Four British assaults failed, and Lake made peace with the Raja, who kept his fort.
01Walls of earth
Lohagarh, the iron fort, had been built by Maharaja Suraj Mal with thick ramparts of packed earth behind a wide, deep moat. Cannon shot sank into the walls instead of breaking them. Ranjit Singh of Bharatpur had given shelter to Yashwantrao Holkar after Deeg, and Lake came to punish him. Between January and February 1805 he sent four storming parties at the breaches. Each was thrown back from the ditch and the walls.
02Peace on the Raja’s terms
Lake’s losses ran to about three thousand killed and wounded. In April 1805 the two sides made peace: the Raja paid an indemnity and gave up his alliance with Holkar, and Lake marched away. Bharatpur’s fame as the fort the British could not take lasted twenty years, until Lord Combermere mined and stormed it in 1826.
Bharatpur was the Company’s worst check in the north and showed that its armies could be stopped behind good walls.
