to oppose what proved to be an army of 50,000. He had no cavalry, and
only a few guns, while the enemy had a large artillery force. In the
circumstances, it is perhaps hardly to be wondered at that Clive should
desire to share the responsibility. This he did, for what proved to be
the first and last time in his life, by holding a council of war, to
which he propounded the following question: "Whether, in our present
situation, without assistance, and on our own bottom, it would be
prudent to attack the Nawab, or whether we should wait till joined by
some country power." Of the sixteen members of the council, nine,
including Clive, voted for delay, and seven, including Eyre Coote, were
for an immediate attack. But Clive did not adhere to his original vote.
After the council had risen, he withdrew to a clump of trees, and having
passed an hour in thinking over all the arguments for and against delay,
he determined to move forward at once. Meeting Eyre Coote on his way
back to camp, he told him he had changed his mind, and intended to march
the next morning. Accordingly, in the early morning of June 22d, the
force marched down the bank of the Bhagirathi, and crossed the river the
same afternoon without meeting with any opposition. There still remained
fifteen miles to be traversed in order to reach Plassey. Clive's force,
after struggling through mud and water in a continued torrent of rain,
did not arrive at the village until one o'clock on the morning of the
23d. Clive had heard from Mir Jafar that the Nawab's army would halt at
Mankarah, a place some miles short of Plassey; but the Nawab had changed
his plans, and reached Plassey twelve hours before Clive. Thus, on his
arrival, Clive found that the enemy were close at hand. He spent the
remainder of the night making his dispositions, while his troops
bivouacked in an extensive mango-grove on ground already soaked by the
rain, which was still falling. The mango-grove was 800 yards in length
and 300 in breadth, and was surrounded by a bank and a ditch. About
fifty yards beyond it stood a hunting-box belonging to the Nawab of
Oude. Of this Clive at once took possession. The grove was little more
than a mile from the Nawab's encampment. The force under Clive, as
stated, did no exceed 3200 men, of whom 900 were English, 200 were
Eurasians, and 2100 native Sepoys. There was a small artillery train,
composed of eight six-pounders and two small howitzers. The Nawab's
army, so far as numerical strength was concerned, was enormously
superior to Clive's force. It consisted of 35,000 infantry--for the most
part imperfectly trained and undisciplined--and 15,000 cavalry well
mounted and well armed. He had 53 pieces of artillery, most of them of
heavy calibre, and with them 40 or 50 Frenchmen commanded by M. St.
Frais, who had been a member of the French council at Chandernagor. His
army occupied a strongly intrenched position. His right rested on the
river, while his left stretched out into the open plain.
The following is a brief description of the battle, taken from Clive's
journal of military proceedings:
"At daybreak we discovered the Nawab's army at the distance of about
three miles in full march towards us, upon which the whole were ordered
under arms, being in two battalions. The Europeans were told off in four
grand divisions, the artillery distributed between them, and the Sepoys
on the right and left of the whole.
"Our situation was very advantageous, being in a grove surrounded by
high mud-banks. Our right and front were entirely covered by those
mud-banks, our left by Placis' house and the river, our rear by the
grove and a large village. The enemy approached apace, covered a fine
extensive plain in front of us as far as the eye could discern from
right to left, and consisted, as we have since learned, of 15,000 horse
and 35,000 foot, with more than 40 pieces of cannon, from thirty-two to
nine pounders. They began to cannonade from this heavy artillery, which,
though well pointed, could do little execution, our people being lodged
under the banks. We could not hope to succeed in an attempt on their
cannon, as they were planted almost round, and at a considerable
distance both from us and each other. We therefore remained quiet in
front, in hopes of a successful attack on their camp at night. At 300
yards from the bank under which we were posted was a pool of water with
high banks all round it, and was apparently a post of strength. This the
enemy presently took possession of, and would have galled us much from
thence but for our advantageous position, with some cannon managed by 50
Frenchmen. This heavy artillery continued to play very briskly on the
grove.
"As their army, exclusive of a few advanced parties, were drawn up at
too great a distance for our short sixes to reach them, one field-piece
with a howitzer was advanced 200 yards in front, and we could see that
they played with great success amongst those that were of the first
rank, by which the whole army was dispirited and thrown into confusion.
"A large body of their horse starting out on our right, and as by that
movement we supposed they intended an attempt on the advanced
field-piece and howitzer, they were both ordered back.
