Richard Holmes - Wellington - The Iron Duke

The task of restoring the Peshwa was given to Arthur Wellesley in November 1802. He had just heard that he had been gazetted major general on 29 April that year, (news had only reached him in September), and given an appointment on the Madras establishment, where Lieutenant General Stuart, who had led the Bombay army column that fought at Seringapatam, was now commander-in-chief. As he had told Barry Close, soon to be political Resident with the Peshwa, in September 1801, ‘before long we may look to war with the Mahrattas’. He had already made a lengthy analysis of the terrain he might have to cover, highlighting the problems of providing food and water and crossing the many rivers that would lie across his path. As usual he delved into detail. He would need 10,000 gallons of arrack (native spirit) for his European troops, and this should be carried in 6 gallon kegs, ‘well fortified with iron hoops’. There would also have to be 90,000 lbs of salt meat, ‘packed in kegs well fortified, 54lbs in each keg, besides pickle, &c.; and the same quantity of biscuits in round baskets, containing 6olbs each; these baskets to be covered with waxed cloth’. 28

Major General Wellesley moved off in March 1803, his own army numbering just under 15,000 men, with a Hyderabad force of nearly 9,000 also under his command. He was well aware that his task was to restore the Peshwa but not to bring about a wider war with the Marathas as he did so. In fact, there was no resistance. The careful preparations ensured that the march of some 600 miles was swift, and rigid discipline ensured that local inhabitants were not alienated by plundering. His leading cavalry reached Poona on 20 April, but the Peshwa would not re-enter his capital till 13 May, when the stars were propitious. Wellesley observed that he was ‘a prince, the only principle of whose character is insincerity’. He made heavy weather of re-establishing himself, but at the same time was already negotiating with the other Maratha princes. In May, Holkar raided into Hyderabad territory, replying civilly to Wellesley’s letter of remonstrance, stating that the Nizam of Hyderabad owed him money. The Nizam was in fact mortally ill, which induced Stuart in Madras to send troops to Hyderabad to help maintain order. This added to the political tension between the Marathas and the Company. Although open war was still not inevitable, Scindia was striving to draw the other Maratha chiefs into a coalition against the British.

Wellesley, as usual, was preoccupied with his logistics. His line of communication ran back down to Mysore, and although he did his best to ensure against its collapse when the monsoon came – locally-made coracles, ‘basket boats’, were stockpiled at all likely river-crossings – it would be much easier if he could open a shorter line to Bombay. However, the authorities there lacked his own attention to detail, and sent him pontoons for river-crossing at the moment when the weather broke, and the wagons carrying them foundered on the very first day. Stuart generously told the governor-general that he had no wish to take command, for Wellesley’s ‘extensive knowledge and influence … and his eminent military talents’ made him ideally suited for the appointment in which, Stuart was sure, his army would render ‘very distinguished services’. Accordingly, in June 1803, an order from Mornington gave Wellesley full military and political authority in central India, and he immediately ordered Colonel John Collins, British Resident at Scindia’s camp still on Maratha territory, now close to the Nizam of Hyderabad’s fortress of Ajanta, to ask Scindia precisely what he objected to in the treaty of Bassein. Wellesley was prepared to make minor concessions and was anxious not to fire the first shot in a new war. On 25 June, he told Colonel James Stevenson, his principal subordinate, that: ‘It will be our duty to carry out the war, with activity, when it shall begin, but it is equally so to avoid hostilities, if we possibly can …’ 29 On 3 August, Collins reported that Scindia and the Rajah of Berar would give no direct answer to his demands, and had left for the Nizam’s nearby fortress of Aurungabad. Wellesley at once announced that he was obliged to go to war ‘in order to secure the interests of the British government and its allies’. 30

The Maratha armies looked formidable on paper. The core of Scindia’s invading force was his regular infantry, about 15,000 strong, which was trained and led by European officers and organised in brigades called ‘compoos’, including some cavalry and a few guns. Colonel Pohlmann, once a sergeant in a Hanoverian regiment in British service, commanded the largest, with about 7,500 men; the Begum Somroo, widow of a German mercenary who had become one of Scindia’s vassals, had recruited a slightly smaller force, commanded on her behalf by Colonel Saleur, and Colonel Baptiste Filoze, of Neapolitan-Indian ancestry, commanded a third. Scindia’s army had about eighty field pieces and a few heavier guns. His irregular troops included 10–20,000 infantry, and there were something between 30–60,000 light cavalry.

The governor-general had tried to persuade British subjects serving the Marathas to relinquish their posts, promising them employment if they did so and prosecution for treason if they refused. Some were certainly reluctant to fight. ‘John Roach Englishman and George Blake Scotsman lately commanding each a gun in the service of the Begum’ informed Wellesley that they ‘left camp by permission upon remonstrance against being employed to fight’ and told their countrymen all they knew. 31 Stewart, an officer of Pohlmann’s compoo, also joined the British as soon as he could, as did Grant, brigade major (chief of staff) to one of the compoos. But some certainly stayed to fight, for Wellesley told Colonel Collins that some of his wounded had been killed by the cavalry attached to the compoos, and a British officer in enemy service had been heard to say to another: ‘You understand the language better than I do. Desire the jemadar [native junior officer] of that body of horse to go and cut up those wounded European soldiers.’ 32

Wellesley had already decided that he must act boldly. He told Colonel Stevenson that ‘the best thing you can do is to move forward yourself with the Company’s cavalry and all the Nizam’s and dash at the first party that comes into your neighbourhood … A long defensive war would ruin us and will answer no purpose whatever.’ 33 On 8 August 1803, he broke camp and marched to Ahmednuggur, the nearest Maratha-held fort. It was held by one of Scindia’s regular battalions under French officers and about 1,000 reliable Arab mercenaries, but Wellesley believed that this was too small a force to hold the fort and the surrounding town (the pettah) , although both were walled. He determined to carry the town by assault, using ladders to scale the walls, without preliminary bombardment. The 78 thHighlanders led the assault, and when they were beaten back, a lieutenant of the grenadier company, Colin Campbell – who was to die a general in 1847-hung his claymore from his wrist with a scarf to climb the better, and laid about him when he topped the wall. Other units entered elsewhere, and in twenty minutes the town was taken. One of the Peshwa’s officers summed it all up:

The English are a strange people, and their General a wonderful man. They came here in the morning, looked at the pettah wall, walked over it, killed the garrison, and returned to breakfast! What can withstand them? 34

The fort capitulated on the 12 thonce Wellesley’s guns had breached the wall and the assaulting columns were formed and ready.

With Ahmednuggur in his hands, Wellesley snapped up all Scindia’s possessions south of the Godavari, and then crossed the river with an army of 2,200 Europeans and 5,000 sepoys, with 2,200 light cavalry from Mysore and 4,000 of the Peshwa’s cavalry. He reached Aurungabad, on the edge of the Nizam’s territory, on 29 August, and rode on to meet Colonel Collins, encamped just to the north. Collins told him that he need not worry about the Maratha horse – ‘You may ride over them, General, whenever you meet them’ – but his regulars were a different matter altogether. Collins had seen Scindia’s army at close quarters for five months, and declared that: ‘Their infantry and the guns attached to it will surprise you.’ 35