Place · Carnatic capital & siege site · India
Arcot
Also known as Arkat, Arcot fort, Nawab of the Carnatic
The seat of the Nawabs of the Carnatic, and the place where the Anglo-French contest for south India was decided by a proxy war over who held it. Robert Clive seized the empty fort in September 1751 with about five hundred men and held it for fifty days against Chanda Sahib's besieging army.
- Date
- 1751 CE
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 12.906, 79.320
Worth knowing
The siege was a diversion: taking the capital forced Chanda Sahib to break off his attack on the British candidate, Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah, at Tiruchirappalli. Clive was a twenty-six-year-old clerk who had transferred to the military service, and Arcot made his reputation.
Connections (2)
- CampaignPuducherry (Pondicherry)
Arcot and Pondicherry are the two ends of the Second Carnatic War: the French candidate Chanda Sahib was installed as Nawab with Dupleix's troops, and Clive's seizure of his capital in 1751 forced him to abandon the siege of Tiruchirappalli. Chanda Sahib was killed in 1752 and Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah, the Company's man, held the Carnatic for the rest of the century.
- CampaignRobert Clive
Clive was a twenty-six-year-old Company writer who had transferred to the military service when he took Arcot in 1751 and held it for fifty days against Chanda Sahib's army. The siege made his reputation and the Company's case that Indian politics could be decided by small European-drilled forces — the argument he carried to Bengal six years later.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Siege of Arcot”. Robert Orme, A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan (1763–78); Ananda Ranga Pillai, The Private Diary (Pondicherry, 1736–61).
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