"About eleven o'clock a very heavy shower of rain came on, and we
imagined the horse would now, if ever, have attacked in hopes of
breaking us, as they might have thought we could not then make use of
our firelocks; but their ignorance or the brisk firing of our artillery
prevented them from attempting it.
"At noon, a report being made that a party of horse had attacked and
taken our boats, the pickets were ordered, but, the account proving
false, they were countermanded.
"The enemy's fire now began to slacken, and soon after entirely ceased.
In this situation we remained until two o'clock, when, perceiving that
most of the enemy were returned to their camp, it was thought a proper
opportunity to seize one of the eminences from which the enemy had much
annoyed us in the morning. Accordingly, the Grenadiers, of the 1st
Battalion, with two field-pieces and a body of Sepoys, supported by four
platoons and two field-pieces from the 2d Battalion, were ordered to
take possession of it, which accordingly they did.
"This encouraged us to take possession of another advanced post within
300 yards of the entrance to the enemy's camp.
"All these motions brought the enemy out a second time, but in
attempting to bring out their cannon they were so galled by our
artillery that they could not effect it, notwithstanding they made
several attempts. Their horse and foot, however, advanced much nearer
than in the morning, and by their motions made as if they intended to
charge; two or three large bodies being within 150 yards. In this
situation they stood a considerable time a very brisk and severe
cannonade, which killed them upwards of 400 men, among whom were four or
five principal officers. This loss put the enemy into great confusion,
and encouraged us to attack the entrance into their camp and an adjacent
eminence at the same time. This we effected with little or no loss,
although the former was defended by the 50 French and a very large body
of black infantry, and the latter by a large body of horse and foot
intermixt together. During the heat of the action the remainder of the
forces were two or three times ordered to join us, and that order as
often countermanded on account of the movement of a large body of horse
towards the grove, whom we had often fired upon to keep at a proper
distance. Those afterwards proved to be our friends, commanded by Mir
Jafar. The entrance to the camp being gained, a general rout ensued, and
the whole army continued the pursuit for upwards of six miles, which,
for want of horse, answered no other purpose than that of taking all
their artillery, consisting of forty pieces of cannon, and all their
baggage."
Such is the account which Clive gave of the battle in a journal written
by him very shortly after, if not on the day after, it was fought. It
cannot be said that it furnishes a very clear or full narrative of the
events of the day. It does not mention the death of Mir Mudin, the
Nawab's only faithful general, which appears to have occurred shortly
after eleven o'clock, and was really the crisis of the battle. It
contains no statement of the loss sustained, which, however, was very
slight. Orme gives some particulars, but as regards the Europeans in a
very imperfect form. He states: "This important victory was gained with
little loss: only sixteen Sepoys were killed and thirty-six wounded. And
of the Europeans about twenty were killed and wounded, of which number
six of the killed and ten of the wounded were of the artillery, as were
likewise the two officers who were wounded during the different
operations of the day." The numbers of killed and wounded are given
somewhat more in detail by Malleson, although his totals agree with
those given by Orme. By Malleson's account, seven Europeans were killed
and sixteen wounded. According to both these writers, the total number
of killed and wounded in Clive's force was seventy-two. The loss on the
Nawab's side appears to have been between five and six hundred.
Considering the great disparity of numbers, the loss to Clive's force
was ridiculously small. Indeed, as Sir Alfred Lyall justly observes in
his interesting review of _The Rise and Expansion of the British
Dominion in India_, the so-called battle of Plassey was a rout rather
than a battle. As a military achievement it cannot be compared with the
defence of Arcot, or with the fight at Kaveripak, or with some other
actions in which Clive was engaged. At the same time its results were
far-reaching and of the greatest political importance. Indeed, it is
universally regarded by historians as the starting-point of British
dominion in India.
Had Plassey been lost, the establishment of British rule in India would
in all probability never have taken place; and although Plassey was
followed in a very few years by other contests far more severe, such as
Adams' fights at Gheria and at Andhanala, and Sir Hector Munro's victory
over the Mogul's and the Nawab Vazir's troops at Buxar, the political
importance of Plassey, which placed the ruler of the richest provinces
in India in subjection to the English company, can hardly be
overestimated. Nor, although the victory was so easily won, was it less
remarkable than Clive's other military achievements for the strategy
which he displayed or for the unfailing nerve and coolness with which
he encountered the enormous odds against him. Clive had not anticipated
that the Nawab would be able to array against him so large a force. When
day broke on that June morning, and revealed to his astonished gaze the
50,000 horse and foot and the large artillery force, to which he had to
oppose his 3200 infantry, his eight light field-pieces and no cavalry,
it must have needed an amount of nerve which is rarely possessed even by
the bravest men to make his dispositions for the approaching battle. But
on this, as on other occasions, Clive's nerve never failed. Indeed, the
greater the danger, the more clear was his judgment and the more keen
his courage.
