There has been little direct contact with the lands controlled by the British East India Company or its clients, but by the early 1800s a confrontation is becoming more likely.

Just as Nepal had been expanding toward the west throughout the late eighteenth century, so the company has steadily added to its annexed or dependent territories all the way to the Punjab.

Amar Singh Thapa claims lowland areas of Kumaon and Garhwal as part of his conquests, but David Ochterlony, the British East India Company's representative in the west, keeps up constant diplomatic resistance against such claims, which are not pressed.

In 1804 Palpa is finally annexed by Gurkha and along with it comes claims to parts of the Butawal area in the Tarai.

As Nepalese troops slowly occupy these tracts, local landlords complain to the company that their rights are being violated.

Similar claims to Saran District lead to armed clashes between Nepalese troops and the forces of local landlords.

During these proceedings, there is constant diplomatic intercourse between the government of Nepal and the British East India Company and little desire on either side for open hostilities.

The Gurkha generals, however, are quite confident in their ability to wage warfare in the mountains, and the company, with its far greater resources, have little reason to give in to this aggressive state, which blocks commerce in the hills.

After retreating before a reoccupation by company troops, Nepalese forces counterattack against police outposts in Butawal, killing eighteen police officers on April 22, 1814.

The fragile state of Nepal is at war with the British Empire.

Nepal's single major unifying force at this stage in its history is the Gurkha-led army and its supply system.

Prithvi Narayan Shah and his successors had done the best they could to borrow military techniques used by the British in India, including modern ordnance, command structures, and even uniforms.

An entire munitions and armaments industry has been created in the hills, based on locally mined and processed raw materials, and supported by a system of forced labor to transport commodities.

The soldiers in the army are renowned for their ability to move relatively fast with their supplies and to fight with discipline under tough conditions.

They also know their terrain better than the British, who have little experience here.

Although the Nepalese army of an estimated sixteen thousand regulars will have to fight on a wide front, it has great logistical advantages and a large reservoir of labor to support it.

The initial British campaign is an attack on two fronts.

In the eastern theater, two columns totaling about ten thousand troops are supposed to coordinate their attacks in the Makwanpur-Palpa area, but poor leadership and unfamiliarity with hill warfare caused the early collapse of these campaigns.

In the west, another ten thousand troops in two columns are to converge on the forces of Amar Singh Thapa.

One of the western columns fails miserably, but the main force under Ochterlony outmaneuvers the Nepalese army and defeats General Thapa on May 9, 1815, leading to the complete loss of Kumaon by Nepal.

The Nepalese forces have already proved their abilities, so the British East India Company takes no chances the next year, marshaling thirty-five thousand men and more than one hundred artillery pieces under Ochterlony for a thrust toward Makwanpur.

Simultaneous operations by the chogyal, or king, of Sikkim are driving the Nepalese army from the east.

Major battles before Makwanpur in late February 1816 result in the final defeat of Nepalese forces by early March.

Diplomats have already begun preparing a peace treaty, which reached Ochterlony on March 5.

The Anglo- Nepalese War (1814-16) is a total disaster for Nepal.

According to the Treaty of Sagauli, signed in 1816, Nepal loses Sikkim, the territories west of the Kali River (Kumaon and Garhwal), and most of its lands in the Tarai.

The British East India Company is to pay 200,000 rupees annually to Nepal to make up for the loss of revenues from the Tarai.

Kathmandu is also forced to accept a British resident, which is extremely disturbing to the government of Nepal because the presence of a resident has typically preceded outright British conquest throughout India.

In effect, the treaty proves to be less damaging, for the company soon finds the Tarai lands difficult to govern and returns some of them to Nepal later in 1816, simultaneously abolishing the annual payments.

The return of Tarai territory is important for the survival of Nepal because the government relies on the area as a source of land grants, and it is doubtful that the country as it is run at this time could have survived without this source of endowments.

The presence of the resident, too, turns out to be less difficult than first imagined because all later governments in Kathmandu take stringent measures to isolate him by restricting his movements and keeping a close eye on the people he meets.

Nevertheless, the glory days of conquest are over, and Nepal has been squeezed into the boundaries it will still have in the early 1990s.