On 23 September 1803, near the village of Assaye in the Deccan, Major General Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, found the combined armies of Daulat Rao Scindia and the Raja of Berar camped behind the Kaitna River. Heavily outnumbered, he crossed the river by a ford and attacked the same afternoon. The Maratha gunners fought their guns to the end, and the victory cost Wellesley heavy losses, but it broke the main Maratha field army. Wellesley later named it the best battle he ever fought.
A general in India
Arthur Wellesley had gone to India in 1796, where his elder brother Richard was Governor-General, and had commanded the 33rd Regiment at Seringapatam in 1799. When the Second Anglo-Maratha War began in 1803, the East India Company sent him with one army against Scindia and the Raja of Berar, while a second force under Colonel Stevenson moved up from Hyderabad.1
The ford on the Kaitna
On 23 September Wellesley came upon the whole Maratha army drawn up behind the Kaitna, near its meeting with the Juah. British Battles gives him some 6,500 British, Madras Indian and Mysore troops with about 20 guns, against a Maratha army of at least 40,000 with more than 100 guns; the Napoleon Guide puts it at least three times the size of his own force. Instead of waiting for Stevenson, Wellesley decided to attack at once.2
Noticing villages on both banks of the river, Wellesley reasoned that there must be a ford between them, found it, and took his army across onto the tongue of land between the two rivers, so that the Maratha line had to swing round to face him.3
The guns of Assaye
The Maratha artillery was well served and tore into the advancing lines. The 74th Highlanders, drifting toward the village of Assaye, were caught in the heaviest fire; British Battles records about 400 casualties out of some 500 men, and quotes Wellington describing the fire on them as the heaviest that had been known in India. The infantry pressed on with the bayonet and took the guns, and cavalry charges helped complete the victory. Wellesley had two horses killed under him.4
The cost
Figures differ. British Battles counts 408 killed and 1,583 wounded on the British side, officers included, while the Napoleon Guide gives about 1,600 killed and wounded. For the Marathas British Battles gives around 5,000 killed, wounded and captured and the Napoleon Guide some 6,000 casualties; British Battles adds that they left 98 guns on the field.5
Victories at Argaum and Gawilghur followed, and the war ended in 1805 with large parts of central India under Company control. The National Army Museum calls Assaye Wellesley's first major victory and notes that he later regarded it as the best battle he ever fought. The battle is told in full in our article on the Battle of Assaye.6
