Seven Years War

BATTLE OF PLASSEY

The Battle of Plassey was fought in north-eastern India on 23 June 1757. Troops of the British East India Company, led by Robert Clive, came up against the forces of Siraj-ud-Daulah, the last Nawab of Bengal, and his French allies. Clive's victory eventually led to the British becoming the greatest economic and military power in India.

By the mid-18th century, the Mughal Empire, which had once controlled the majority of the Indian sub-continent, was in a condition of breakdown as local Indian and European states endeavored to cut out their own political and economic power bases.

The East India Company was one of these contending powers. While fighting the French for trading supremacy, it at the same time started to include itself in nearby political issues, particularly in Bengal, India's most richest territory.

The Bengali ruler Siraj-ud-Daulah had been in dispute with the company for quite a while. A year prior to the Battle of Plassey, when the company wouldn't end military arrangements against the French after the outbreak of the Seven Years War (1756-63), he had assaulted and caught its fortress of Stronghold William in Calcutta (Kolkata).

 

Black Hole 

Eyre Coote, later Commander-in-Chief in India,
was a captain serving during Clive's Bengal expedition, c1779

Not long after Fort William's acquiescence, Siraj restricted various prisoners in a small prison. One British survivor's account states that 123 of the 146 prisoners died in the pulverize.

The 'Black Hole of Calcutta' subsequently proved to be a helpful justification for British revenge and victory. It has been the subject of much discussion from that point onward.

By February 1757 the Company and the British Army force had won Calcutta back. The next month Robert Clive held onto the French stronghold of Chandernagore.

In the spring of 1757 the opposing armies skirmished and squared off in a series of minor engagements.

Regime Change

On learning that Siraj was negotiating with the French, the Company chose a change in regime was expected to accomplish its political and financial objectives.t was not alone in wanting Siraj gone. Mahtab Rai, top of the Jagat Seth Bengal banking family, was worried that the Nawab would seize  the Seth's colossal abundance for his own closures. The Jagat Seths and Clive therefore secretly offered to make one of Siraj's army commanders, Mir Jafar, the new nawab of Bengal, if Siraj was defeated in fight. On 23 June 1757 Mir Jafar got his opportunity at Plassey.

 

The Armies

 

Lord Robert Clive, c1764

Siraj-ud-Daulah (1733-57) commanded around 50,000 men, including 16,000 cavalry. He also had 50 field guns, a combination of 32-, 24- and 18-pounders. Officers on loan from the French commanded this artillery. Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Clive (1725-74) instructed the British force. Formerly a writer (clerk),Clive had changed to the Company's military assistance and his strategic style and individual fortitude had acquired him quick advancement and an extraordinary personal fortune. His army was around 3,000-strong, including 2,100 Indian sepoys (infantry) and around 800 Europeans. The latter included the first Madras European Regiment and 600 Crown troops from the 39th Regiment. Clive had just ten field weapons and two small howitzers

The East India Company was one of these contending powers. While fighting the French for trading supremacy, it at the same time started to include itself in nearby political issues, particularly in Bengal, India's most richest territory

The Battle

 

Plan of Battle of Plassey, 1757

The militaries met on the banks of the Bhagirathi-Hooghly Stream, close to the little village of Plassey (Palashi) around 100 miles (160km) north of Calcutta (Kolkata). The Nawab’s opening cannonade was out of range, while various skirmishes were inconclusive.

The Nawab of Bengal's artillary on its movable platform, 1757

A heavy downpour of rain then interrupted proceedings. The British artillerymen quickly covered their cannon and ammunition with tarpaulins. The enemy failed to do the same and their artillery was put out of action.

 

Storm of fire

 

Cannon ball fired at the Battle of Plassey, 1757

The Nawab's men moved ahead, accepting that Clive's cannon were also inoperable. They were met by a tempest of fire and before long pulled out in chaos. At this point, Mir Jafar, commanding the Nawab’s cavalry, refused to take part. Before the day's over Clive was in a situation to defeat the Nawab's disheartened forces, inflicting more than 500 setbacks for the loss of only 22 men killed and 50 injured. Mir Jafar later killed Siraj and was appointed nawab in his place. But he became little more than a puppet ruler, forced to cede control of Bengal through the treaties he signed with the British. Siraj’s defeat also meant that the French were no longer a force in Bengal.

 

Imperial Power

 

After his triumph at Plassey, Clive was appointed Governor of Bengal. In 1765 he secured the 'diwani', the right to gather the tax and customs income of Bengal, from Emperor Shah Alam II for the Company. This affirmed British military supreme around there and gave the Company a political stake in India.

 

Medal Commemorating Robert Clive's victory at Plassey, 1757

Indian tax revenues were currently used to purchase Indian products for export to Britain. The Company created a huge civil and military administration to collect the taxes and police its territories. No longer purely a commercial Company, it had become an imperial power. As a part of this cycle Clive filled in as Commander-in-Chief Bengal, with the neighborhood rank of major-general. He did a lot to coordinate and prepare the company army on European lines, transforming it into a considerable power.

 

This satire, entitles 'The Madras Tvart, attacked Clive for both his greed and misrule, 1772

In the years that followed, the British utilized their newly acquired incomes and military may to discharge their European frontier equals, the French and the Dutch, from the rest of India. The triumph at Plassey began a cycle that eventually resulted in British rule over the sub-Continent.

 

The Legacy

 

For a later generation of Britons, the victory at Plassey marked the birth of their Indian Empire. Until Indian independence in 1947 almost every schoolchild would have heard of the battle and known of ‘Clive of India’. This was despite the fact that during his lifetime Clive had divided public opinion. Many people had denounced him as a corrupt and greedy ‘nabob’ who used his political and military influence to amass a fortune. By the mid-18th century, the Mughal Empire, which had once controlled the majority of the Indian sub-continent, was in a condition of breakdown as local Indian and European states endeavored to cut out their own political and economic power bases.