The United Kingdom first encountered Gorkhas—the term Gurkha is actually a British mispronunciation—during the invasion of Nepal by the East India Company in 1814. Struggling to defeat tiny, mountainous Nepal, the Anglo-Nepalese War lasted for a year and a half, ending with the treaty of Sugauli in 1816. The ferocious defense by Nepal’s outnumbered forces greatly impressed the British officers and men they faced, and mid-war, in 1815, the Company began recruiting Gorkhali, Kumaonis, Garhwalis and other Himalayan hill men into the Nasiri Regiment. These fierce Nepalese warriors would in time come to be referred to by the singular if erroneous term “Gurkha”, and that initial regiment would be renamed the “1st King’s Own Gurkha Rifles”.