Battle of Assaye

September 23, 1803

On a baking plain in the Deccan, Arthur Wellesley - the future Duke of Wellington - led an outnumbered Anglo-Indian force against the Maratha guns and won the hardest day of his life. Assaye taught him to hate war and to trust infantry. The Maratha Confederacy's back was broken. Wellington later said Assaye, not Waterloo, was the finest thing he ever did on a battlefield.