Date
January 22, 1760
Conflict
The Seven Years War
Combatants
British East India Company plus native contingent vs. French East India Company and native allies
Location
Wandiwash (now Vandavasi in Tamil Nadu, Southern India). Vandavasi lies 110 kilometres South-West of Chennai City, South of famous temple city Kanchipuram and 80 km north-east of Thiruvannamalai. The town is well connected with Chennai by road. It has an average elevation of 74 metres (242 feet). Vandavasi's climatic condition is similar to that of Chennai, lying on the thermal equator and close to the coast, most part of the year climate is hot and humid.
Background
Most historians credit the Battle of Plassey, fought on June 23, 1757, as the decisive event that brought about ultimate British rule over India. But was it really? A case can be made that the true turning point for control of the subcontinent was the victory of British forces under Eyre Coote over a French force led by Comte Thomas Arthur de Lally at Wandiwash on January 22, 1760.Robert Clive, the victor at Plassey, amazingly had only 900 European troops and 2,100 native sepoys with him to engage about 50,000 natives, including 15,000 horsemen. He managed to rout this horde, but bribery and treachery played a role in the outcome. At Wandiwash, on the other hand, it was a stand-up fight between two tiny European armies, each led by a brave and capable general–a pair of Irishmen at that.
India, the destination of both Lally and Coote, was a country in political chaos, with assorted rajahs and nabobs fighting and plotting against each other. The French and English traders arriving in the 1600s had gained power and influence by taking sides in local wars in exchange for trade concessions and territory. By the 1740s, the French Compagnie des Indies Orientales and the British East India Company each ruled several towns along the coast of eastern India and had their own small armies made up of European troops and native soldiers called sepoys. Their discipline and superior weapons were more than a match for the untrained hordes of the Indian rulers.
When the War of the Austrian Succession erupted in Europe, both France and England sent units of their armies to assist the company troops in India. During the fighting that followed, the French gained the advantage, but the peace terms returned to England most of the territory it had lost, including a large base at Madras. At that time, the strength of both European powers was still so weak that a powerful rajah could impose neutrality in his area upon both French and British.
Although there was peace in Europe, an undeclared war raged on in Bengal and along the subcontinent's Coromandel Coast, where local chiefs acted as proxies for their European allies. In this political snakepit, palace revolutions and assassinations won temporary alliance, but treachery was endemic, and the loyalty of native rajahs was ensured only by gold or the presence of European garrisons. With so vast a territory to loot and with government supervision half a world away, the temptation to extort tribute from the native rulers and make fortunes from illegal acts was simply too great for most officers of the trading companies.
From the top down to the lowliest clerks, graft was a way of life. If one did not die from the climate or disease, one had a good chance of returning home with a fortune. More often than not, the national policy of London or Versailles was ignored as company officials lined their own pockets. Such was the environment in which Lally was to fight a small war.
His troubles began even before he and his men left France. Some of his men had been diverted to Canada, and his war chest was slashed from 6 million livres to 4 million. His greatest cross, however, became the man picked to command the expeditionary fleet, Comte d'Aché. While personally brave, d'Aché was one of the most inept naval commanders ever to serve in the French navy.
On the day of departure, February 2, 1757, one ship was damaged leaving port, and the admiral returned the whole fleet to harbor, where it then became trapped by contrary winds until May 2. Once at sea, the ships maintained a leisurely pace more suited to a pleasure cruise than a military convoy. Precious weeks then were wasted in Rio de Janiero selling off the cargo of a captured prize ship. In his memoirs, Lally said that d'Aché would pull in sail at the slightest threat of a storm, or change course if a single sail had been sighted. It was April 28, 1758, before the fleet finally reached the French base at Pondicherry.
Once ashore, the new governor of French India found that sloth and incompetency had squandered time and resources.
The Chevalier de Soupire had landed eight months before with the Lorraine Regiment. Although his regiment heavily outnumbered the British forces then available in India, he had confined his operations to taking a few small posts, while refusing to move against Clive, who was busy driving the French out of Bengal. To make matters worse, a British naval squadron had left England three months after d'Aché's departure from France and had reached Madras six weeks before Lally's corps finally arrived off Pondicherry. Had the French admiral sailed his convoy at normal speed, he could have overwhelmed the small English fleet on station under Admiral George Pocock before it was reinforced by the fresh English squadron.