The position which Clive took up in the mango-grove, protected as it was
by the trees and by the mud-bank surrounding it, which rendered the
heavy artillery of the enemy practically innocuous, and the skill with
which his few field-pieces were directed, were important elements in
securing the victory. Indeed, the most remarkable feature in the battle
is that while the artillery force of the enemy was enormously superior
in the weight of metal and in the number of guns to that of Clive, the
contest was mainly an artillery contest, and was practically decided by
that arm. The death of the Nawab's only faithful general, Mir Mudin, who
was mortally wounded by a cannon-shot, was, as we have said, the crisis
of the battle. It so disheartened the Nawab that from that moment he
gave himself up in despair, and became only too ready to listen to the
insidious advice of the leaders who had betrayed him, that he should
quit the field and leave it to them to continue the battle. Important as
Plassey was, and well as it was fought by Clive and his small force, it
is not a battle that can be held to redound to the credit of British
arms. Looking to the enormous disparity of numbers, and making every
allowance for the superior courage and training of the victorious force,
it can hardly be supposed that the result could have been what it was
had it not been for the treachery of the Nawab's principal generals.
On the evening after the battle, Clive's force halted at Daudpur, six
miles beyond Plassey. There on the next day he was joined by Mir Jafar,
the latter not altogether at ease as to the reception he might meet with
after his somewhat ambiguous attitude both before and during the
engagement; but Clive at once reassured him, and saluted him as the
Nawab of Bengal, Behar and Orissa, advising him to proceed at once to
Murshidabad, to secure the person of Suraj ud Daulah and prevent the
place being plundered.
Suraj ud Daulah had fled from the battle-field some time before the
issue was finally decided, and had arrived that same night at
Murshidabad. On the following night Mir Jafar reached that place. The
whole of that day Suraj ud Daulah had passed in a state of the greatest
perplexity as to the course he should pursue, whether he should submit
to the English or should make a stand in the city. Some of his principal
officers advised the former, some the latter, course. He had decided to
resist, and had ordered his troops to be massed for this purpose, when
he heard of the arrival of Mir Jafar. Then he resolved upon flight, and
accompanied by his favorite wife and a single eunuch, he left his palace
in disguise, and entering a boat which had been engaged for the purpose,
reached Rajmahal, ninety miles distant, on the evening of the fourth
day. There the rowers were obliged to halt for a rest, and taking refuge
in a deserted garden, the Nawab was seen by a fakir whose ears he had
caused to be cut off thirteen months before and was handed over to Mir
Jafar's brother, who resided at Rajmahal. He was at once captured, sent
back to Murshidabad, and handed over to Mir Jafar on July 2d. He pleaded
earnestly for his life, offering to give up everything else, and Mir
Jafar, probably remembering the kindness he had received from the
grandfather of his prisoner, was at first disposed to spare him, but
afterward consulted with his higher officials, some of whom advocated a
policy of clemency, while others, including Mir Jafar's son, Miran, a
truculent youth, not unlike Suraj ud Daulah in disposition, urged that
the only security against a fresh revolution lay in the death of the
prisoner. The latter accordingly was made over to Miran, by whose orders
he was brutally murdered in the course of the night.
FOOTNOTES:
[40] Nabob.
[41] It should be remembered that at that time it was the fashion in
private letters and in society to describe naval and military officers
as if they were civilians, and not by their naval or military rank.
SEVEN YEARS' WAR
BATTLE OF TORGAU
A.D. 1756-1763
WOLFGANG MENZEL FREDERICK THE GREAT
In the Seven Years' War Prussia stood practically alone against the
united strength of all Europe; and it was the success of her King,
Frederick, in withstanding the assaults of the vast and determined
coalition that won him from the unanimous voice of military critics
the title of the "Great." The tremendous conflict, the most gigantic
in Europe, between the Thirty Years' War and the French Revolution,
was the natural outcome of that earlier contest in which Frederick
had seized Silesia. If this strong and able monarch was the type of
the new spirit of doubt and endless questioning which had begun to
permeate Europe, his chief antagonist, Maria Theresa, was no less
emblematic of all that was noblest in the older, conservative
Catholicism which Frederick defied. Maria Theresa never forgot her
loss of Silesia. It was said of her that she could not see a
Silesian without weeping, and with steady patience she set herself
to draw all Europe into an alliance against Frederick.
