Maratha Empire

The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern Indian empire and later a confederation that controlled large portions of the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century. Maratha rule formally began in 1674 with the coronation of Shivaji of the Bhonsle dynasty as the Chhatrapati. Although Shivaji came from the Maratha caste, the Maratha empire also included warriors, administrators, and other nobles from the Maratha and several other castes from what is known today as Maharashtra. The Maratha Kingdom was expanded into a full-fledged Empire in the 18th Century under the leadership of Peshwa Bajirao I.

The Marathas were a Marathi-speaking warrior group from the western Deccan Plateau (present-day Maharashtra) who rose to prominence by establishing Hindavi Swarajya (meaning "self-rule of Hindus"). The Marathas became prominent in the seventeenth century under the leadership of Shivaji, who revolted against the Adil Shahi dynasty and the Mughals to carve out a kingdom with Raigad as his capital. Marathas were one of the major causes of the decline of the Mughal Empire in the early eighteenth century. The religious attitude of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb estranged non-Muslims, and his inability to suppress the resulting Maratha insurgency after a 27-year war came at a great cost for his men and treasury and eventually ensured Maratha ascendency and their control over sizeable portions of former Mughal dominions in the north of the Indian subcontinent.

After the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb's death in 1707, Shivaji's grandson Shahu under the leadership of Peshwa Bajirao revived Maratha power and confided a great deal of authority to the Bhat family, who became hereditary peshwas (prime ministers). After his death in 1749, they became the effective rulers. The leading Maratha families—Sindhia, Holkar, Bhonsle, and Gaekwar—extended their conquests in northern and central India and became more independent and difficult to control. The Marathas rapid expansion was halted with the great defeat of Panipat in 1761, at the hands of the Afghans however within a decade they recovered most of their territories under their new Peshwa Madhavrao I but the death of this young peshwa in 1772 ended the effective control of the peshwas. Thereafter the Maratha state was a confederacy of five chiefs under the nominal leadership of the Peshwa at Poona (now Pune) in western India. These leaders became known as the Gaekwads of Baroda, the Holkars of Indore and Malwa, the Scindias of Gwalior and Ujjain, and the Bhonsles of Nagpur. Though they united on occasion, as against the East India Company (1775–1782), more often they quarreled. After he was defeated by the Holkar dynasty in 1802, the Peshwa Baji Rao II sought protection from the Company, whose intervention destroyed the confederacy by 1818 after the Second and Third Anglo-Maratha Wars.

The empire, at its peak in 1758, stretched for a brief time from modern-day Maharashtra in the south to the Sutlej River in the north after their victory against the Afghans at the Battle of Delhi in 1757, to Orissa in the east or about one-third of the subcontinent. However the Marathas lost Delhi in 1761 after their defeat in the Third Battle of Panipat but soon recovered it after achieving a decisive victory over the Pashtun-Rohillas of Rohilkhand in 1771.

A large portion of the Maratha empire was coastline, which had been secured by the potent Maratha Navy under commanders such as Kanhoji Angre. He successfully kept foreign naval ships at bay, particularly those of the Portuguese and British. Securing the coastal areas and building land-based fortifications were crucial aspects of the Maratha's defensive strategy and regional military history.