Released at last from his shipboard confines, the Irish general reacted to almost a year of delay and frustration by waging a whirlwind campaign that took several English outposts, including Fort Saint David, an important base a short distance south of Pondicherry. Lack of money and supplies then slowed down his campaign, while an expedition intended to extort funds from the rajah of Tanjore came up a failure. It was here, too, that Lally learned a lesson in Oriental treachery. A group of 250 Tanjore cavalry came to his camp as deserters. Once inside the picket lines, they charged for the general's tent, and Lally found himself using his walking stick, or shillelagh, to ward off a scimitar-wielding Indian. His attacker was shot by a guard–although Lally was run down by the enemy horsemen, he was saved from injury, and his troops wiped out the rest of the raiders.
By now the civilian officials at Pondicherry were in open opposition to their new governor because of his public condemnations of their misconduct. A man with more tact would not have lashed out at them in public with savage anger and biting sarcasm. Then, too, while Lally's charges were mostly true, he did nothing to punish or remove the culprits from office, thus leaving his enemies in positions where they could sabotage his military plan and plot against him. The civilian veterans of duty in India had a legitimate complaint, moreover, in Lally's disregard of the Indian caste system, shown when he forced natives of all castes to work as sappers and transport coolies. This ruthless, if efficient, policy aroused the natives and made it more difficult to recruit native labor.
The Irish general made another mistake in recalling General le Marquis de Bussy Castelnau from the Deccan in the north, where the Frenchman had been making a good showing against the British after Clive left for England. Bussy came reluctantly, and Lally was later to accuse him of intrigue. The small force that Bussy left behind in the Deccan under a less capable commander was defeated by British forces operating out of Calcutta.
In December, Lally moved north to besiege the English base at Madras and almost took the place, despite the absence of d'Aché's squadron. A couple of costly but indecisive sea fights with English ships had sent the French admiral scurrying south to the French island of Mauritius for repairs. Just as Lally's troops were about to overrun the Madras garrison, a British naval force arrived with reinforcements. There was now no choice but to lift the siege. Hampered by shortages of money and supplies, Lally could do little during the rest of 1759. At one time his soldiers mutinied over back pay.
One local success did come in September, when an English night attack upon Wandiwash was thrown back. The town, 60 miles southwest of Madras, was an inland post about equidistant from Madras and Pondicherry.
On November 27, Coote appeared before the walls of Wandiwash with a small siege army. Since the French had only 68 Europeans and 100 sepoys to defend the town, they raised the white flag. The English general next moved against the important town of Arcot. On hearing of those events, Lally began to assemble a relief force, and he and Bussy began to argue over campaign strategy. Meanwhile, a local Maratha chief, Yunus Khan, had been lured into the French service with the promise of rich booty from the English and their Indian allies. Yunus Khan brought with him 2,060 cavalry and a horde of loot-hungry foot followers.
Lally scored an initial success by plundering the British supply depot at Conjeeveram. That was followed up by storming Wandiwash, with Lally himself one of the first over the wall. Inside the fort, 30 stout Britons and 800 sepoys under a Captain Sherlock still held out. A night attack failed to dislodge them, due to the cowardice of a marine detachment left behind by Admiral d'Aché in response to Lally's appeal for help from the navy. On first seeing them, Lally declared, 'They are the scum of the fleet.' Apparently the admiral had taken the opportunity of unloading on the army all his troublemakers and goldbricks. They numbered about 500.
Bussy wanted to abandon the siege and concentrate the full French force against Coote's approaching army, but Lally insisted on leaving 150 Europeans and 300 sepoys to man the earthworks containing Sherlock's garrison. That left him with two French regiments, the de Lally and the 69th Lorraine, each numbering about 400 men, plus the Battalion of India, a company unit with a strength of 700 muskets. He also had the naval contingent, plus 200 European cavalry. His sepoy force came to about 1,800, of which a third were horsemen. The French artillery train had 10 light guns. Along with those regular troops came Yunus Khan's Maratha irregulars.
On the other side, Coote had his two regiments, the 84th and William Draper's, plus two battalions of East India Company troops–native soldiers, a third of whom were mounted–backed up by 80 white cavalrymen under a Swiss commander named de Vasserot. He also had seven small field guns and one howitzer. Thus both small armies were rather evenly matched, although the French were handicapped by discord and poor morale.
On January 21, 1760, the British army again came within sight of the walls of Wandiwash. That night its commander ordered his men to place green branches in their hats and turbans to serve as identification marks during the turmoil of combat.
