Anglo-Maratha Wars

The Anglo-Maratha Wars were three conflicts fought between the British East India Company and the Maratha Empire in India between 1775 and 1818 that decided which power would dominate the subcontinent. The First Anglo-Maratha War, 1775 to 1782, ended in stalemate and the Treaty of Salbai, which restored most prewar territorial arrangements. The Second Anglo-Maratha War, 1803 to 1805, brought major British territorial gains under commanders including Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, whose victory at the Battle of Assaye in 1803 against a numerically superior Maratha force became one of his most celebrated early achievements. The Third Anglo-Maratha War, 1817 to 1818, ended in outright British victory and the dissolution of the Maratha Empire as an independent power, with its territories annexed or reduced to subordinate princely states. Together the three wars established British paramountcy over the great majority of the Indian subcontinent, clearing the last major indigenous military power capable of contesting Company rule.