When was battle of plassey

News of the loss of Calcutta reached Madras on 15th July and a force under Major Kilpatrick was dispatched to Fulta, at the mouth of the Hugli in Bengal. The Company authorities at Madras resolved to send as many of the troops and ships at their disposal to retake Calcutta, in spite of the imminence of hostilities with the French, who were present in strength in Southern India. It took some time to assemble the military force and decide that it was to be commanded by Robert Clive, the fleet being commanded by Admiral Watson.

The fleet sailed on 16th October for the Hugli River. The ships arrived at Fulta between 11th and 20th December, other than the Marlborough, which arrived at the end of January and the Cumberland which was forced south and went aground, finally arriving in mid-March The small garrison left behind surrendered to Clive on 2nd January On 9th January Clive captured the town of Hugli.

After re-occupying Calcutta, Clive disposed of a force of some European soldiers, 1, sepoys and around 15 guns. Siraj-ud-Daulah resolved to attack Calcutta again. For this operation, he raised an army said to have comprised 18, cavalry, 25, infantry and 40 guns.

He marched on Calcutta, arriving at the edge of the Mahratta Ditch, a defensive work giving protection to the settlement, on 3rd February He intended a night attack, but being delayed, Clive attacked in a thick fog in the early hours of the morning.

Clive fought his way out, leaving Siraj-ud-Daulah so intimidated by the aggressive assault that he withdrew. On 9th February , Siraj-ud-Daulah signed a treaty restoring to the Company its former privileges and agreeing to hand over the property looted in the capture of Calcutta and Cossimbazar. Soon after the signing of the treaty between the East India Company and Siraj-ud-Daulah, news reached the English in India from Europe of the outbreak of war between England and France. This posed a considerable dilemma.

Clive was under orders to return to Madras with his army. This would leave Calcutta at the mercy of a combination between Siraj-ud-Daulah and the French. Clive resolved to act decisively before leaving Bengal for Madras. For Clive, the obvious course was to attack and destroy the French settlement at Chandranagar now Chandernagore.

This would be a provocation to Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab, as all the foreign settlements were under his protection and warfare between them could only be conducted with his permission. Siraj-ud-Daulah needed the French in Bengal as a counter balance to the increasingly aggressive English. He was just twenty years of age.

English descriptions of Siraj-ud-Daulah give him as spoilt and inexperienced, in contrast to his adversary Clive, a highly talented and ruthless soldier and statesman. Clive had many years experience of manipulating the Indian leaders against whom he was pitted.

As further war became imminent, with the destruction of Chandranagar, Siraj-ud-Daulah could rely fully on only a small number of his senior commanders, with many of the major interests in his capital, Murshidabad, committed to the English.

The one body of troops that Siraj-ud-Daulah would have been able to rely upon fully, Monsieur Law and his French troops, Siraj-ud-Daulah ordered to move miles to the west, to Bhagalpur. During the three months of this correspondence, Siraj-ud-Daulah moved his army to Plassey on the Bhagirathi River, 22 miles south of Murshidabad.

Both these generals were proposing to betray Siraj-ud-Daulah. During this time, Clive negotiated a treaty, through the intermediary William Watts, with Mir Jafar Khan, whereby the English would assist Mir Jafar Khan in obtaining the Nawabship of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, in exchange for substantial payments to the Company and its various officers.

Under the treaty Mir Jafar Khan undertook to change sides during any hostilities. During the standoff between Siraj-ud-Daulah and the Company authorities, a letter arrived in Calcutta from the Mahratta Chieftain at Berar, proposing that he should invade Bengal with an army of , men and fight Siraj-ud-Daulah in alliance with the English. Clive suspected, wrongly, that this letter was a forgery, sent on behalf of Siraj-ud-Daulah to establish what the English intentions were towards him.

Acting on that assumption, Clive sent the letter to the Nawab. Siraj-ud-Daulah was appalled at the threat of such an invasion and recalled his army to defend Murshidabad. Clive marched out of Chandranagar on 13th June , leaving a garrison of men. Arriving on 16th June at Palti, Clive sent Major Eyre Coote of the 39th Foot with a small force to take the post of Katwa, containing an Indian garrison and a considerable quantity of supplies.

The garrison surrendered to Coote after a token resistance. Clive halted the advance at Katwa and wrote to the Committee in Calcutta, asking for their advice as to whether to proceed with the advance.

This was an unusual show of hesitation in Clive, normally impetuous to the point of rashness. That evening, after writing to the Rajah of Burdwan, asking him to join his army with a thousand horsemen, Clive held a Council of War with all his officers. The majority of the officers were for staying put. Clive voted with those advocating caution. Coote urged that a delay would enable Monsieur Law to join Siraj-ud-Daulah from Bhagalpur with his French troops, known to have been urgently summoned by Siraj-ud-Daulah.

On hearing that Clive was halted at Katwah, Siraj-ud-Daulah rushed his force forward to occupy the camp at Plassey, an established post for his army.

Clive immediately changed his mind and the army marched. At 6am on 22nd June , the army crossed the Bhagirathi River to the east bank, using the accompanying flotilla of boats which carried the supplies.

The crossing took most of the day and brought the army within 15 miles of Plassey. It was now raining heavily, the earliest onset of the annual monsoon weather and, in places, the river overflowed its banks, forcing the soldiers to march in water that reached up to their waists. At 1am on 23rd June , the army reached Plassey, a small village with a hunting lodge owned by the Nawab, Siraj-ud-Daulah.

The army bivouacked in a mango grove beyond the village, placing vedettes around the grove. Clive sent a party to occupy the hunting lodge.

The mango grove, in which the English army encamped, was yards long and yards wide, and contained regular rows of mango trees. Search for: 'battle of Plassey' in Oxford Reference ». All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice. Oxford Reference. Publications Pages Publications Pages. Recently viewed 0 Save Search.

Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Subscriber sign in You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Username Please enter your Username. It was not until August that the news reached the Company in Madras and not until October that Clive, now 32 years-old, left for Calcutta at the head of a mixed European-Indian force of some 2, men. He found a candidate in a discontented elderly general named Mir Jafar. On 13 June, Clive moved north with some 2, Indian sepoys and British infantry of the Thirty-Ninth of Foot plus close to artillerymen with ten field pieces and two small howitzers.

Ambiguous messages were coming in from Mir Jafar and Clive was moving into a dangerous situation against heavy odds. He seems to have had a crisis of confidence and summoned his officers to a council of war on 21 June. The majority, including Clive, voted against action.