War & Conflict:- Battle of Plassey 1757

The battle of Plassey took place on the 23rd of June 1757, between three thousand well-armed British East India Company soldiers, under the command of Robert Clive, and approximately forty thousand Mughal soldiers belonging to the Nawab of Bengal.

The Nawab of Bengal represented the biggest subah or subdivision of the Mughal Empire, and the battle would decide the fates of Bengal, Orissa, and Bihar.

At the time, there were numerous European powers competing for a share of the trade in India, and the British East India Company’s biggest rivals were the French who’d established a fort close to the Hugli River in Chandranagar, and both the British and the French, or any of their European rivals for the matter, were more than willing to extend their support to local rulers, the Mughal Empire was declining at the  time and many of the local rulers were paying homage to the Mughal Emperor in Delhi only in name, in exchange for a share of the lucrative trade that existed at the time.

In 1756, following the death of Alwardi Khan, his son, Siraj-Ul-Daulah, ascended to the throne, and assumed the title of Nawab. Ul-Daulah adopted a pro-French stance, and fostered better ties with the French and this approach did not go well with the British, especially in light of the fact that Britain and France were on opposing sides in the seven-year-war that broke out in Europe a year after Ul-Daulah had assumed the throne. In June, 1756, the new Nawab’s troops attacked and seized a British East India company fort in Calcutta, Fort William, after the British had continuously ignored his warnings to stop strengthening the fort, the British East India Company at that stage was clearly uncomfortable with the growing French influence in Bengal.

What followed next would later be infamously known as the black hole of Calcutta, the Europeans that were at the fort were locked away in a small cell for the night, and by the following morning many had died from dehydration and starvation.

The British East India Company responded by sending a fleet from Madras that included European soldiers and Indian sepoys under the command of Robert Clive.

As soon as they arrived, Clive and his men moved towards Calcutta and took the city. Clive met with little or no resistance in Calcutta, and the five hundred or so Mughal soldiers in Calcutta, instantly surrendered.

Siraj-Ul-Daulah, furious that the British East India Company had attacked Calcutta sent his army of forty thousand men out to retake Calcutta, and his soldiers arrived in Calcutta at dawn but the British and Indian troops had spotted the advancing Mughal soldiers and instead of retreating, Robert Clive, ordered his men to attack the troops that were weary from the long march, despite being enormously outnumbered.

Siraj-Ul-Daulah clearly rattled by the act, ordered his men to retreat and a week later he signed a peace treaty with the British East India Company, granting the company full privileges.

Robert Clive, however did not trust Ul-Daulah entirely, and there was the very real possibility that once he’d returned to Madras, Ul-Daulah would attack Calcutta, especially if one took into account his close ties with the French, and with that in mind, Clive ordered his men to attack the French fort in Chandranagar.

Outraged that the British had carried out another attack in his territory, Ul-Daulah ordered his men to march and the Mughals set up camp in the town of Plassey.

Unknown to Ul-Daulah, Clive was secretly in correspondence with one of Ul-Daulah’s generals, Mir Jafar Khan. Clive had signed a treaty with Khan, and in return for the Mughal general’s help, Khan would be given the Mughal throne.

Clive commenced with the march to Plassey, his men were not only armed with muskets and bayonets, but also with cannons and howitzers. Just prior to the advance, Khan, had confirmed that he would betray Ul-Daulah, and things as far as Robert Clive was concerned was going according to plan.

Clive and his men arrived at Plassey in the early hours of the 23rd of June. At dawn of the same day, the Mughals marched out of their camps.

Khan commanded at least one-third of the army, and he and his men took up positions in the left flank, and out flanked the British soldiers. If Khan for some reason or the other betrayed Clive, it would have been a tough battle, and things might have gone either way.

The battle started just after dawn on the 23rd of June and some three hours after an intense artillery battle, it started to rain, and the Mughals, who hadn’t taken the precaution of protecting their gunpowder from the rain, lost almost all of it while Clive, who’d done just the exact opposite, was able to use his canons against the Mughals in the ill-timed cavalry attack that followed, and the Mughal cavalry was all but decimated.

Khan, played his part perfectly, and he and his men didn’t take any part in the attack. Clive and his men then swept forward, and captured the Mughal artillery, while Ul-Daulah and some two thousand of his men retreated.

While Khan, and his men, and some of the other commanders, did not take any part in the battle, the remaining Mughal soldiers, fought the British East India Company soldiers, but the tide of battle had long gone against them, and by sunset of the same day, the Mughals were on a full-blown retreat.

The Mughals lost the battle, and Mir Jafar Khan became the new Nawab of Bengal.   

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