Her rival's caustic tongue helped her purpose. He gave personal
offence not only to Elizabeth, the ruler of Russia, but to Madame
Pompadour, the real sovereign of France under Louis XV. Both of
these ladies urged their countries against the insulter. The three
leading powers of continental Europe having thus leagued against
Prussia, the lesser states soon joined them. Only England stood
outside the coalition. Her war with France originating in the
colonies and on the ocean, led her into an alliance with Prussia.
But England was safe on her island, and few of her troops fought
upon the Continent. She sent Frederick some money help; part of the
time she kept the French troops from his frontier; that was all.
The succession of Frederick's remarkable battles are too numerous to
detail. In one campaign he crushed the French at Rossbach, and
overthrew the Austrians at Leuthen. Then he defeated the Russians at
Zorndorf. Torgau was his last great triumph, and therefore his own
account of that contest is here presented in connection with the
concise narrative of the entire war by the standard German
historian, Menzel. Frederick was a vigorous writer as well as a
great fighter, and it is only fair to caution the reader against
accepting too fully the perhaps unconscious egotism of the monarch's
personal view. Some critics consider General Zieten the real winner
of this battle.
WOLFGANG MENZEL
In the autumn of 1756, Frederick, unexpectedly and without previously
declaring war, invaded Saxony, of which he speedily took possession, and
shut up the little Saxon army, thus taken unawares on the Elbe at Pirna.
A corps of Austrians, who were also equally unprepared to take the
field, hastened, under the command of Browne, to their relief, but were,
on October 1st, defeated at Lowositz, and the fourteen thousand Saxons
under Rutowsky at Pirna were in consequence compelled to lay down their
arms, the want to which they were reduced by the failure of their
supplies having already driven them to the necessity of eating
hair-powder mixed with gunpowder. Augustus III and Bruhl fled with such
precipitation that the secret archives were found by Frederick at
Dresden.
The Electress vainly strove to defend them by placing herself in front
of the chest; she was forcibly removed by the Prussian grenadiers, and
Frederick justified the suddenness of his attack upon Saxony by the
publication of the plans of his enemies. He remained during the whole of
the winter in Saxony, furnishing his troops from the resources of the
country. It was here that his chamberlain, Glasow, attempted to take him
off by poison, but, meeting by chance one of the piercing glances of the
King, tremblingly let fall the cup and confessed his criminal design,
the inducement for which has ever remained a mystery, to the astonished
King.
The allies, surprised and enraged at the suddenness of the attack, took
the field, in the spring of 1757, at the head of an enormous force. Half
a million men were levied, Austria and France furnishing each about one
hundred fifty thousand, Russia one hundred thousand, Sweden twenty
thousand, the German empire sixty thousand. These masses were, however,
not immediately assembled on the same spot, were, moreover, badly
commanded and far inferior in discipline to the seventy thousand
Prussians brought against them by Frederick. The war was also highly
unpopular, and created great discontent among the Protestant party in
the empire.
On the departure of Charles of Wuertemberg for the Imperial army, his
soldiery mutinied, and, notwithstanding their reduction to obedience,
the general feeling among the Imperial troops was so much opposed to the
war that most of the troops deserted and a number of the Protestant
soldiery went over to Frederick. The Prussian King was put out of the
ban of the empire by the Diet, and the Prussian ambassador at Ratisbon
kicked the bearer of the decree out of the door.
Frederick was again the first to make the attack, and invaded Bohemia
(1757). The Austrian army under Charles of Lorraine lay before Prague.
The King, resolved at all hazards to gain the day, led his troops across
the marshy ground under a terrible and destructive fire from the enemy.
His gallant general, Schwerin, remonstrated with him. "Are you afraid?"
was the reply. Schwerin, who had already served under Charles XII in
Turkey and had grown gray in the field, stung by this taunt, quitted his
saddle, snatched the colors, and shouted, "All who are not cowards
follow me!" He was at that moment struck by several cartridge-balls and
fell to the ground enveloped in the colors. The Prussians rushed past
him to the attack.
