BATTLE OF PLASSEY

 

By the 18th century, trading outposts run by the Portuguese, French, Danish, Dutch and English traders dotted the Indian coastline, all seeking the peppers, cloves and pearls of the east. At this time, the Europeans had not the numbers or firepower to conquer India, and the dominant power in the subcontinent was the Mughal Empire. It was, however, highly decentralized, often leaving the regional lords- the  Nawabs-to fend for themselves. In that regard,  these Nawabs often hired armed European trading corporations to put down rebellions within their domain, the primary method by which many European traders established their bases in Indian lands. The most prominent of these soldiers of fortune were of the Honorable East India Company, an independent mega corporation in service of the Crown of Britain, with a government mandated monopoly on British trade in India, and the ability to appoint its own governors, mint its own coin, and field its own army which consisted both of European soldiers, and Indians under the British Payroll, known as Sepoys. By the 1650s, the Company had established trading bases in Bombay, Madras, Calcutta. The European brought to India not just their ships, bullion, and guns, but also their rivalries. Whenever war broke out between in Europe, conflict would inevitably spill over into India. Nowhere was this as prevalent as in the Carnatic Wars. These were a series of 3 conflicts between 1746 and 1763 that saw Britain and France, the 2 largest Colonial powers, battle for colonial dominance in India. The 1st Carnatic War was a relatively minor affair, and ran concurrently with the war of Austrian succession in Europe. As France sided with Prussia, and England with Austria, their perspective East corporations locked horns in the far east. In 1746, a fleet of French warships bombarded and took the British fort at Madras. The local Nawab of Arcot, a fierce, British ally, raised a force of 10,000 men to retake the Fort, but was repelled by a much smaller French force. Meanwhile, the British retaliated by laying siege to the French stronghold of Pondicherry in 1748, but were forced to withdraw at the onset of the monsoon rains. This short conflict ended with the conclusion of its parent war in Europe, and in the treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle, Madras was returned to Britain by the French, in exchange for the Fort of Louisbourg, which had been taken by the British all the way over in Canada.

 The 1st Carnatic War had been fought against the backdrop of a great wave of geopolitical change in the Indian Subcontinent. The old Mughal Empire was in a slow decline, and as it rotted from within, various ambitious Nawabs carved pieces out of its decaying body, creating smaller, functionally independent states, that fought amongst themselves for land and prestige. So, even though the governments of Britain and France were nominally at peace, the British and French East India Companies continued to fight various proxy wars with one another, with both sides struggling to place local rulers on the throne they suspected would favor them over their fellow European rival. In 1749, a dynastic struggle erupted over the Lordship of the Carnatic, and the Europeans quickly picked their sides. France backed the up-and-coming Chanda Sahib, while the British backed the well-established camp of Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah. At the onset, Sahib appeared to have the upper hand, taking control of most of the Carnatic, before besieging Wallajah’s last stronghold at Trichinopoly in 1751. Victory seemed like a sure thing, for Sahib commanded 6,000 men and had a force of 1,800 Frenchmen by this side, while within the fort, Wallajah and his British allies numbered only 1,600. Here enters a pivotal character in the story of Colonial India, a young British officer named Robert Clive. A fast-thinking and intrepid commander, he mustered a force of 280 British soldiers and 300 Sepoys and made a bold stab at the city of Arcot, the seat of Sahib’s palace and a city of 100,000 souls. Arcot had been left sparsely defended, and amazingly, the city garrison abandoned their posts upon hearing word of Clive’s dogged, nearly inhumanly impulsive strike at their city. Upon hearing of the seizure of his capital, Chanda Sahib was forced to divert troops from the Siege at Trichinopoly, relieving the Anglo-Indian force there. Not only had Clive defied all expectations and taken Arcot with a tiny force, he managed to defend it from a subsequent Franco-Indian counterattack 4000 men strong. He proceeded to win several other battles over the next 2 years, developing a reputation as a brilliant commander, with an aura of near invincibility. In 1754, the Treaty of Pondicherry elevated the British-backed Muhammad Ali Wallajah to the Nawabship of the Carnatic, making the British the predominant European power in South-Eastern India. 