Thomas Arthur de Lally was born in 1702 at Romans in Dauphiné, France, the son of Sir Gerald Lally and Marie Anne de Bressac. His mother's family was part of the provincial Irish aristocracy, while the Lallys (or O'Mullallys) had been a prominent family in County Galway, descended from the old Gaelic chieftains. After the surrender of the Jacobite army (supporters of the abdicated James II) at Limerick in 1691, Sir Gerald had been among the native Catholic leaders who had chosen to follow Patrick Sarsfield and other 'Wild Geese' into exile, thereby forfeiting any chance of keeping their estates.
He led his Régiment de Lally at Fontenoy (War of the Austrian Succession), where some credit him with saving the battle for Marshal Comte Maurice de Saxe by rushing up a battery to a critical sector just in time to block the Anglo-Hanoverian advance. When French King Louis XV visited the Irish Brigade after the battle to thank the men and promise rewards, Lally, still stunned by the Irish losses, replied: 'Your Majesty's blessings are like those of the Bible. They fall on the blind and crippled.' It is said the king made no reply but rode on.
Eyre Coote, was born in 1726, the fifth son of a clergyman in Kilmallock, County Limerick. The family apparently originated in France, and the first Coote had come to Ireland in 1600. Over the next century the Cootes held high positions in Ireland in both the army and the civil government. Eyre Coote obtained a commission as ensign in Blakeney's Regiment in 1745–just in time to be sent against the Highlander forces of Prince Charles Stuart that were taking control of Scotland. Blakeney's unit took part in the Battle of Falkirk on January 17, 1746, in which an English army was routed by claymore-swinging clansmen. All the officers in the regiment were court-martialed. But young Eyre was later pardoned when it was learned that although he was the first member of Blakeney's Regiment to reach Edinburgh, he had saved the regimental flag.
In April 1749, he became a lieutenant in the 37th Foot. Six years later, he was sent to India as commander of a company of reinforcements for the 39th Regiment at Fort Saint David. His record must have been exceptional because in May 1757 he was promoted to major, just in time to serve under Robert Clive at Plassey. There, it is said, he was the only officer under Clive to urge an attack. When he returned to England later that year, he had won a reputation as an outstanding officer. Clive's secretary described him thus: 'A bodily frame of unusual vigor and activity, always awake. Daring, valour and cool reflection strove for the mastery. A master at once of human nature and the science of war, his rigid discipline was tempered with an unaffected kindness and consideration for the want and prejudices of those whom he commanded which won him the affections of his European soldiers and made him the idol of the native troops.'
In March 1759, Coote was promoted to colonel and sent to Bengal to command the 84th Regiment. The Seven Years' War had broken out, and when Clive sailed back to England, Coote, at the insistence of East India Company officials in London, was put in command of British forces in India. He was only 33 years old.
With the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, fellow Irishman Lally was called to Paris, promoted to lieutenant general and placed in command of French forces in India. Some years before, he had prepared for the War Office a plan for driving the British out of India, and this apparently had so impressed government officials that they now chose him to carry it out. The trouble was that he was also assigned to the task of cleaning out the graft and corruption that were rampant among the officials of the French Compagnie des Indies Orientales. His private wealth and honest reputation seemed to make him the ideal candidate for that formidable job.
Troops
British Order of Battle
Commander-in-chief: lieutenant-colonel sir Eyre Coote
Summary: 1,980 Europeans, 2,100 Sepoys and 1,250 Indian horse, with 16 guns.
| First Line | Second line | Third Line |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
French Order of Battle
Commander-in-chief: Thomas Arthur comte de Lally-Tollendal
Summary: 2250 Europeans (Lally gives his Europeans as only 1,350 infantry, and 150 cavalry) cavalry and infantry and 1,300 Sepoys excluding troops left to besiege Wandewash and the Mahratta cavalry.
The French army was formed in a single line in the following order (from right to left):
- 1 gun
- European cavalry (300 men) on the extreme right, including a hussar sqn
- 3 guns
- Lorraine Infanterie (400 men)
- 3 guns
- Bataillon des Indes (700 men) in the centre
- 3 guns
- Lally Infanterie (400 men)
- 1 gun
- 3 guns between the line of infantry and the entrenched tank
- Marine and 4 guns in the entrenched tank
- Indian infantry (400 men) occupied the smaller tank in the rear of the entrenched tank
- Sepoys (900 men) on a ridge before the camp
Furthermore, there were some 150 Europeans and 300 Sepoys being left in the batteries before Wandewash. The Mahratta horse (3,000 men), having tasted the fire of the British artillery earlier in the day, had no relish for further share in the action.
