📅 On This Day in Military History
1 event across history
In a mango grove beside the Bhagirathi River, Robert Clive's 3,000 men faced Siraj ud-Daulah's 50,000-strong army — including 53 French-trained artillery pieces and French advisors. The battle was settled less by combat than by treachery: Clive had secretly bribed Mir Jafar, the Nawab's chief general, to betray his master. Mir Jafar held his 45,000 men back. The Nawab fled. Clive won Bengal in an afternoon.
The most consequential battle fought outside Europe in the 18th century. Plassey handed Britain control of Bengal — then the richest province of the Mughal Empire — beginning 190 years of British rule over the subcontinent. The battle also eliminated France's Indian ally and its position in Bengal, making the French defeat in Canada and on the seas part of a single global collapse.
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