Meanwhile the situation in the North of India was no less chaotic than in the South. One of the most prominent rising powers expanding at the expense of the Mughals was the Marathas, proudly independent and fiercely war-like, they had broken free of Mughal control in the late 17th century, and in the following decades, the mounted Hindu warriors had rapidly conquered much of central India and were pushing upwards into Bengal. Bengal at the time was under the rulership of an ambitious Muslim Nawab, Alivardi Khan, who much like the Nawabs of the Carnatic, pledged nominal loyalty to the rapidly fading illusion of imperial Mughal power, while in essence being the sovereign prince of a functionally independent realm. Alivardi managed to consistently fend off the perpetual Marathi attacks into his territory, but the raids simply kept coming and coming, and in 1751 he was forced to cede the borderland of Orissa and pay the Marathas an annual tribute. Alivardi was left in charge of a desolate and war-torn realm, and in order to rebuild the infrastructure that had been destroyed, he imposed heavy taxations upon the merchants in his lands. The well-established European factories along the Hooghly river were not exempt from this, and the British traders there grumbled mightily at their shake-down at the hands of this particularly iron-fisted Bengal’s Price. The situation was only further exacerbated when Alivardi Khan passed away in 1756, leaving his heir Siraj ud-Daulah in charge. Siraj was resentful of the economic and political influence the Europeans had in his domain, and also suspected the British of being part of a coup to dethrone him, though in fairness, he was probably right about that. The French and British began to fortify their trading outposts in Bengal. Siraj immediately demanded they stop, and while the French complied, the British refused. This was the Casus Belli the zealous Nawab needed. Siraj launched an assault on the British stronghold at Calcutta in June 1756, taking the city without a struggle, and seizing the lightly manned Fort William within it after only token resistance. English traders within the Fort, some 146 men, were escorted into the dungeon, a holding cell intended only to contain 6 or fewer men. Left there for one full night, most Englishmen died of asphyxiation and heat-stroke. Siraj ud-Daulah, for his part, seemed genuinely unaware. Nevertheless, the incident, which came to be known as the “Black Hole of Calcutta” became emblazoned in the social memory of every Englishman in India, and steeled their revolve to retaliate against the Bengal’s Prince.

 

In Madras, the local governor of the East India Company resolved that Calcutta must be retaken immediately, and appointed the best man for the job, none other than a certain Major Robert Clive. In December of 1756, Clive began up the Hooghly River aboard a squadron of warships, commanding some 600 British soldiers and 900 Sepoys. Between them and Calcutta was the Bengal’s fort of Budge Budge, but one humorous tale relates that while encamped outside it at night, a drunken British seaman stumbled inside the enemy fort by accident and stormed the barricades, taking the battery. After that, the Squadron made it to Calcutta, thoroughly shelling the city with their cannons. By January 1757, the defending Bengal’s garrison quickly abandoned the city, allowing Clive and his men to retake a smoldering, ruined husk that had once been a thriving trade port. In response, Siraj mustered a huge army of 40,000 men, marching South to seize Calcutta once more. They arrived in February, setting up a siege camp outside of the city suburbs, where they engaged in some inconclusive skirmishes with the British Garrison. Amidst this deadlock, it was once again the audacious Robert Clive who turned the tides. Creating a vanguard of East India Sailors, Soldiers and Sepoys, he sailed a short distance down the Hooghly river under cover of night, and a thick blanket of fog. Disembarking downriver, his marines reached the Bengal’s Camp at 6AM, at which point they began opening fire. 