Prelude to the Battle
In January 1760, the comte de Lally-Tollendal, commander-in-chief of the French army in India, resolved to besiege and capture Wandewash (actual Wandiwash).
On January 14, taking 500 Europeans, 1,000 Sepoys, and 650 French and Mahratta horse, Lally left Trivatore and marched on Wandewash, which had been his true object from the first. Lieutenant-colonel Eyre Coote received intelligence of his departure on the same evening.
On January 15, Coote marched also by the direct road to the same point. Lally meanwhile, anxious to recapture the post before Coote's arrival, had in the morning driven the small British detachment defending the place into the fort; after which he began to erect batteries against the walls.
On January 17, Lally learned from Bussy that Coote was advancing against him; by which time the British had actually arrived at Outramalore (unidentified location), about 24 km to north-east of Wandewash. Here Coote halted, being secure of his communications with Chingleput and Madras (actual Chennai), and resolved not to risk an action until the French were ready to assault the fort. The French works meanwhile progressed but slowly.
On January 20, the French batteries opened fire on Wandewash, Bussy's column having meanwhile joined Lally from Trivatore.
On January 21, Coote advanced to within 11 km of Wandewash.
The French camp was marked out in two lines about 3 km to the east of the fort of Wandewash and facing eastward, the left flank of each line being covered by a large tank. In advance of their left front was another smaller tank which had been turned into an entrenchment and armed with cannon, so as to enfilade the whole front of the camp and command the plain beyond it. The Mahratta horse were encamped on the left of the French positions.
The Battle
On January 22, having directed that the rest of the army should immediately follow him, Coote went forward at sunrise with his cavalry to reconnoitre.
About 7:00 AM, Coote's advanced guard struck against an advanced party of Lally's Indian horse; and presently 3,000 Mahratta cavalry along with 300 French European cavalry came swarming over the plain in his front. Their skirmishers were driven back.
Coote brought up a division of Sepoys with 2 field-pieces masked behind his own cavalry. Coote then advanced slowly to the attack which the French and Mahrattas pulled up to receive.
On arriving within 200 meters, Coote wheeled his squadrons outwards right and left to unmask the guns. His squadrons then formed up on each flank of the Sepoys. The enemy mistaking this movement for unsteadiness preparatory to a retreat, at once pushed forward in great haste and were galloping to take advantage of it when the field-pieces opened up upon them with grape.
The British Sepoys then delivered their fire with steadiness and execution. The Mahrattas soon broke and fled off the field with heavy loss. The French cavalry for some time stood firmly but on the flight of the other cavalry, the entire fire of the British became directed upon them and they were obliged to go about but they retired in good order, leaving the gound open up to the French camp.
Then Coote halted his cavalry and waited for the main body of his army which shortly came up, in 2 lines in order of battle, across a hard and level plain. The cavalry formed up in the rear and on the flanks of the line which halted and offered battle, but the French declined it.
Coote went forward to examine the French camp. He then ordered his army to move to his right.
Finding after a short halt that no notice was taken by Lally, Coote caused the whole force to file to its right across the French front towards the foot of a mountain, which stood about 3 km to northward of the fort. As soon as the leading files had reached some rough stony ground, impassable by cavalry, close to the base of the mountain, Coote again halted and fronted, at a distance of about 2 km from the French lines. The baggage and followers of the camp were at the same time placed in a small village in the rear.
Seeing that this movement also passed unnoticed, Coote ordered the army to file along the skirt of the mountain round the French left flank. By thus coasting the hill until he came opposite to the fort he would be able to form his line with his left resting on the mountain and his right covered by the fire of the fort, thus at once securing communications with the garrison and threatening the French flank and rear.
However, before this masterly manoeuvre could be fully completed, Lally came hurriedly out of his camp; and presently the whole of the French army was observed to be in motion. Coote thereupon desisted from his movement round their left flank, halted his filing columns, and fronting them to the left, formed his line of battle obliquely to the enemy. Lally was thus compelled to cancel his pre-concerted dispositions, to change front from east to north-east, and, while still resting his left on the entrenched tank, to move forward his right in order to bring his line parallel to that of the British. None the less this tank remained the pivot of his position.
