The British East India Company's victory over the Nawab of Bengal initiated over a century of expanding British colonial control across the Indian subcontinent.
Key Facts
- Date
- 23 June 1757
- Duration
- Approximately 11 hours
- Nawab's force size
- ~50,000 soldiers, 40 cannons, 10 war elephants
- British force size
- 3,000 soldiers under Col. Robert Clive
- Distance from Calcutta
- ~150 km north
- Bengal control achieved
- 1773
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Tensions escalated after Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah attacked British-controlled Calcutta and ordered a halt to British fortification expansion. The British recaptured Calcutta and seized the French fort at Chandannagar. Clive then cultivated a conspiracy with Mir Jafar, the Nawab's commander-in-chief, promising to make him the new Nawab in exchange for betraying Siraj-ud-Daulah on the battlefield.
On 23 June 1757, Robert Clive's 3,000 British East India Company troops faced Siraj-ud-Daulah's numerically superior force of roughly 50,000 at Palashi on the Hooghly River. The battle lasted about eleven hours. Mir Jafar and other conspiring commanders kept their troops inactive, Siraj-ud-Daulah fled the field, and the Nawab's army collapsed, delivering a decisive victory to the British.
The British East India Company gained dominance over Bengal, achieving full control by 1773. The vast wealth extracted from Bengal funded military expansion, enabling Britain to displace French and Dutch colonial rivals across South Asia. Over the following century, the Company extended its authority across much of the Indian subcontinent and Burma, laying the foundation for direct British imperial rule.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
1 belligerent
Robert Clive, Admiral Charles Watson.
Side B
2 belligerents
Siraj-ud-Daulah, Mir Jafar (defected).