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| First Anglo-Bengal War | |||||||||
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| Part of Bengal War Seven Years' War Carnatic wars | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Nawabs of Bengal |  British Empire  East India Company | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Siraj-ud-Daula | Roger Drake  John Holwell Robert Clive | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 50,000 | 1,000 | ||||||||
At the close of the seventeenth century, the East India Company established a trading post in the area that would eventually become Calcutta. They purchased three small villages, which would form the foundation of the future city, and began the construction of Fort William to house a garrison, marking the beginning of British presence in the region. By 1717, the company had been granted significant privileges by the Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar, who provided them with immunity from taxes across Bengal. This concession allowed the East India Company to thrive, and as a result, Calcutta grew rapidly into a bustling hub of commerce, with a substantial volume of trade flowing down the Ganges River. During this period, the Nawabs of Bengal, who served as the regional governors of the territory, maintained a policy of controlled tolerance towards the European traders, which included the British, French, and Dutch. While they allowed these foreign powers to engage in trade, they imposed heavy taxes on their activities, ensuring that the Europeans did not gain too much economic influence or power within the region.
However, the political landscape in Bengal shifted dramatically when the elderly Nawab Alivardi Khan passed away in 1756. His death led to the ascension of his grandson, Siraj ud-Daulah, as the new Nawab. Unlike his grandfather, who had governed with a pragmatic and measured approach, Siraj was young, impulsive, and highly suspicious of the European presence in Bengal, particularly that of the British. His rise to power marked the beginning of a more aggressive and confrontational attitude toward the British East India Company. Siraj ud-Daulah was well known for hating the Europeans, mainly due to Alivardi Khan who told him that the people of Europe were like Bees. He told his grandson, "Of whose honey you might reap benefit, but if you disturbed their hive, they would sting you to death". [1]
From the very beginning of his reign, Siraj ud-Daulah was determined to expel the British from Calcutta and seize the wealth he believed was stored in the city. He sought any excuse to justify his actions against the East India Company, and soon found two significant pretexts that would allow him to take decisive action against the British presence in the region. [2] [3]
The first reason for Siraj-ud-Daulah's anger toward the British involved Kissendass, the son of Raj Ballabh, a senior Bengali official. Kissendass had fallen out of favor with the Nawab and had been briefly imprisoned. After his release, Raj Ballabh arranged for the British East India Company to let Kissendass enter Calcutta with his wife, who was pregnant, and their family's wealth. Meanwhile, Raj Ballabh had aligned himself with those who opposed Siraj-ud-Daulah's rule. Despite Siraj's demand for the British to hand over Kissendass and his fortune, the British continued to harbor him. This refusal to comply with Siraj's demand deepened his suspicion that the company was conspiring against him with his political enemies.
The second cause of tension stemmed from the fortifications being built by both the British and the French in their strongholds in Bengal. The British and the French had long been rivals in India, particularly along the southeastern coast, but until that point, their conflict had been confined to trade competition. However, with war breaking out between Britain and France in Europe, both sides began strengthening their defenses in Bengal. When Siraj-ud-Daulah learned of these fortifications, he immediately ordered that all construction work stop and that any new fortifications be dismantled. He promised to protect the foreign settlements, just as his grandfather had done. The French, recognizing their vulnerability in Bengal, responded cautiously, claiming they were only repairing existing fortifications. In contrast, the British, under the leadership of Roger Drake, acting governor of Calcutta, were more defiant. They insisted that they were merely preparing for their own protection, suggesting that the Nawab would be unable to defend them if needed.
These two incidents—the British protection of Kissendass and their fortification efforts—greatly intensified Siraj-ud-Daulah's mistrust of the British, leading him to see them as a threat to his rule. This set the stage for the conflict that would eventually erupt into the Siege of Calcutta.
Rumors quickly spread that the British East India Company was amassing forces in Chennai with the intentions of invading Bengal. By the end of May 1757, a large army of 50,000 men had been gathered under the command of Raj Durlabh, and the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daula, sent a formal declaration of war to the British authorities in Calcutta.
