Battle of Adyar
The Battle of Adyar (also the Battle of Adyar River") took place on 24 October 1746.[1] The battle was between the French East India Company men and Nawab of Arcot forces over the St. George Fort, which was held by the French. It was part of the First Carnatic War between the English and the French.[2][3]
| Battle of Adyar | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Carnatic Wars First Carnatic War | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
|
Mughal Empire | |||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Anwaruddin Khan Mahfuz Khan |
 Louis Paradis | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 10,000 infantry and cavalry |
350 French soldiers 700 French-trained Indian Sepoys | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 300 | 2 Sepoys killed | ||||||||
Background
The French captured Fort St. George from the British East Indian Company. Nawab of Arcot, a close ally of the British, set out to regain it by sending troops, led by his son Mahfuz Khan, to Madras. While leading an army of 10,000, he was dispersed by French forces, forcing him to move south. Khan seized San Thomé and formed a battle line on the north bank of the Adyar River on 22 October to prevent the French from moving up reinforcements from Pondicherry.
Battle
Led by the Swiss engineering officer, Major Louis Paradis, some 350 French and 700 French-trained Indian troops force marched from Pondicherry, crossed Quibble Island and took positions on the south bank of the Adyar River and faced ineffective artillery fire from Khan's forces.
On 24 October, Paradis was informed that a similar sized army led by de le Tour was on its way from St. George Fort. He decided to ford the Adayar river to attack the rear of Mahfuz Khan's battle line. de la Tour arrived too late to support Paradis, who with disciplined firing and then charging with bayonets, broke the Nawab's line. Mahfuz Khan's troops fled and the Battle of the Adyar River, which began on the morning of 24 October 1746, ended that evening with the French retaining control over Fort St. George.[4]
The humiliating defeat made the Nawab realize the impotency of Indian armoury against European techniques of warfare. According to William Dalrymple (historian), it was immediately clear that nothing in the Mughal armoury could match the techniques of 18th century European warfare, particularly the “invention of screws for elevating the guns gave the artillery greater precision and increased the fire power of the foot soldier, giving them an edge in the battle against the cavalry.”
It showed that a small body of infantry armed with the new flintlock muskets and bayonets and supported by quick-firing mobile artillery, could now scatter a whole army just as easily as they could in Europe. This battle is a turning point in Indian history because for the first time, techniques of 18th century European warfare, developed in Prussia and tested on the battlefields of France and Flanders, had been tried out in India.[5]
References
- Hoover, James W. (1993). The origins of the Sepoy Military System: 1498-1770. University of Wisconsin--Madison. p. 56.
- Naravane, M.S. (2014). Battles of the Honorourable East India Company. A.P.H. Publishing Corporation. p. 153. ISBN 9788131300343.
- Dalrymple, William (2019). The Anarchy :The Relentless Rise of The East India Company. Great Britain: Bloomsbury. p. 52.
- Muthiah, S (25 November 2012). "Madras Miscellany: The Battle of the Adyar". The Hindu. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
- Kolappan, B. (23 August 2019). "The Battle of Adyar, a turning point in Indian history". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 7 September 2020.