Chaos consumed the encampment; Siraj’s men shouted, tripped over themselves, and fired blindly into the fog. Horses ran wild and Elephants stampeded, all while Clive and his men continued to shoot their way through the camp, eventually making their way across the Bengal’s ditch, and back into Fort William. Casualties were light; Clive only lost 57 men, while Siraj had lost 600 out of his total 40,000. Nevertheless, the Bengal’s Prince sued for peace. On February 9th, the Treaty of Alinagar signed between the Company and Bengal: It was essentially status quo ante bellum, with the British now able to fortify their outputs unopposed. With the Bengal’s problem pacified, the company turned its attention to France. The 7 Years’ War was at full steam. On the 23rd of March, 1757, the British launched a pre-emptive strike on the French outpost of Chandernagore (Chandannagar). This attack infuriated Siraj ud-Daulah, who saw it as a blatant violation of the treaty he had just signed. He immediately began making overtures of alliance with the French in Cossimbazar (Kasim Bazar) , conspiring with them to expel the British. Back in his court, a strong underground plot to overthrow the Bengal’s Prince had grown, led by Siraj’s scheming uncle Mir Jafar. Clive found out about this plot, and on June 12th, 1757, a treaty was signed between the Company and the Conspirators. For Clive, the time was nigh. There would be no better opportunity to overthrow the meddlesome Siraj ud-Daulah, install a friendly puppet government, and ensure British dominance in Bengal. Gathering a small army, he prepared to confront the Bengal’s Prince in one final battle, and although no one knew it, it would be this battle that would decide the fate of all of India. Siraj had moved his army to a village on the Hooghly river, to the Indians it was known as Palashi, and to the English, as Plassey. At 1:00Am, on the 23rd of June, 1757, Robert Clive’s expedition arrived in the hinterlands outside Palashi, establishing their position in an Orchard of Mango Trees protected by a ditch and a mud wall, adjacent from an old hunting lodge. Cliver’s force numbered about 3,000 consisting of 1,000 British Redcoats, 2,000 Indian Sepoys, 86-pounder cannons, and 2 howitzers. The Bengal’s host, meanwhile, had encamped itself across the field a day earlier, in a camp adjacent to the river Bhagirathi, behind great earthen entrenchments and an elevated redoubt. It was a colossal horde of over 60,000 men, made up of 30,000 infantry armed with matchlock rifles, swords, pikes and rockets, as well as 20,000 cavalry armed with spears and swords. Towering over even this great mass were 50,24-pounder and 34-pounder cannons, mounted on huge wooden platforms pulled on the backs of 40 oxen each, and flanked by armoured Elephants. 

Finally, a detachment of Frenchmen, consisting of 50 artillerymen and 6 field guns, had attached themselves to the Nawab’s cause, eager to lay their British enemies low. However, despite this massive show of force, almost 3/4ths of Siraj’s army was under the influence of Mir Jafar and his conspirators. Whether or not the scheming uncle would betray his Lord, or remain loyal, would decide the fate of the battle. At the break of dawn, the Bengal’s army began to descend upon the small British force in a giant, imposing arc that covered the entire Palashi plain. The French artillery moved ahead of the main line, positioning their field guns on either side of a large water tank a half-mile away from the Mango Grove. They were followed by the right wing of the Bengal’s army, led by only loyal generals in Siraj’s army, the Muslim Mir Madan, and the Hindu Mohan Lal. Meanwhile, Clive had squared up, ordering his men to advance out of the grove, forming a line just beyond its walls while his own artillery formed a vanguard under the cover of a nearby brick kiln. The British were in a pickle. Clive knew he could not devote troops to an attack on the advancing vanguard without exposing his left flank to Mir Jafar’s massive horde. All he could hope for was that Jafar would be good to his word, and with that, he turned his attentions to the advancing right. At 8AM, the cannonade began. The French and Bengal fired a withering crescendo with their mounted cannons & field guns, wounding a handful of men. The British returned fire, but to little effect. Realizing he was sustaining too much damage, Clive orchestrated an orderly retreat back into the Mango Grove. The Franco-Bengal Shelling continued, but the British were now well insulated- the perimeter ditch and the trees in the grove sheltered the men from Cannonballs, while the met mud absorbed the impact of those that struck the earth beneath them. From their sheltered position, the British artillery was able to more effectively return fire, killing several Bengali gunners, and rendering their mounted cannons moribund. Meanwhile, Mir Jafar had committed to the battle. 

