Charles Godeheu

Last updated

Charles Robert Godeheu de Zaimont was Acting Governor General of Pondicherry. [1] He was the Commissioner of French army during Dupleix's reign.

Contents

Important incidents

In 1754, Godeheu gave up with the English the Indian territories, especially Madras, which had been conquered in 1746 by Dupleix and left the French with the Deccan region. From 1751 Dupleix's star began to wane. Robert Clive, a discontented young British factor who had left the countinghouse for the field, seized the fort of Arcot, political capital of Karnataka, with 210 men in August 1751. This daring stroke had the hoped-for effect of diverting half of Chanda Sahib's army to its recovery. Clive's successful 50-day defense permitted Mohamed Ali Khan Walajan to procure allies from Tanjore and the Marathas. The French were worsted, and they were eventually forced to surrender in June 1752. Dupleix never recovered from this blow and was superseded in August 1754 by his director Godehou, who made an unfavourable settlement with the British. On 26 December 1754, he signed the Treaty of Pondicherry with Thomas Saunders, the English East India Company's resident at Madras, that forbade the British and French companies all political activity in India and the activity must be strictly commercial.

His intervention in French activity at that time left an unerasable scar on Dupleix's efforts and became the death blow for future expansion of the French Colonial Empire in India.

See also

Related Research Articles

Robert Clive British military officer and East India Company official

Major-General Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, also known as Clive of India, was the first British Governor of the Bengal Presidency. He is credited along with Warren Hastings for laying the foundation of the British Empire in India. He began as a writer for the East India Company (EIC) who established the military and political supremacy of the EIC by securing a decisive victory in Bengal and looting its treasury of an estimated £2.325 billion in modern terms. In return for supporting the Nawab of Bengal Mir Jafar on the throne, Clive was granted a jaghire of £30,000 per year which was the rent the EIC would otherwise pay to the Nawab for their tax farming concession, when he left India he had a fortune of £180,000 which he remitted through the Dutch East India Company. Blocking impending French mastery of India, and eventual British expulsion from the continent, Clive improvised a military expedition that ultimately enabled the EIC to adopt the French strategy of indirect rule via puppet government. Hired by the EIC to return a second time to India, Clive conspired to secure the Company's trade interests by overthrowing the ruler of Bengal, the richest state in India. Back in England, he used his treasure from India to secure an Irish barony from the then Whig PM, Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, and a seat for himself in Parliament, via Henry Herbert, 1st Earl of Powis, representing the Whigs in Shrewsbury, Shropshire (1761–1774), as he had previously in Mitchell, Cornwall (1754–1755).

Joseph François Dupleix

Joseph Marquis Dupleix was Governor-General of French India and rival of Robert Clive.

Eyre Coote (East India Company officer)

Lieutenant-General Sir Eyre Coote, KB was a British soldier and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1768 to 1780. He is best known for his many years of service with the British Army in India. His victory at the Battle of Wandiwash is considered a decisive turning point in the struggle for control in India between Britain and France. He was known by his sepoy troops as Coote Bahadur.

Battle of Plassey Battle of the Seven Years War

The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over a much larger force of the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757, under the leadership of Robert Clive. The battle helped the Company seize control of Bengal. Over the next hundred years, they seized control of most of the entire Indian subcontinent, Myanmar, and Afghanistan.

French India Former French colony

French India, formally the Établissements français dans l'Inde, was a French colony comprising five geographically separate enclaves on the Indian subcontinent that had initially been factories of the French East India Company. Beginning in the second half of the 17th century, they were de facto incorporated into the Republic of India in 1950 and 1954. The enclaves were Pondichéry, Karikal, Yanaon on the Coromandel Coast, Mahé on the Malabar Coast and Chandernagor in Bengal. The French also possessed several loges inside other towns, but after 1816, the British denied all French claims to these, which were not reoccupied.

Stringer Lawrence

Major-General Stringer Lawrence was an English soldier, the first Commander-in-Chief, India

Henry Vansittart

Henry Vansittart was the English Governor of Bengal from 1759 to 1764.

Fort St. David Fort in Tamil Nadu, India

Fort St David, now in ruins, was a British fort near the town of Cuddalore, a hundred miles south of Chennai on the Coromandel Coast of India. It is located near silver beach without any maintenance. It was named for the patron saint of Wales because the governor of Madras at the time, Elihu Yale, was Welsh.

