The Battle of Assaye was a battle of the Second Anglo-Maratha War fought between the Maratha Empire and the British East India Company. It occurred on 23 September 1803 near Assaye in western India. An outnumbered Indian and British force, under the command of Major General Arthur Wellesley (who later became the Duke of Wellington), defeated the combined Maratha army of Daulatrao Scindia and Raghuji Bhonsle. The battle was Wellesley's first great victory and the one he later described as his finest accomplishment on the battlefield, even more so than his more famous victories in the Peninsular War and his defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo.
From August 1803, Wellesley's army and a separate force under the command of his subordinate, Colonel James Stevenson, pursued the Maratha cavalry-based army, which had threatened to raid south into Hyderabad. After several weeks of pursuit and counter-marching, Scindia reinforced the combined Maratha army with his modernized infantry and artillery as the British forces closed in on his position. Wellesley received intelligence indicating the location of the Maratha encampment on 21 September and devised a plan whereby his two armies would converge on the Maratha position three days later. Wellesley's force encountered the Maratha Army, under the command of Colonel Anthony Pohlmann, a German formerly in British service, 6 miles (9.7 km) farther south than he anticipated. Although outnumbered, Wellesley resolved to attack at once, believing that the Maratha army would soon move off. Both sides suffered severely in the ensuing battle; Maratha artillery inflicted large numbers of casualties among Wellesley's troops but the vast numbers of Maratha cavalry proved largely ineffective. A combination of bayonet and cavalry charges eventually forced the Maratha army to retreat, with the loss of most of their guns but Wellesley's army was too battered and exhausted to pursue.
