Battle of Wandiwash
The British destroyed French power in India at Wandiwash in January 1760 in a battle of about 3,000 men a side. The Anglo-French conflict in the Carnatic had been running since the 1740s and had been fought largely through Indian allies, with each company backing a claimant to Hyderabad and the Carnatic and supplying him with European-trained sepoy infantry. The technique of drilling Indian troops in European tactics was a French invention that the British copied and financed better. Money is the decisive factor. Clive's victory at Plassey in 1757 had given the East India Company the revenues of Bengal, and the French company was dependent on remittances from Paris that never arrived because the Royal Navy had cut the sea route. Lally, the French commander, was competent, abrasive, short of cash and unable to pay his troops. The battle at Wandiwash was fought when Lally attempted to relieve a besieged fort. His cavalry declined to charge, an ammunition tumbril exploded in the French line, and Coote's counterattack broke it; the French lost some 600 men and the field. Pondicherry was besieged and surrendered in January 1761 after the population had been reduced to eating anything available. The peace of 1763 returned the French posts as trading stations and forbade them fortifications or troops. Lally was tried in Paris and beheaded in 1766 for treason, and Voltaire spent years getting the verdict overturned posthumously. The two companies had also demonstrated something neither government intended. A trading corporation with an army of local troops and European officers could dispose of Indian states, and the one that won went on to govern a subcontinent.
- Year: 1760 CE
- Category: Military