The Austrians were totally routed; Browne fell, but the city was
defended with such obstinacy that Daun, one of Maria Theresa's
favorites, was meanwhile able to levy a fresh body of troops. Frederick
consequently raised the siege of Prague and came upon Daun at Kolin,
where he had taken up a strong position. Here again were the Prussians
led into the thickest of the enemy's fire, Frederick shouting to them,
on their being a third time repulsed with fearful loss, "Would ye live
forever?" Every effort failed, and Benkendorf's charge at the head of
four Saxon regiments, glowing with revenge and brandy, decided the fate
of the day. The Prussians were completely routed. Frederick lost his
splendid guard and the whole of his luggage. Seated on the verge of a
fountain and tracing figures in the sand, he reflected upon the means of
realluring fickle Fortune to his standard.
A fresh misfortune befell him not many weeks later. England had declared
in his favor, but the incompetent English commander, nicknamed, on
account of his immense size, the Duke of Cumberland, allowed himself to
be beaten by the French at Hastenbeck and signed the shameful Treaty of
Closter Seven, by which he agreed to disband his troops.[42] This
treaty was confirmed by the British monarch. The Prussian general
Lewald, who had merely twenty thousand men under his command, was, at
the same time, defeated at Gross-Zagerndorf by an overwhelming Russian
force under Apraxin. Four thousand men were all that Frederick was able
to bring against the Swedes. They were, nevertheless, able to keep the
field, owing to the disinclination to the war evinced by their
opponents.
Autumn fell, and Frederick's fortune seemed fading with the leaves of
summer. He had, however, merely sought to gain time in order to recruit
his diminished army, and Daun having, with his usual tardiness,
neglected to pursue him, he suddenly took the field against the
Imperialists under the Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen and the French under
Soubise. The two armies met on November 5, 1757, on the broad plain
around Leipsic, near the village of Rossbach, not far from the scene of
the famous encounters of earlier times. The enemy, three times superior
in number to the Prussians, lay in a half-circle with a view of
surrounding the little Prussian camp, and, certain of victory, had
encumbered themselves with a numerous train of women, wigmakers,
barbers, and modistes from Paris. The French camp was one scene of
confusion and gayety.
On a sudden Frederick sent General Seydlitz with his cavalry among them,
and an instant dispersion took place, the troops flying in every
direction without attempting to defend themselves, some Swiss, who
refused to yield, alone excepted. The Germans on both sides showed their
delight at the discomfiture of the French. An Austrian coming to the
rescue of a Frenchman who had just been captured by a Prussian, "Brother
German," exclaimed the latter, "let me have this French rascal!" "Take
him and keep him!" replied the Austrian, riding off. The scene more
resembled a chase than a battle. The Imperial army (_Reichsarmee_) was
thence nicknamed the "Runaway" (_Reissaus_) army. Ten thousand French
were taken prisoners. The loss on the side of the Prussians amounted to
merely one hundred sixty men. The booty chiefly consisted in objects of
gallantry belonging rather to a boudoir than to a camp. The French army
perfectly resembled its mistress, the Marquise de Pompadour.
The Austrians had meanwhile gained great advantages to the rear of the
Prussian army, had beaten the King's favorite, General Winterfeld, at
Moys in Silesia, had taken the important fortress at Schweidnitz and the
metropolis, Breslau, whose commandant, the Duke of Bevern--a collateral
branch of the house of Brunswick--had fallen into their hands while on a
reconnoitring expedition. Frederick, immediately after the battle of
Rossbach, hastened into Silesia, and, on his march thither, fell in with
a body of two thousand young Silesians, who had been captured in
Schweidnitz, but, on the news of the victory gained at Rossbach, had
found means to regain their liberty, and had set off to his rencounter.
The King, inspired by this reënforcement, hurried onward, and, at
Leuthen, near Breslau, gained one of the most brilliant victories over
the Austrians during this war. Making a false attack upon the right
wing, he suddenly turned upon the left. "Here are the Wurtembergers,"
said he, "they will be the first to make way for us!" He trusted to the
inclination of these troops, who were zealous Protestants, in his favor.
They instantly gave way and Daun's line of battle was destroyed. During
the night he threw two battalions of grenadiers into Lissa, and,
accompanied by some of his staff, entered the castle, where, meeting
with a number of Austrian generals and officers, he civilly saluted them
and asked, "Can one get a lodging here, too?" The Austrians might have
seized the whole party, but were so thunderstruck that they yielded
their swords, the King treating them with extreme civility.
Charles of Lorraine, weary of his unvarying ill-luck, resigned the
command and was nominated stadtholder of the Netherlands, where he
gained great popularity. At Leuthen twenty-one thousand Austrians fell
into Frederick's hands; in Breslau, which shortly afterward capitulated,
he took seventeen thousand more, so that his prisoners exceeded his army
in number.