Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive

Siraj ud Daulah, governor of Bengal, unwisely provokes a military confrontation with the British at Plassey in 1757.

He is defeated by Robert Clive, an adventurous young official of the British East India Company.

Clive's victory is consolidated in 1764 at the Battle of Buxar on the Ganges, where he defeats the Mughal emperor.

As a result, the British East India Company is granted the title of diwan (collector of the revenue) in the areas of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, making it the supreme, but not titular, governing power.

Henceforth the British will govern Bengal and from here extend their rule to all of India.

Robert Clive's troops defeat the Mughal forces at Buxar (Baksar, west of Patna in Bihar) in 1765, and the Mughal emperor (Shah Alam, r. 1759-1806) confers on the company administrative rights over Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, a region of roughly twenty-five million people with an annual revenue of forty million rupees.

The imperial grant virtually establishes the company as a sovereign power, and Clive becomes the first British governor of Bengal.

Besides the presence of the Portuguese, Dutch, British, and French, there are two lesser but noteworthy colonial groups.

Danish entrepreneurs establish themselves at several ports on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, in the vicinity of Calcutta and inland at Patna between 1695 and 1740.

Austrian enterprises are set up in the 1720s on the vicinity of Surat in modern-day southeastern Gujarat.

As with the other non-British enterprises, the Danish and Austrian enclaves are taken over by the British between 1765 and 1815.

The British company employs sepoys—European-trained and European-led Indian soldiers—to protect its trade, but local rulers seek their services to settle scores in regional power struggles.

South India witnesses the first open confrontation between the British and the French, whose forces are led by Robert Clive and Francois Dupleix, respectively.

Both companies desire to place their own candidate as the nawab, or ruler, of Arcot, the area around Madras.

At the end of a protracted struggle between 1744 and 1763, when the Peace of Paris is signed, the British gain  an upper hand over the French and install their man in power, supporting him further with arms and lending large sums as well.

The French and the British also back different factions in the succession struggle for Mughal viceroyalty in Bengal, but Clive intervenes successfully and defeats Nawab Siraj-ud-daula in the Battle of Plassey (Palashi, about one hundred and fifty kilometers north of Calcutta) in 1757.

Clive finds help from a combination of vested interests that oppose the existing nawab: disgruntled soldiers, landholders, and influential merchants whose commercial profits are closely linked to British fortunes.

The European factories in India serve during the wars of the eighteenth century not only as collection and transshipment points for trade but also increasingly as fortified centers of refuge for both foreigners and Indians.

British factories gradually begin to apply British law to disputes arising within their jurisdiction.

The posts also begin to grow in area and population.

Armed company servants are effective protectors of trade.

As rival contenders for power call for armed assistance and as individual European adventurers find permanent homes in India, British and French companies find themselves more and more involved in local politics in the south and in Bengal.

Plots and counterplots climax when British East India Company forces, led by Robert Clive, decisively defeat the larger but divided forces of Nawab Siraj-ud-Dawlah at Plassey (Pilasi) in Bengal in 1757.

The Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb had been succeeded on his death in 1707 by Bahadur Shah I, but there had been a general decline in central control over the empire during the tenure of Jahandar Shah and later Mughals.

Several erstwhile Mughal colonies have revolted.

The Carnatic, despite being under the legal purview of the Nizam of Hyderabad, had been ruled since 1732 ruled by Nawab Dost Ali, whose death in 1740 had sparked a power struggle between his son-in-law Chanda Sahib and the Nizam's nominee, Anwaruddin Muhammed Khan.

The trading companies of both Britain and France have maintained cordial relations among themselves in India while their parent countries are bitter enemies on the European continent, having gone to war in 1740 over the succession to the throne of Austria.

H. H. Dodwell writes, "Such were the friendly relations between the English and the French that the French sent their goods and merchandise from Pondicherry to Madras for safe custody." (Dodwell, H. H. (ed), Cambridge History of India, Vol. v.)

Joseph François Dupleix was born in Landrecies, France.

His father, François Dupleix, a wealthy farmer, wished to bring him up as a merchant, and, in order to distract him from his taste for science, had sent him on a voyage to India in 1715 on one of the French East India Company's vessels.

After making several voyages to the Americas and India, he had in 1720 been named a member of the superior council at Pondicherry.

Displaying great business aptitude, he had made large ventures on his own account and acquired a fortune in the course of discharging his official duties.

He had been made superintendent of French affairs in 1730 in the town of Chandernagore, which had prospered under his administration and grown to great importance.

He had married Pondicherry-born Jeanne Albert, widow of one of the councilors of the company, in 1741.

Her father had been Company surgeon; her mother, also known as Rosa de Castro, was a creole of partly Italian, partly Portuguese and Indian parentage from Madras.

Albert, known to the Hindus as Joanna Begum,  had soon proved of great help to her husband in his negotiations with the native princes.

His reputation had resulted in his appointment in 1742 as governor general of the French establishment in India, succeeding Pierre Benoît Dumas as the French governor of Pondicherry.

His ambition now is to acquire for France vast territories in India, and for this purpose he has entered into relations with the native princes, and adopted a style of oriental splendor in his dress and surroundings.

He has built an army of native troops, called sepoys, who had been trained as infantrymen men in his service, including Hyder Ali, later to become famous as the de facto ruler of Mysore.

The British have become alarmed by Dupleix’s ambition, but the danger to their settlements and power is partly averted by the bitter mutual jealousy which exists between Dupleix and Bertrand François Mahé de La Bourdonnais, French governor of the Isle of Bourbon (today's La Réunion).

An unofficial war later called the First Carnatic War takes place in 1746 between the British East India Company and the French Compagnie des Indes when, after the British initially capture a few French ships, the French call for backup from as far afield as Mauritius, and on September 21 1746, capture the British city of Madras.

Among the prisoners of war is Robert Clive.

Dupleix opposes the restoration of the town to the British, thus violating the treaty signed by La Bourdonnais.

Dupleix now sends an expedition against Fort St. David (1747), which is defeated on its march by the Nawab of Arcot, an ally of the British.

Dupleix succeeds in winning over the Nawab, and again attempts the capture of Fort St. David, but does not succeed.

A midnight attack on Cuddalore is repulsed at a great loss to Dupleix.

The death of the Nizam-ul-Mulk, the Nizam of Hyderabad, in 1748, had sparked a civil war for succession, now known as the Second Carnatic War, in the south between Mir Ahmad Ali Khan (Nasir Jung), the son of the Nizam-ul-Mulk, and Hidayat Muhi ud-Din Sa'adu'llah Khan (Muzaffar Jung), the grandson of Nizam-ul-Mulk.

This opens a window of opportunity for Chanda Sahib, who wants to become Nawab of Arcot.

He joins the cause of Muzaffar Jung and begins to conspire against the Nawab Anwaruddin Muhammed Khan in Arcot.

Together, they plan to gather their powers in the south with the help of the Nawab of Kadapa and ally themselves with the French.

Their plans score a success when Hindus from Kurnnool ally with them.

Pondicherry is besieged by the British in 1748, but in the course of the operations news arrives of the peace concluded between the French and the British at Aix-la-Chapelle.

With the termination of the War of Austrian Succession in Europe, the First Carnatic War also comes to an end.