The Story of the British Army

by Charles Cooper King

The intricate, and not very creditable, diplomacy that ensued culminated in the battle of Plassy, notorious as being won against extraordinary odds, and as leading directly to the destruction of the French power in India.

The European, or at first largely half-caste army employed there was not numerous. The remains of the garrison that had been sent to take possession of the Bombay dowry formed the nucleus of the “Bombay Regiment,” which became the Bengal Fusiliers, or “Old Toughs,” and is now the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers. They behaved gallantly in the early fighting at Cuddalore and Davicottah, but did not come on the strength of the home army until 1858. In 1754 the first true European regiment, the 39th, was despatched to hold Madras. For this it is distinguished by the motto “Primus in Indis.” It is most curious to note, therefore, in all these early efforts at dominion in India, the Madras Sepoy took a most important part, and behaved manfully.

Two smaller “affairs,” the capture of Fort Hooghley and Chandernagore, preceded the more important battle of Plassy, where the Indian army numbered 50,000 infantry, 20,000 cavalry, and 50 guns, and met Clive in the “groves of Plassy,” with a force roughly estimated at 1000 Europeans, namely, the 39th, the 1st Bengal and 1st Bombay Fusiliers (now the 1st Battalion Royal Munster and 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers), with 2000 Sepoys and 8 six-pounders, with 2 howitzers. The battle lasted from the 22nd till the morning of the 23rd June, and resulted in the dispersion of the enemy with a loss in killed and wounded on the British side of but seventy-two men. But though far reaching in its results, it, however decisive, cannot be classed among the great battles of history. The insignificant numbers of Clive’s army on the one side, the treachery displayed by most of the great chieftains of Surajah Dowlah, even the small cost of the victory, show that the fighting itself could not have been severe. But for the disloyalty of Mir Jafar and others, the British army must have been driven into the river they had crossed in order to engage the enemy. Had this been otherwise, the history of India might have been differently written. As it was, the moral effect was great. It was the first real military footing the British had in the Indian Peninsula. “It was Plassy which forced her to become one of the main factors in the settlement of the burning Eastern Question; Plassy which necessitated the conquest and colonisation of the Cape of Good Hope, of the Mauritius, and the protectorship over Egypt.”

By 1761, therefore, the French power was but a name; and, reinforced now from home by three more battalions, of which the 79th was one, the British defeated the French at Wandewash, where only European troops were engaged on the British side. There the old 79th behaved magnificently; and later on, the war led to the addition of the names of Buxar and Carnatic (as well as that of Plassy) to the colours of the 103rd.

Outline Map of INDIA.

If Plassy had been the turning-point in the early days of British effort at conquest, so Wandewash showed the natives the fighting strength of other foreign aspirants for political power in India besides France, and led as directly to the expulsion of the French from the Indian Peninsula, as did the capture of Quebec settle for ever the rivalry for supreme power in North America. With this victory the fear of British power among the natives arose and strengthened. During all this time, the power of the East India Company had been gradually extending, and in 1773 was appointed the first Governor-General of India, Warren Hastings. Meanwhile, as the years crept on, a new native state was rising, that would also seek by a French alliance to check the political advance of Great Britain in India. Hyder Ali, a Mahometan chieftain in the army of Mysore, had succeeded in establishing himself on the throne of his Hindu predecessor. Commanding an irregular army estimated at 150,000 men, he was disposed to be threatening; and on the principle of divide et impera, Hastings proposed to play off, by alliance, the Deccan and Oudh against this new disturbing element, which was fast spreading its influence over Western and Northern India. In 1780 the chance arose. Hyder took the offensive, defeated and massacred the small army under Colonel Baillie at Conjeveram, and attacked Madras, but he was checked finally by Sir Eyre Coote, and in 1783 the general peace put an end to hostilities, though not for long, and though Hyder himself was dead.

By this time the European army had slightly increased. To the troops already there had been added the 71st (then the 73rd), the 72nd (then the 78th), and the old 73rd, and a second battalion of the 42nd; and these had furnished the backbone of the resistance against Hyder Ali’s son Tippoo Saib.

There was hard fighting at Mangalore, which gained for the 73rd the honour of bearing the name on its colours for bravery during the seven months of a dreadful siege; and against the French at Cuddalore, where Colonel Wagenheim of the 15th Hanoverian Regiment made prisoner a young French sergeant, and, struck by his appearance, personally directed his wounds to be dressed. Many years after, when the victorious French, under Marshal Bernadotte, entered Hanover, Wagenheim, by that time an aged general, attended his levée. Bernadotte asked him if he recollected the wounded French sergeant to whom he had been so kind at Cuddalore. The general replied in the affirmative. “That young sergeant,” replied the future king of Sweden, “was the person who has now the honour to address you, and who rejoices in having this public opportunity of acknowledging his debt of gratitude to General Wagenheim.”

Here also were engaged some 300 marines under Major Monson, and in the ranks of his command served a certain Hannah Snell. “She behaved with conspicuous courage, and received a ball in the groin, which she herself extracted two days afterwards. Eleven other wounds in both legs rendered her removal to the hospital at Cuddalore absolutely necessary, and, having returned home, her sex was not discovered until she obtained her discharge. She afterwards wore the marine dress, and, having presented a petition to H.R.H. the Duke of Cumberland, obtained a pension of £30 a year for life.”