The siege of Aligarh also known as the Battle of Aligarh was fought between the

Maratha Confederacy The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern Indian confederation that came to dominate much of the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century. Maratha rule formally began in 1674 with the coronation of Shi ...

and the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

during the

Second Anglo-Maratha War } The Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803–1805) was the second conflict between the British East India Company and the Maratha Empire in India. Background The British had supported the "fugitive" Peshwa Raghunathrao in the First Anglo-Maratha War ...

(1803–1805) at

Aligarh Aligarh (; formerly known as Allygarh, and Kol) is a city in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. It is the administrative headquarters of Aligarh district, and lies northwest of state capital Lucknow and approximately southeast of the cap ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Aligarh Fort Aligarh Fort (''Aligarh Qila'') is located in the patwari nagla city of Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. It is also called "Aligarh Qila". Most part of it is damaged and only ruins remain. The fort is situated near the Grand Trunk Road and consists of ...

, one of the strongest forts in India, was fortified and commanded by a French mercenary officer

Pierre Perron Pierre Perron (born March 14, 1959) is a Canadian econometrician at Boston University. Perron is known for the Phillips–Perron test of a unit root In probability theory and statistics, a unit root is a feature of some stochastic processes ( ...

. It was laid under siege on 1 September 1803, by the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

76th Regiment The 76th Regiment of Foot was a British Army regiment, raised in 1787. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, 33rd (Duke of Wellington's) Regiment to form the Duke of Wellington's Regiment in 1881. Hi ...

, now known as the

Yorkshire Regiment The Yorkshire Regiment (14th/15th, 19th and 33rd/76th Foot) (abbreviated YORKS) is an infantry regiment of the British Army, created by the amalgamation of three historic regiments in 2006. It lost one battalion as part of the Army 2020 defence ...

, under General Lord Gerard Lake. It was captured from the

Maratha The Marathi people ( Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as ...

s and French on 4 September 1803. During the assault, fourteen ditches were lined with sword-blades and poisoned chevaux-de-frise around the fort by the French soldiers. The walls were reinforced with French artillery. Tigers and Lions of Scindia's menagerie were also used by the French. During the battle, the British lost as many as 900 soldiers. The then

Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish soldier and Tories (British political party), Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of Uni ...

declared the capture as "One of the most extraordinary feats of the British conquest of Northern India".

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Decisive Battles of India from 1746 to 1849 Inclusive, By George Bruce Malleson
Conflicts in 1803 Ally Ghur 1803 Ally Ghur 1803 Ally Ghur 1803 Ally Ghur 1803 Aligarh 1803 in India September 1803 events {{India-hist-stub

See also

References

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