The first blow to the East India Company came on June 3, when the Nawab's forces surrounded the company's fort at Cossimbazar, which had only 50 men to defend it. After two days of siege, the fort surrendered, and the Nawab's army seized the company's guns and ammunition before marching toward Calcutta.
When the news of this defeat reached Fort William in Calcutta, panic set in, replacing the previous complacency. Acting Governor Roger Drake's poor leadership and indecisiveness contributed to the crisis. Despite some capable officers, their advice was ignored by Drake and his council, who instead made desperate pleas for help to the French and Dutch settlements—both of which refused to get involved. Appeals for reinforcements were sent to Madras, but they arrived too late to affect the outcome. [4]
In an attempt to appease the Nawab, Drake promised to meet all his demands, but it was too late. Meanwhile, the condition of Fort William was found to be dire. The fortifications were in disrepair, with crumbling walls and insufficient defensive structures. The defensive plan drawn up by the British council was inadequate, leaving large areas of the city unprotected, including "Black Town," a densely populated area of native dwellings.
As the Nawab's army closed in, only a small, poorly equipped garrison was available to defend the fort. When reinforcements arrived, they were not sufficient, and the defenders were vastly outnumbered. On June 13, the Nawab's advance guard was only a day's march away from the city, prompting the British to bring all women and children into the fort and hastily complete their fortifications. Despite these efforts, the Bengali forces surrounded Fort William and launched a brutal attack on the south wall. The defenders were overwhelmed, and the fort quickly fell into enemy hands.
The Treaty of Alinagar, signed on February 9, 1757, between Robert Clive of the British East India Company and Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah, restored British privileges in Bengal. It reaffirmed the 1717 Mughal farman, exempting British goods from duties and permitting the fortification of Calcutta and coin minting. Signed after the Nawab’s capture of Calcutta, the treaty set the stage for the Battle of Plassey, where the Nawab was defeated and killed later that year. [5]
The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company, under the leadership of Robert Clive, over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757. The victory was made possible by the defection of Mir Jafar, Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah's commander in chief as well as much of the Bengal Subah's armies being earlier committed against an Afghan invasion led by Ahmad Shah Durrani against the Mughal Empire. The battle helped the British East India Company take control of Bengal in 1772. Over the next hundred years, they continued to expand their control over vast territories in the rest of the Indian subcontinent, including Burma.
Mir Syed Jafar Ali Khan Mirza Muhammad Siraj-ud-Daulah, commonly known as Siraj-ud-Daulah or Siraj ud-Daula, was the last independent Nawab of Bengal. The end of his reign marked the start of the rule of the East India Company over Bengal and later almost all of the Indian subcontinent.
Fort William is a fort in Hastings, Calcutta (Kolkata). It was built during the early years of Britain's administration of Bengal. It sits on the eastern banks of the River Hooghly, the major distributary of the River Ganga. One of Kolkata's most enduring British-era military fortifications, other than those in Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai), it extends over an area of seventy hectares.
Murshidabad is a historical city in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located on the eastern bank of the Bhagirathi River, a distributary of the Ganges. It forms part of the Murshidabad district.
Kolkata was a colonial city. The British East India Company developed Calcutta as a village by establishing an artificial riverine port in the 18th century CE. Kolkata was the capital of the British India until 1911, when the capital was relocated to Delhi. Kolkata grew rapidly in the 19th century to become the second most important city of the British Empire after London and was declared as the financial (commercial) capital of the British India. This was accompanied by the fall of a culture that fused Indian philosophies with European tradition.
The Treaty of Alinagar was signed on 9 February 1757 between Robert Clive of the British East India Company and the Nawab of Bengal, Mirza Muhammad Siraj ud-Daulah. Alinagar was the short-lived name given to Calcutta given by the Nawab after it was captured by him. The Nawab had seized the English fort at Calcutta, but facing the threat of Afghans in the rear and the military might of the English, he signed the treaty.
