Battle of Plassey (1757): How Betrayal Won India for the British

23 June 1757. A mango grove near a village called Plassey, in Bengal. About 3,000 soldiers of the East India Company face the Nawab of Bengal's army of perhaps 50,000 men. By every count, they should be crushed in an hour. But Robert Clive knows something the Nawab doesn't: three of the Nawab's own commanders have made a secret deal. This is the story of how a trading company ended up in that grove: the dastak and the tolls, the walls of Fort William, the Black Hole of Calcutta, Mir Jafar's plot with the Jagat Seths, a rainstorm that soaked the Nawab's gunpowder, and the long shadow one short fight cast over India. Was Plassey won by force, or by a plot? CHAPTERS 0:00 Dawn at Plassey, 23 June 1757 1:34 Bengal, the richest province, and the Company 3:59 The walls, the fall of Calcutta and the Black Hole 7:09 The plot: Mir Jafar and the Jagat Seths 8:57 Clive's gamble: the march to Plassey 10:08 The battlefield: the grove, the ponds, the half-moon 11:26 The battle: guns, rain and betrayal 14:24 The bill: a trading company becomes a ruler 15:16 Force or plot? SOURCES - Robert Orme, A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan, vol. II (1778) - Ghulam Hussain Khan Tabatabai, Siyar-ul-Mutaqherin (1781, English translation 1789) - William Dalrymple, The Anarchy (2019) Numbers are given as the sources report them. The size of the Nawab's army and the losses on both sides are disputed. #BattleOfPlassey #IndianHistory #EastIndiaCompany #History