The Marathas at Their Peak

Battle of Pratapgad, 1659 — Shivaji, still consolidating his fledgling kingdom against the Bijapur Sultanate, lured the powerful Bijapuri general Afzal Khan into a personal parley at the foot of Pratapgad fort under a truce, and killed him at close quarters using concealed "tiger claw" weapons (bagh nakh) when Afzal Khan allegedly attempted to attack him first — accounts differ on who struck first, which is itself sometimes tested. The ambush, followed by a rout of Afzal Khan's leaderless army in the surrounding hills, was an early and formative Maratha victory that established Shivaji's reputation and independent power in the Deccan, marking the point at which the Bijapur Sultanate could no longer treat him as a minor irritant.

Battle of Palkhed, 1728 — the Peshwa Baji Rao I, facing the Nizam of Hyderabad's attempt to interfere in Maratha succession politics, out-manoeuvred the Nizam's much larger army through pure speed and mobility, cutting off its supply lines and forcing a surrender without a major pitched confrontation at all. Cited in military history textbooks worldwide as an exemplary campaign of strategic mobility, Palkhed forced the Nizam to sign the Treaty of Mungi Shevgaon, recognising Maratha rights to collect chauth (a quarter share of revenue) from Mughal Deccan territories — a template of indirect fiscal dominance the Marathas would extend across much of India over the following decades.

Battle of Vasai (Bassein), 1739 — the Marathas, under Chimaji Appa (brother of Baji Rao I), besieged and captured the fortified Portuguese settlement of Vasai after a long campaign, ending Portuguese political and military power on the northern Konkan coast near Bombay. Though Goa itself remained under Portuguese control until 1961, Vasai marks the effective end of Portugal's broader territorial ambitions along the west coast, redirecting the colonial contest in India increasingly toward the British, French, and Dutch.

(Panipat III, 1761 — see the Panipat table above — is the Marathas' peak-to-decline turning point.)