Carnatic wars

• 1. Introduction

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  The Carnatic Wars reshaped the entire balance of power in India, and they began not with a battle on Indian soil but with a war being fought on the other side of the world. In 1740, the War of the Austrian Succession broke out in Europe, pulling France and Britain onto opposite sides. Their trading companies in India, however, maintained cordial relations at first. As one observer recorded, the French were even sending their goods from Pondicherry to Madras for safe custody, trusting their rivals to look after their property. That strange civility would not last. Within a few years, the coastal Carnatic region of India became the stage for a contest that would determine which European power controlled the subcontinent for the next two centuries. The questions this documentary will pursue are simple but consequential: how did a struggle over European succession turn into a permanent shift of power on the Indian coast, who were the men who drove that contest, and why did one side end up ruling India while the other retreated to a single port city?

• 2. A Fractured Inheritance

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  Aurangzeb, the Mughal Emperor, died in 1707, and what followed was a slow unraveling of the empire he had spent his reign trying to hold together. His successor Bahadur Shah I took power, but the central authority of subsequent emperors declined steadily. Nizam-ul-Mulk moved to fill the vacuum, establishing Hyderabad as an independent kingdom in practice if not in name. When Nizam-ul-Mulk died, a succession dispute broke out between his son Nasir Jung and his grandson Muzaffar Jung. That quarrel opened a door that France and Britain were both eager to walk through. France lined up behind Muzaffar Jung; Britain backed Nasir Jung. The Carnatic itself was technically a dependency of Hyderabad, but in practice it was governed by its own Nawab, Dost Ali Khan. When Dost Ali died, a fresh contest erupted between his son-in-law Chanda Sahib, who had French backing, and Muhammad Ali, who had British backing. The port of Pondicherry on the Coromandel Coast was the main French foothold in the region, and the man determined to expand far beyond it arrived there in 1715.

• 3. Dupleix and Clive

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  Joseph François Dupleix reached India in 1715 and spent the next three decades working to transform French influence from a handful of trading outposts into something resembling genuine power. By 1742 he had risen to become governor of the French East India Company. His approach was novel for the time: he organised Indian recruits under French officers, and he pursued active diplomatic intrigues with local rulers rather than waiting for European politics to hand him an opening. He understood that influence in India required engagement with India, not just with the trading ledger. Standing in his way was a young British Army officer named Robert Clive. Clive's first taste of the conflict came during the First Carnatic War, when he was taken prisoner at Madras and managed to escape. He went on to participate in the defence of Fort St. David at Cuddalore and in the later siege of Pondicherry. The rivalry between Dupleix's strategic vision and Clive's battlefield determination would run through the entire course of the wars. Dupleix ultimately lost that contest. He was recalled from India and died in poverty back in France, replaced by Charles Godeheu after the Treaty of Pondicherry in 1754.

• 4. The First War at Sea and on Land

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  British Admiral Edward Peyton and French commander La Bourdonnais fought an indecisive naval action off Negapatam in July 1746, after which the British fleet pulled back to Bengal. La Bourdonnais pushed the advantage on land. On the 21st of September 1746, French forces captured Madras. La Bourdonnais had apparently promised to return the city to the British, but Dupleix overrode that promise and considered giving Madras to the Nawab Anwar-ud-din instead. Anwar-ud-din responded by sending an army of ten thousand men to take Madras from the French, but a much smaller French force turned them back decisively at the Battle of Adyar. The French then attempted several times to capture Fort St. David at Cuddalore, but timely British reinforcements reversed those attempts. British Admiral Edward Boscawen laid siege to Pondicherry in the later months of 1748, but the monsoon rains arriving in October forced him to abandon the effort. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, signed in 1748, gave Madras back to the British in exchange for the French fortress of Louisbourg in North America, which the British had captured. The French came out of the First War still holding their role as protectors of the nizams of Hyderabad.

• 5. The Proxy War Continues

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  No formal declaration of war existed in Europe between 1749 and 1754, but the competition in India continued without pause. Chanda Sahib and Muzaffar Jung, with French support, captured Arcot while their rivals were still consolidating. Nasir Jung's subsequent death let Muzaffar Jung take control of Hyderabad, though his reign was brief before he too was killed, leaving Salabat Jung as Nizam. In 1751, Robert Clive led British troops to take Arcot and then successfully defended it. The Pari royal house, which had sided with the French, fled their fort at Durgam during the fighting and made for Pondicherry. The Second Carnatic War ended with the Treaty of Pondicherry in 1754, which formally recognised Muhammad Ali Khan Walajah as the Nawab of the Carnatic. That recognition was a concrete British political victory. The contest had shown that European companies could shape succession disputes in Indian kingdoms, a lesson that would drive the pattern of the third and final war.

• 6. The Decisive Third War

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  The Seven Years' War broke out in Europe in 1756, and the conflict in India immediately reignited. The French were by this point facing serious financial difficulties. The Third Carnatic War spread north beyond the Carnatic itself: British forces captured the French settlement of Chandernagore in Bengal in 1757. The war's outcome, however, was settled in the south. British forces successfully defended Madras, and Sir Eyre Coote defeated a French army commanded by the Comte de Lally at the Battle of Wandiwash in 1760. After that defeat at Wandiwash, Pondicherry itself fell to the British in 1761. The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1763, returned Chandernagore and Pondicherry to French control, but with a crucial restriction: French traders could operate posts in India, but were forbidden from administering them. France also agreed to support British client governments. French ambitions of an Indian empire ended at that treaty table, leaving the British East India Company as the dominant foreign power in the subcontinent and setting the conditions that would eventually produce the British Raj.