Carnatic Wars

The Carnatic Wars were a series of military conflicts in the middle of the 18th century in India. The conflicts involved numerous nominally independent rulers and their vassals, struggles for succession and territory; and included a diplomatic and military struggle between the French East India Company and the British East India Company. They were mainly fought within the territories of Mughal India with the assistance of various fragmented polities loyal to the "Great Moghul". As a result of these military contests, the British East India Company established its dominance among the European trading companies within India. The French company was pushed to a corner and was confined primarily to Pondichéry. The East India Company's dominance eventually led to control by the British Company over most of India and eventually to the establishment of the British Raj.

Nasir Jung 18th-century ruler of Hyderabad

Mir Ahmed Ali Khan Siddiqi Bayafandi, Nasir Jung, was the son of Nizam-ul-Mulk by his wife Saeed-un-nisa Begum. He was born 26 February 1712. He succeeded his father as the Nizam of Hyderabad State in 1748. He had taken up a very pompous title of Humayun Jah, Nizam ud-Daula, Nawab Mir Ahmad Ali Khan Siddiqi Bahadur, Nasir Jung, Nawab Subadar of the Deccan. However, he is most famously known as Nasir Jung.

The Sieur de Bruno was a French adventurer and diplomat of the 18th century. He took an important role in developing French influence in Burma, and in leading French efforts at supporting the Mons during their conflicts against the Burmese.

France–Myanmar relations Diplomatic relations between the French Republic and the Republic of the Union of Myanmar

France-Myanmar relations refers to interstate relations of Myanmar and France. Relations began in the early 18th century, as the French East India Company was attempting to extend its influence into Southeast Asia. France became involved upon the building of a shipyard in 1729 in the city of Syriam. The 1740 revolt of the Mon against Burmese rule however forced the French to depart in 1742. They were able to return to Siam in 1751 when the Mon requested French assistance against the Burmese. A French envoy, Sieur de Bruno was sent to evaluate the situation and help in the defense against the Burmese. French warships were sent to support the Mon rebellion, but in vain. In 1756, the Burmese under Alaungpaya vanquished the Mon. Many French were captured and incorporated into the Burmese Army as an elite gunner corps, under Chevalier Milard. In 1769, official contacts resume when a trade treaty was signed between king Hsinbyushin and the French East India Company.

Ananda Ranga Pillai Indian diarist

M. R. Ry. Ananda Ranga Pillai was a dubash in the service of the French East India Company.

Siege of Madras

The Siege of Madras was a siege of Madras, which was then under English rule, between December 1758 and February 1759 by French forces under the command of Lally during the Seven Years' War. The British garrison was able to hold out until it was relieved. The British fired 26,554 cannonballs and more than 200,000 cartridge rounds in defence of the town. The failure to take Madras was a huge disappointment for the French and a massive setback to their campaign in India compounded by the later Battle of Wandiwash.

Battle of Madras

The Battle of Madras or Fall of Madras took place in September 1746 during the War of the Austrian Succession when a French force attacked and captured the city of Madras from its British garrison.

Siege of Arcot

The Siege of Arcot took place at Arcot, India between forces of the British East India Company led by Robert Clive and forces of Nawab of the Carnatic, Chanda Sahib, assisted by a small number of troops from the French East India Company. It was part of the Second Carnatic War.

First Carnatic War

The First Carnatic War (1746–1748) was the Indian theatre of the War of the Austrian Succession and the first of a series of Carnatic Wars that established early British dominance on the east coast of the Indian subcontinent. In this conflict the British and French East India Companies vied with each other on land for control of their respective trading posts at Madras, Pondicherry, and Cuddalore, while naval forces of France and Britain engaged each other off the coast. The war set the stage for the rapid growth of French hegemony in southern India under the command of French Governor-General Joseph François Dupleix in the Second Carnatic War.

The Siege of Trichinopoly (1751–1752) was conducted by Chanda Sahib, who had been recognized as the Nawab of the Carnatic by representatives of the French East India Company, against the fortress town of Trichinopoly, held by Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah.

The Battle of Seringham was fought on the island of Srirangam between 1,000 troops of the British East India Company commanded by Stringer Lawrence and a confederacy of French East India Company troops and Chanda Sahib.

The Siege of Cuddalore was a battle during the War of the Austrian Succession on 17 June 1748.

References

  1. Naravane, M.S. (2014). Battles of the Honorourable East India Company. A.P.H. Publishing Corporation. p. 158. ISBN   9788131300343.

Titles

Government offices
Preceded by
Joseph François Dupleix
Governor-General of French India
(Acting)

15 October 1754 February 1755
Succeeded by
Georges Duval de Leyrit