The French army was formed in a single line with its left flank resting on the entrenched tank. which was itself manned by marines with four guns. Three guns were also posted between the tank and Lally's regiment, and as many more in the intervals between the different corps of the line, making 16 guns in all. About 400 Indian infantry occupied a smaller tank to the rear of the entrenched tank while 900 Sepoys were ranged on a ridge before the camp.
Coote's army was drawn up in three lines. The first line was composed of 4 European battalions, with a battalion of 900 Sepoys on either flank. The second line was, made up of European grenadiers in the centre, with a field-piece and a body of Sepoys on each flank. The third line consisted entirely of cavalry, Europeans forming the centre, with Indians on either flank.
In this order the British advanced; but before they arrived within cannon-shot Lally caught up his squadron of European hussars, and making a wide sweep over the plain came down with it upon the left flank of the cavalry in the British third line. Coote's Indian cavalry, in forming to their left to receive them, got confused and ultimately galloped off the field and the left divisions of Sepoys, while changing front to meet the attack, showed signs of wavering. The weak squadron of British dragoon stood firm and the 2 detached guns of the left front under captain Barker opened fire on the French cavalry as it was galloping up. Their fire fell heavily on their flank, bringing down 10 or 15 men and horses at their first fire. The French cavalry stopped and was immediately afterwards forced to hurry out of fire.
The Indian cavalry of the British, recovering from their panic, formed up and, led by the dragoons, in their turn charged the French European cavalry who broke despite all Lally's efforts to stop them and would not be rallied until they had galloped far to the rear of their camp pursued by the enemy cavalry.
During this attack the British halted, while the French batteries fired wildly and unsteadily with grape, though the British were not yet within range of round shot.
Coote coolly continued his advance until his guns could play effectively and then opened a most destructive fire. Lally finding his men impatient under the punishment placed himself at their head, and gave the word to move forward. Coote thereupon halted the whole of his force excepting the Europeans of the first and second lines, and advanced to meet him with these alone. Like Forde at the battle of Condore, he staked everything on the defeat of the French regular troops.
Coote, true to the British rule, intended to reserve his volley for close range; but some few Africans who were mingled in the ranks of the British opened fire without command, and this disorder was only with difficulty prevented from spreading to the whole line. Coote, galloping from right to left of the line, actually received 2 or 3 bullets through his clothes.
About 1:00 PM, order being restored in the British ranks, Coote took up his station on the left by his own regiment. Both lines halted within 200 meters of each other and opened a heavy fire of musketry. The 84th Coote's Foot had fired but 2 rounds, when Lally formed Lorraine Infanterieon the French right into a column of 12 men abreast and ordered it to charge with the bayonet.
As Coote passed, a flash and a dense cloud of smoke shot up from the entrenched tank, followed by a roar which rose loud above the din of battle. A lucky shot from the British guns had blown up a tumbril of French ammunition. The chevalier de Poete, commanding the entrenchment, was killed, 80 of his men were slain or disabled around him, and the rest of his force, abandoning the guns, fled in panic to the French right, followed by the Sepoys from the smaller tank in rear.
Coote instantly ordered the 79th Draper's Foot to advance and occupy the entrenchment; but Bussy, who commanded on the French left, brought forward Lally Infanterie to threaten their flank as they advanced, and forced them to fetch a compass and file away to their right. Bussy thus gained time to rally some of the fugitives and to re-occupy the tank with a couple of platoons; but the 79th Draper's Foot, with major Brereton at their head, moved too fast to allow him to complete his dispositions, and coming down impetuously upon the north face of the tank swept the French headlong out of it. Brereton fell mortally wounded in the attack, but bade his men leave him and push on. The leading files hurried round to the southern face of the tank, opened fire on the gunners posted between Lally Infanterie and the parapet, and drove them from their guns while the rest hurriedly formed up on their left to resist any attempt upon the eastern face.
Bussy did all that a gallant man could do, but the odds were too great for him; and he could hope for no help, since all the rest of the line was hotly engaged. He wheeled Lally Infanterie round at right angles to the line to meet the fire on its flank, and detached a couple of platoons from his left against the western face of the tank; but his men shrank from the British fire and would not come to close quarters.
