How did Marathas fumble this?
I dont know much about jeet history but the maratha confederacy was like the eastern zhou in how decentralized it was. The king was only nominally the king and every state was de facto an independent sovereign state, with their own armies, tax collection, languages, tribes, etc. Its even more decentralized than the mongol khanates that Genghis Khan united. There was absolutely no bureaucracy to speak of and its just tribal armies going around plundering the land and extorting the population to fund the upkeep of their armies or palaces (if they could afford any). A simpler way to describe it would be to call it a confederation of independent warlords who reported on paper to a head warlord and who's "taxes" is actually straight up protection money from defeated and conquered villages.
>>18767279Marathas cooked timmys till they got lucky
>>18767279Marathas lost because the lack of jam
>>18767313I find it astounding that despite thousands of years of Persian rule and despite being in close proximity to the cultural powerhouse that is China (whose influence created the sinosphere, actual states such as Korean Kingdoms and Japan, complete with a bureaucracy for efficient tax collection and public works), the Indians completely failed to become a real state, returning to literal tribal ways engaged with pointless bitter feuds with each other. Such a stark fucking difference when you compare them with their neighbors the Persians or the newly arrived great powers from Europe. Completely mind boggling that despite verdant farmlands that were probably the most fertile lands on the planet, they never actually manage to form their own civilization, instead merely being a conquered tribal people. This really needs to be studied.
The British had a superior navy and had control over their ports. There was also infighting going on which the British had leverage over. It's a classic "divide and conquer" textbook example.
>>18767279Because the brits defeated them.
>>18767279That's a bad map. It doesn't show the divisions within the Maratha Confederacy. The Maratha consisted of five major dynastic states plus minor states and tributaries.
Because they weren't a real unified nation. "Confederacy" is apt, but painting them as one big happy family isn't.
>>18767382It’s similar to Medieval Eastern Europe. Both had forces that wished to unify all of their particular region under themselves (Byzantine Empire/Mughal Empire), both had dissenting kingdoms of many different peoples speaking different languages and variants of religion inhabiting their regions, and both were eventually conquered and unified by outside forces (Ottomans and USSR/British). Except in the case of the Indians they were able to gain a sense of national identity with the ample help of the British.
