Battle of Plassey
On 23 June 1757, Robert Clive led approximately 3,000 troops — 800 European and 2,200 Indian sepoys — against the Nawab of Bengal Siraj ud-Daula's army of approximately 50,000 at Plassey, roughly 100 miles north of Calcutta. The battle was decided less by fighting than by prior arrangement: Mir Jafar, the Nawab's military commander, had secretly agreed with Clive to keep the bulk of the Nawab's forces inactive during the engagement in exchange for installation as Nawab himself. After a brief artillery exchange in which monsoon rain silenced most of the Nawab's guns while the British had protected their powder under cover, Clive won in roughly eight hours. The Nawab's forces suffered approximately 500 casualties while the Company lost 22 killed and 50 wounded. Siraj ud-Daula was captured and killed shortly after by Mir Jafar's son. The consequence was transformative: the Bengal treasury — one of the subcontinent's richest — passed to Company control. Clive received £234,000 personally from Mir Jafar and the Company extracted enormous sums in the years following. Control of Bengal's revenues turned the East India Company from a trading corporation into a territorial power with enough income to fund its own armies and the Indian campaigns that followed.
- Year: 1757 CE
- Category: Military
