inevitable during the Second Anglo-Sikh War, thanks to the superior firepower and disciplined troops at the disposal of the EIC. However, at Ferozeshah (21–22 December 1845) during the First Anglo-Sikh War, the fate of British India was hanging in balance (Featherstone 1968). The EIC’s forces had run out of ammunition, and both Lord Gough (commander-in-chief) and Lord Hardinge (governor-general of India) were surrounded. The Dal Khalsa in contrast received 20,000 reinforcements. Destruction of the EIC’s field army and the capture of Gough and Hardinge would have destroyed British prestige and encouraged rebellions throughout India. However, due to the treachery of some sirdars, not only were Sikh deployment plans passed to the British but also no Sikh counterattack came (Nijjar 1976). The EIC’s force was allowed to retreat unmolested and later, after receiving reinforcements, finally destroyed the Khalsa Kingdom.
Bruce, George. Six Battles for India, The Anglo-Sikh Wars: 1845–6, 1848–9. Calcutta: Rupa, 1969.
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Bruce depicts the strategy and tactics of the decisive battles and sieges that occurred during the two Anglo-Sikh Wars. Regarding the First Anglo-Sikh War, Bruce focuses on the four decisive battles: Mudki, Ferozeshah, Aliwal, and Sobraon. For the Second Anglo-Sikh War, Bruce confines himself to the siege of Multan and the two battles of Chillianwala and Gujerat.
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Featherstone, Donald. At Them with the Bayonet: The First Sikh War. London: Jarrolds, 1968.
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The author, from a British perspective, provides a narrative account of the politics, strategy, and tactics during the First Anglo-Sikh War and highlights the role of chance in history.
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Lafont, Jean-Marie. Fauj-i-Khas: Maharaja Ranjit Singh and His French Officers. Amritsar, India: Guru Nanak Dev University, 2002.
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The most recent and thorough study of the Westernization of a part of the Dal Khalsa by the French scholar.
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Nijjar, Bakhshish Singh. Anglo-Sikh Wars: 1845–1849. New Delhi: K. B. Publications, 1976.
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Nijjar provides a sympathetic account of the Khalsa Kingdom, which fought for survival against the EIC. The author blames treachery in the Khalsa high command for British victory.
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Roy, Kaushik. “Technology and Transformation of Sikh Warfare: Dal Khālsā against the Lāl Paltans, 1800–1849.” Indian Journal of History of Science 41 (2006): 383–410.
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The technological upgrade of the Sikh Army in Ranjit Singh’s tenure is the subject of this article.