| Regiments. | Officers. | Men. | ||
| K. | W. | K. | W. | |
| Royal Munster Fusiliers | 2 | - | 22 | 62 |
Badara, November 25, 1759.
An honour borne by the Royal Munster Fusiliers only. The crushing defeats inflicted by Forde on Conflans had the effect of restoring our prestige in Madras. But in Bengal Clive was in no very enviable position. The Dutch, who had a settlement at Chinsura, on the Hooghly, had commenced open hostilities, and a Dutch fleet, with a considerable force on board, entered that river. Clive had at his disposal about 300 of the 1st Bengal Europeans, and until the return of Forde from Masulipatam matters at Calcutta were serious. As soon as Forde arrived, Clive, who believed only in the offensive, ordered the victor of Condore to attack the land force, whilst he determined to destroy the Dutch fleet with some armed East Indiamen at his disposal. On November 20 Forde marched to Chandernagore (the French settlement on the Hooghly, some miles above Calcutta), and on the following day moved on to Chinsura—only a few miles distant—where a small detachment of the Dutch were encamped. He was joined here by Knox (a Company's officer who had been under Forde at Condore), with a body of eighty volunteer cavalry, raised from the English residents in Calcutta, and a strong battalion of sepoys. He now learnt that the Dutch force was moving to attack him. Confident of victory, Forde wrote to Clive, asking for permission to forestall them. The story runs that Clive was playing cards when Forde's letter reached him. Laying down his hand, Clive scribbled on the back of the letter: "Dear Forde,—Fight them. I will send you the Order in Council to-morrow." Then, taking up his cards, went on with the game. On November 25 the two forces came into collision. Forde's handful of cavalry converted the check, which the steady fire of Knox's guns had inflicted on the Dutch, into a rout. Practically the entire Dutch force was either killed, wounded, or taken. The Government in Holland repudiated the action of the Governor of their Indian settlements, and paid compensation to the East India Company. But Forde's little fight at Badara is deserving of recognition, not merely because it was a gallant action fought against serious odds, but more especially because it put an end once and for all to all pretensions of the Dutch to supremacy in the East.
Unfortunately, no records exist showing the casualties we suffered at the action of Badara.
Wandewash, January 22, 1760.
An honour borne only by the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
The operations in Southern India had not been characterized by the same degree of success which had marked Forde's campaign against Conflans and the Dutch, but in the very month that we won the action of Badara Eyre Coote disembarked at Madras at the head of his newly-raised regiment, then numbered the 84th. At the same time some 300 recruits arrived for the Company's battalions, bringing the total force at the disposal of the Government of Madras to four battalions of infantry, 100 English troopers, and eighteen field-guns. With these Coote determined to resume the offensive, and on January 22 the two armies met at Wandewash, about 100 miles south-west of Madras. The forces were fairly equally matched. Hyder Ali, with his allies, the French, however, had a considerable preponderance in cavalry. When we reflect on the momentous issue decided by this and the preceding actions between the French and ourselves in India, and compare the number of the troops engaged with those we now mobilize for an Indian frontier campaign, it seems little short of marvellous that our Indian Empire should have been built up with such slender means.
The troops engaged, under the command of Eyre Coote, consisted of Draper's Regiment (then the 79th), his own (the 84th), and two English battalions in the Company's employ (now the Munster Fusiliers), 2,000 sepoys, 1,200 Indian cavalry, and one squadron of English horse, with sixteen guns. The brunt of the fighting fell on the British regiments, Draper's suffering the most heavily; but our total casualties—63 killed and 124 wounded—was a small price to pay for a victory which cost the French 600 killed and wounded and 24 guns.
Step by step Coote now undertook the reduction of all the French ports in Southern India. Arcot, Trincomalee, and finally Pondicherry, all fell into our hands, only to be restored, as was Chandernagore, to the French at the conclusion of peace in 1763—an act of generous imbecility which necessitated their recapture on the renewal of the war fifteen years later, at the cost of many hundred valuable British soldiers.