Battle of Wandiwash
On 22 January 1760 British forces under Colonel Eyre Coote decisively defeated the French army of the Carnatic under the Comte de Lally at Wandiwash (Vandavasi) in southern India. The French general Bussy — the most capable French officer in India — was captured during the battle. Wandiwash was the final major engagement between European powers on Indian soil for nearly a century and effectively ended French military power in the subcontinent. Lally had been fighting a losing battle for two years, hampered by lack of reinforcements (the Royal Navy's domination of sea lanes made resupply from France nearly impossible after 1759), by a fractious relationship with the French trading companies, and by the growing strength of the East India Company's sepoy armies. Wandiwash was thus not merely a tactical defeat but the collapse of a strategic position that had been crumbling for years. The battle left the Company in a dominant position from which it would consolidate control over the Carnatic and, combined with the effects of Plassey in Bengal, lay the foundation for British India. The Comte de Lally was subsequently court-martialled in Paris, found guilty of treason, and executed — a verdict Voltaire attacked as a judicial murder, and which was posthumously reversed in 1778.
- Year: 1760 CE
- Category: Military
