ABSTRACT
Historians of West European warfare are still debating whether it involved a military revolution or a long military evolution. This chapter analyses the role of the European military entrepreneurs by making two case studies of the Maratha Confederacy and the Khalsa Kingdom: the two strongest indigenous powers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. While the Khalsa Kingdom was a regional power, the Maratha Confederacy in the aftermath of Third Panipat was an agglomeration of sirdars. Before Third Panipat, the Maratha Confederacy controlled almost two-thirds of India and the subcontinent's population in the same period rose from 150 to 200 million. Compared to the Maratha Confederacy, in the Khalsa Kingdom, the European military entrepreneurs enjoyed less power, privileges and perquisites. The biggest deficiency of the Maratha Confederacy and the Khalsa Kingdom were their failures to set up officer training academies where sons of the nobles could be educated in Western military practice by the European military entrepreneurs.
