Maratha troops were defeated by forces of the British East India Company at the Battle of Assaye, one of the decisive battles of the Second Anglo-Maratha War.

The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern polity in the Indian subcontinent. It comprised the realms of the Peshwa and four major independent Maratha states under the nominal leadership of the former.

The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies, and later with East Asia. The company gained control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world by various measures and had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British Army at certain times.

The Battle of Assaye was a battle of the Second Anglo-Maratha War fought between the Maratha Confederacy 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, defeated the combined Maratha army of Daulatrao Scindia and the Bhonsle Raja of Berar. 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.

Second Anglo-Maratha War was a large conflict within the Maratha Empire involving the British East India Company. It resulted in major loss of territory for the Marathas, including regions around Delhi and in present-day Gujarat falling into direct Company rule.