Then two of Draper's guns came up, and opening on the right flank of Lally Infanterie raked it through and through. As a last chance Bussy placed himself at the head of his wavering troops and led them straight at the southern face of the tank; but his horse was shot under him, and on looking round he saw but 20 men following him, the rest having no heart for the conflict. Two platoons of the 79th Draper's Foot at once doubled round to cut them off, while major Monson came up with part of the grenadiers of the second line to support the attack of the 79th Draper's Foot. Bussy and his devoted little band were surrounded and made prisoners and the whole of Lally Infanterie was captured or dispersed.
The battalions of the centre on both sides had throughout kept up a continual fire at long range; but when the Bataillon des Indes perceived both its flanks to be uncovered, it faced about and retreated, hastily indeed but in good order. Lally had some time before attempted to bring forward the Sepoys from the ridge, but they had refused to move and the Mahrattas took themselves off when they saw how the day was going.
Nothing was left to Lally but his few squadrons of French horse, which came forward nobly to save his army. A few men of Lorraine Infanterie, heartened by their appearance, harnessed the teams to 3 field-guns and joined with the cavalry in covering the retreat to the walled market of Wandewash where the detachment in the trenches joined them, having abandoned all their siege guns and ammunition.
The British dragoon squadron was too weak to attack the French cavalry, and Coote's Indian horse refused to face them; so Lally was able to set fire to his camp, collect the men from his batteries, and to retire in better order than his officers had dared to hope.
Aftermath
Moving westward, toward Wandiwash, the defeated army collected the small siege force there and marched off. Although Coote repeatedly ordered his cavalry to hit the departing column, the fire of a few small artillery pieces and some fine screening by Lally's horse kept the British at a respectful distance. The Irish general had saved his force from destruction, but it had been badly hurt and would never again take the offensive. He had lost between 600 and 800 men killed, wounded or captured, including his second-in-command. The English claimed they buried 200 on the battlefield and took 200 wounded and 40 unwounded prisoners. More wounded were left behind on the retreat to Pondicherry. Coote's losses were 53 from the 84th Regiment, 59 from the East India Company Regiment, and 80 from the elements of Draper's regiment (the 79th Foot, actually) that had been in contact with Lally's Regiment.
The war in India would drag on for another year, with Lally holding out in the enclave of Pondicherry in the hope of seeing reinforcements from France or hearing news of a peace settlement. Neither came, and faced with the exhaustion of supplies and the opposition of company officials and the civilian population to further resistance, Lally surrendered what was left of his army on January 15, 1761. A small force of French and Irish still held out in the interior, but within a few months they, too, were forced to give up. The way now was open for India Brittanica.
While his troops were sent to Bombay for later return to France, the captive Lally was sent to Madras, from which a ship took him to England, where he was treated with respect. Upon learning that in Paris he was being charged with treason against the French crown, he obtained permission from the British government under Prime Minister William Pitt to return and defend himself. He was promised a fair hearing but ordered to make no comments. More than a year passed while his enemies at court plotted against him. They were allied with those company officers who needed a scapegoat for the loss of French India. In May of 1766 a weak King Louis XV gave in to corrupt lobbyists and condemned Lally to death. He was beheaded like a common criminal.
Years later, under the new King Louis XVI, Lally's son Trophime Gerad Lally-Tollendal, assisted by the writer-philosopher Voltaire, got the case reopened. Eager to show a spirit of reform, the king reversed the verdict and in effect exonerated Lally.
Coote apparently assisted, for he wrote to Lally's son: 'Nobody had a higher idea than I of General Lally, who to my knowledge has struggled against obstacles which I believed unconquerable and has conquered them; nobody at the same time, is more his enemy than I, seeing him achieve those triumphs at the prejudice of my nation. There is certainly not a second man in all India who could have managed to keep on foot, for so long a period, an army without pay, and without any kind of assistance.'
Eyre Coote was to serve in India for many years with great success against those native rulers opposing the steady expansion of English rule. Coote, who was knighted in 1771 and became a lieutenant general, died in Madras on April 27, 1783, while preparing to return home to England.
Years would pass before England did gain control over India, but on that day at Wandiwash when two tiny European armies fought it out, the fate of India really was decided. A young British officer inside the besieged fort at Wandiwash wrote that at 7 in the morning he and his companion heard cannon fire. He added with great prescience: 'Then followed the battle that gave us India.'
Wargaming Wandiwash
We played Wandiwash on Good Friday, so a battle report on how we fought this battle (including map and photos) which should help you replay your own version of the battle.