The Nawab of Bengal was the hereditary ruler of Bengal Subah in Mughal India. In the early 18th-century, the Nawab of Bengal was the de facto independent ruler of the three regions of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa which constitute the modern-day sovereign country of Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. The Bengal Subah reached its peak during the reign of Nawab Shuja-ud-Din Muhammad Khan. They are often referred to as the Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The Nawabs were based in Murshidabad which was centrally located within Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha. Their chief, a former prime minister, became the first Nawab. The Nawabs continued to issue coins in the name of the Mughal Emperor, but for all practical purposes, the Nawabs governed as independent monarchs. Bengal continued to contribute the largest share of funds to the imperial treasury in Delhi. The Nawabs, backed by bankers such as the Jagat Seth, became the financial backbone of the Mughal court.
Mir Jafar, was a commander-in-chief or military general who reigned as the first dependent Nawab of Bengal of the British East India Company. His reign has been considered by many historians as the start of the expansion of British control of the Indian subcontinent in Indian history and a key step in the eventual British domination of vast areas of pre-partition India. He is best known for his betrayal to Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah in the Battle of Plassey.
Midnapore, or sometimes Medinipur, is a former district in the Indian state of West Bengal, headquartered in Midnapore. On 1 January 2002, the district was bifurcated into two separate districts namely Purba Medinipur and Paschim Medinipur. It was the largest district of West Bengal by area and population at the time of bifurcation.
Kalikata was one of the three villages which were merged to form the city of Kolkata in India. The other two villages were Gobindapur and Sutanuti. Job Charnock, an administrator with the British East India Company is traditionally credited with the honour of founding the city. He settled in the village of Sutanuti.
Alivardi Khan was the fourth Nawab of Bengal from 1740 to 1756. He toppled the Nasiri dynasty of Nawabs by defeating Sarfaraz Khan in 1740 and assumed power himself.
The siege of Calcutta was a battle between the Bengal Subah and the British East India Company on 20 June 1756. The Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, aimed to seize Calcutta to punish the company for the unauthorised construction of fortifications at Fort William. Siraj ud-Daulah caught the Company unprepared and won a decisive victory.
Roger Drake was a British administrator in the East India Company. He served as President of Fort William in Bengal between 1752 and 1756 and was later reprimanded for his actions during the Siege of Calcutta in 1756.
The Black Hole of Calcutta was a dungeon in Fort William, Calcutta, measuring 14 by 18 feet, in which troops of Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, held British prisoners of war on the night of 20 June 1756. John Zephaniah Holwell, one of the British prisoners and an employee of the East India Company, said that, after the fall of Fort William, the surviving British soldiers, Indian sepoys, and Indian civilians were imprisoned overnight in conditions so cramped that many people died from suffocation and heat exhaustion, and that 123 of 146 prisoners of war imprisoned there died.
Khushbagh is the garden-cemetery of the Nawabs of Bengal, situated on the west bank of the Hooghly river, about a mile from its east bank, in the Murshidabad-Jiaganj CD block in Lalbag subdivision of Murshidabad district, West Bengal, India. Khushbagh hosts the graves of the Nawabs of Bengal of the Afshar dynasty and their family members; while Jafarganj Cemetery hosts the graves of the later Nawabs and their families, starting from Mir Jafar, who belonged to the Najafi dynasty. Khushbagh is the resting place of Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah, his wife Lutf-un-nisa, Nawab Alivardi Khan, and his mother, amongst others.
Lutfunnisa Begum was the 3rd wife and primary consort of Siraj ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal.
Amina Begum was a Bengali aristocrat from the Nawab family of Bengal and mother of Siraj ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal.
Zain ud-Din Ahmad Khan, also known as Mirza Muhammad Hashim, was an aristocrat from the Nawab of Bengal family and the father of Siraj ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal.
Jagat Seth was a wealthy merchant, banker and money lender family from Murshidabad in Bengal during the time of the Nawabs of Bengal.
Khoja Wajid was a wealthy Armenian merchant who played a prominent role in the economic and political life of Bengal in the 1740s and 50s.
