After the Peshwa took refuge with the British, the pattern followed the familiar course of a disputed Maratha succession. The British offered support to an otherwise weak candidate, in return for substantial grants of revenue-producing land. More important, the British asserted the legitimacy and authority of their candidate over the Maratha houses. (This sequence is structurally no different from the British attempt to set up Raghobadada a half-century earlier, or the Nizam's parallel attempts in the same period.) Just as predictably, Holkar and others at Pune set up a rival candidate and sought allies. What differed this time were the resources and organization of the British. Lord Wellesley and Lord Lake organized a vast, comprehensive set of coordinated campaigns, which put 60,000 trained men in the field on widely separated fronts. The aims were to divide the Maratha houses, break Shinde's modern army and regular income, and seize income-producing territory. During the monsoon of 1803, the British neutralized Holkar, the rival Peshwa, and several of the smaller houses (such as Patwardhan) with treaties.

In the months that followed, the war was fought on several fronts. One British army engaged Shinde and the Bhonsle forces in northern Maharashtra, the major battle costing thousands of casualties on both sides. With the defeat of the Maratha army, the British took Burhanpur and its nearby fortress, Asir. They also succeeded in stopping the traditional raiding tactics adopted by the Bhonsle forces. Simultaneously, another British army moved on Delhi, Agra, and Shinde's lands north of the Chambal river.