हिंदीOn this day

Battle of Koregaon

SideArmy of Peshwa Bajirao IICommanders of Bajirao II, with Bapu Gokhale’s army nearby
1818vs
VictorEast India Company detachmentCaptain Francis Staunton

During the last Anglo-Maratha war, a Company detachment of about 800 men, mostly of the 2nd battalion, 1st Bombay Native Infantry, fought a far larger body of the Peshwa’s troops for a whole day in the lanes of Koregaon.

Date: 1 January 1818Where: Koregaon on the Bhima, near PuneType: Battle
Photo: Knitin777 · CC BY-SA 3.0
Result

Staunton’s detachment held the village through the day, and the Peshwa’s force moved off as General Smith’s column approached.

01A day in the village

Bajirao II had broken with the Company in November 1817, and after Khadki he was moving across the Deccan with his army. Captain Staunton, marching from Shirur to reinforce Pune, found the Peshwa’s host across the Bhima on the morning of 1 January 1818. He seized the walled village of Koregaon. Arab and Maratha infantry stormed in again and again; the fight went house to house, the Company’s two guns were taken and retaken, and many officers fell. The detachment had no water through the day. By night the attacks stopped, and the Peshwa’s army withdrew as General Smith’s force came up.

02The obelisk

The Company raised an obelisk at Koregaon in 1822 with the names of its dead, many of them Mahar soldiers of the Bombay army. Six months after the battle Bajirao II surrendered to Sir John Malcolm and was sent to Bithur on a pension, and the Peshwai ended. In 1927 Dr B. R. Ambedkar visited the pillar to honour the Mahar soldiers, and since then many gather there each 1 January. The battle is remembered in different ways by different people today; this page records what the sources say of the fighting.

The Peshwas of Pune
Dynasty · 1713–1818 CEThe Peshwas of PuneThe Peshwas were the hereditary chief ministers of the Chhatrapatis, and from 1713 to 1818 they ran the Maratha state from Pune. Under Bajirao I and his son Nanasaheb the Marathas became the strongest power in India, until Panipat in 1761 and the British wars that ended the line in 1818.Read →
Why it matters

Koregaon was one of the last actions of the Peshwa’s army before the fall of the Peshwai in June 1818, which left the Company master of western India.