The Carnatic Wars: Anglo-French Rivalry

Britain and France fought three wars on India’s southeastern coast between 1746 and 1763. Each war was really the Indian front of a wider European war.

A young clerk’s siege of a fort, and one lucky artillery shot, decided who would rule India next.

1Why were Britain and France fighting on India’s Carnatic coast?

Two rival companies, one coastline, and a European war that spilled straight into India.

• The British and French East India Companies both ran trading posts along India’s southeastern Carnatic coast.
• Three Carnatic Wars were fought between them, from 1746 to 1763.
• Each war was really the Indian front of a wider European war. The First Carnatic War mirrored the War of the Austrian Succession.
• French governor Joseph Francois Dupleix led the French side through most of this period, from his base at Pondicherry.

2How did the First Carnatic War actually play out?

A tiny French force humiliated a Nawab’s army twice, and still had to hand Madras back.

• A French naval squadron under La Bourdonnais captured Madras from the British in September 1746.
• The Nawab of the Carnatic sent 10,000 troops to besiege the French at Madras. A French force of roughly 950 men routed this army, not once but twice.
• The second defeat came at the Battle of St Thome, on 4 November 1746. Disciplined, rapid-firing European troops had just beaten an army ten times their size.
• The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) restored Madras to the British, in exchange for the French keeping Louisbourg, a fortress they had captured in North America.

3How did a clerk’s siege of Arcot change the war?

A junior company clerk’s gamble turned the whole Second Carnatic War around.

• In the Second Carnatic War (1749-54), Dupleix installed his own candidates on two thrones: Muzaffar Jung as Nizam of Hyderabad, and Chanda Sahib as Nawab of the Carnatic.
• The British backed a rival claimant instead, and defended him at Trichinopoly.
• On 31 August 1751, a young company clerk named Robert Clive seized Arcot, Chanda Sahib’s own capital, with a small force. He held it through a 53-day siege, drawing enemy troops away from Trichinopoly.
• Both of Dupleix’s installed rulers met violent ends. Dupleix himself was recalled to France in 1754, his ambitions spent.

4How did Wandiwash end real French military power?

One lucky artillery shot decided the fate of French power in India.

• The Third Carnatic War mirrored the Seven Years’ War being fought in Europe.
• On 22 January 1760, British forces under Eyre Coote met the French under the Comte de Lally at Wandiwash.
• A lucky British artillery shot hit the French gunpowder store, shattering the French left flank. The French line collapsed.
• Lally retreated to Pondicherry. His best general, the Marquis de Bussy, was captured. Wandiwash is widely seen as the battle that ended real French military power in India.

5Why did France keep its posts but lose real power there?

France kept its buildings in India. It lost everything that made them matter.

• The Treaty of Paris (1763) ended the Third Carnatic War and the wider Seven Years’ War in Europe.
• France got its Indian trading posts back, including Pondicherry. But it could not fortify them, or keep a standing army there.
• This ended any real French political power in India, even though France technically still held its old sites.
• Dupleix’s strategy of installing friendly local rulers was an early version of the subsidiary alliance. The British later refined this same idea across the rest of India.

6What role did Dupleix’s own wife play behind the scenes?

Behind Dupleix’s own policy sat an advisor few history books name.

• Dupleix’s wife, Jeanne, was a Creole of Tamil and Portuguese descent, known locally as “Jeanne Begum.”
• She reputedly drafted much of Dupleix’s most sensitive correspondence, in Persian and Tamil.
• She acted as his political advisor, and personally took part in talks with local rulers.
• Her influence shows how deeply local knowledge, not just European muskets, shaped the Carnatic Wars.