Second Anglo-Maratha War

The Second Anglo-Maratha War was fought from 1803 to 1805, after the British East India Company under Governor-General Lord Wellesley intervened in Maratha affairs following the Peshwa Baji Rao II's flight to British protection and the Treaty of Bassein, which several major Maratha chiefs, including Daulat Rao Sindhia and the Bhonsle Raja of Nagpur, rejected as a threat to Maratha independence. British and Company forces under Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington) and Gerard Lake won a string of victories, including the battles of Assaye, Argaon, Laswari and Delhi, breaking the military power of the Maratha chiefs who had opposed the Company. The war ended through a series of separate treaties in 1803 and 1805 that ceded substantial Maratha territory to Company control and left the Peshwa a dependent ruler, a major step in the Company's rise to paramountcy across India.