'Their Infantry and Guns Will Astonish You': The Army of Hindustan and European Mercenaries in Maratha service 1780-1803

By the middle of the eighteenth century, the Mughal Empire in India was in serious decline. The rulers of the various breakaway successor states faced a major military problem. Their armies were being effortlessly scattered by much smaller forces of European led and trained troops. Their immediate answer was to buy in specialist help in the form of European mercenaries to train their own troops in the methods of the victorious British and French.

This led to a number of so called ‘Trained Br...