Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface: Conceptual and Methodological Approach
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- Introduction: The Early Years and the Evolving Grand Strategic Reality, 1600–1784
- Part I Dealing with the French Menace, 1744–61
- 1 The Indian Dimension in the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744–48
- 2 Anglo-French Mercenaries in the ‘service’ of the Carnatic Princes, 1749–54
- 3 The Struggle for Supremacy in the Carnatic during the Seven Years War, 1756–61
- 4 Noises Off: The Seven Years War in Bengal – Unseating a Nawab, 1756–57
- Part II Towards an All-India Grand Strategy, 1762–84
- Conclusion
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Worlds of the East India Company
1 - The Indian Dimension in the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744–48
from Part I - Dealing with the French Menace, 1744–61
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2013
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface: Conceptual and Methodological Approach
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- Introduction: The Early Years and the Evolving Grand Strategic Reality, 1600–1784
- Part I Dealing with the French Menace, 1744–61
- 1 The Indian Dimension in the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744–48
- 2 Anglo-French Mercenaries in the ‘service’ of the Carnatic Princes, 1749–54
- 3 The Struggle for Supremacy in the Carnatic during the Seven Years War, 1756–61
- 4 Noises Off: The Seven Years War in Bengal – Unseating a Nawab, 1756–57
- Part II Towards an All-India Grand Strategy, 1762–84
- Conclusion
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Worlds of the East India Company
Summary
How very ignorant we were of war in those days.
Clive, circa 1760, looking back on the 1740s.The outbreak of war between Britain and France in 1744, though not anticipated at the time, was to develop into a seventeen-year struggle between their rival East India companies to exclude the other from trading in India by obtaining a preponderant exclusive influence in three major Indian governments in the east of the subcontinent — in the Carnatic, the Deccan and Bengal. The war ended in January 1761 (following the annihilation of the French political and military position in Bengal in 1757) with the conclusive capture of the French seat of government in the East at Pondicherry in the Carnatic by a combined force of Company and British Army troops, with a Royal Navy squadron off the coast. Thereafter, though the French Compagnie des Indes continued to trade for a few more years before it was dissolved, it was never again able to mount an effective challenge to the expansion of British political power in India. To do so would have required a massive injection of resources from France, latterly by the French Government, while the British Company was able to finance growing military establishments in India entirely from revenues it had acquired locally.
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- Information
- The Emergence of British Power in India, 1600-1784A Grand Strategic Interpretation, pp. 35 - 43Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013