Throughout the day, the back-and-forth artillery duel continued without either side gaining any ground, but Clive and his men were soon beset upon by a stroke of luck. At midnight, a thunderstorm erupted over the battlefield, drenching the Bengali’s powder and rendering their cannons useless for the time being. Meanwhile, the British guns had been covered in tarpaulins, and were still operational. For hours, the British launched volley after volley into the helpless Bengali right, who were unable to return fire, soon the rains began to abate, and the Bengali leapt back into action. Mir Madan believed that the British had surely run out of ammunition by now, and advanced his cavalry in a line, preparing them to charge the British position. As it turns out, this was a fatal miscalculation, for as they advanced, Mir Madan was mortally wounded by a grapeshot cannonball. The general’s unceremonious death was devastating to Siraj, threw himself at Jafar’s feet and begged him to enter the fray. Jafar agreed, lying through his teeth, and left to prepare his men. Meanwhile, one of his fellow conspirators, Raj Durlabh, whispered malicious advice into Siraj’s ear, advising him to retreat. Thoroughly shaken by the death of Mir Madan, and realizing he was in a den of snakes, Siraj compiled, and ordered a general withdrawal. Meanwhile, Jafar sent a correspondence to Clive, advising he attack now. The messenger however did not reach the British, unable to cross a battlefield still under heavy cannonfire. 

Nevertheless, the British took their own initiative. The Bengali retreat left the French artillery isolated in their position, causing one Major Kilpatrick to storm out of the Mango grove with the 39th regiment, charging the French position. He was quickly joined by Clive, and together they forced the French to retreat behind the Bengali entrenchment. Meanwhile, Mir Jafar was advancing on the left to join the British, but the British did not know it was him, so Clive dispatched 3 platoons to counter his approach. After the British fired a volley in a direction, Jafar stopped, and bided his time. The ideas had begun to turn; it was now the British gaining ground rapidly, while the Bengalis steadily lost it. Only a small portion of Siraj’s army now actively fought back, as the rest simply departed from the battlefield, under the firm influence of Jafar and his conspirators. As the British advanced upon the water tanks, the last of he loyalist Bengal’s soldiers took position on a nearby hillock, using it as a base to delay their approach with harassing cavalry raids, but were repulsed each time by volleys of crack-shot musket fire. The Frenchmen had retreated to the elevated redoubt built into the Bengali enrichment, and from there engaged in another heated exchange of cannonfire with Clive and his artillery, who had advanced up to the water tank. Finally, Clive delivered the coup de grace: a 2 pronged attack. He ordered 1 major Eyre Coote to storm the hillock, while the rest of his forces launched an open assault upon the French-held redoubt. This final assault proved decisive. The French were forced to withdraw, and what remained of Siraj’s loyal troops were routed, put into full flight. The Battle of Plassey had been won by the British. Of the East India Company, only 22 soldiers lay dead. Among the Bengal’s, 500 After the battle, Mir Jafar travelled to the British camp at Daudpur, where he was declared the new Nawab of Bengal. Siraj ud-Daulah had field in disguise, but was caught and executed. Mir Jafar proved to be a fickle ally. Realizing correctly the British were an existential threat to his power, he made overtures to the Dutch to drive them out. This was thwarted by the British, who defeated the Dutch at the Battle of Chinsurah in 1759. Mir Jafar was then promptly deposed by the British. Meanwhile, the war with the French continued, and here the British emerged victorious too, successfully taking the final French stronghold of Pondicherry in 1763.

 The Treaty of Paris returned Pondicherry to the French in 1763, but they were contained to that port, and never again gained the prominence they once had on the Indian Subcontinent. With the British East India Company as the sole European power in India, they were more or less free to appoint and depose Native puppet rulers at will. Troubling times lay ahead for India.

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