1757 - Political Events

Political Events

Colonel Robert Clive of the British East India Company recovers Calcutta January 2 with support from a British naval squadron under the command of Admiral Charles Watson; he avenges last year's "Black Hole" incident and goes on to take the French settlement at Chandernagor. The Treaty of Alinagar concluded February 9 with the Bengalese nabob Siraj-ud-Daula (who has briefly renamed the city) restores the East India Company's privileges at Calcutta, allowing it to fortify the city and coin money, but the nabob has alienated Hindu bankers and lost the support of his army; he violates the pact, and his treachery will soon cost him his life.

Afghanistan's Ahmad Shah Durrani seizes Delhi January 28, plunders the city without resistance, does the same to Agra, Mathura, and Vrndavana, then annexes the Punjab and marries the daughter of the late Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah before an outbreak of cholera forces him to return home (see 1759).

The Battle of Plassey June 23 establishes British sovereignty in India as Robert Clive wins a victory over Bengal's nabob Suraj-ud-Doula. The encounter on the Hugli River 110 miles north of Calcutta in central Bengal pits Colonel Clive's 800 European and 2,100 Indian infantrymen with eight guns against Suraj-ud-Daula's 35,000 infantry, 15,000 cavalry, and 53 guns, but the British cover their powder during a heavy noonday monsoon shower, while the nabob's men take no such precautions. Their guns are useless, and by 5 o'clock their army has crumbled, having lost about 500 dead and wounded. British losses total 18 killed, 45 wounded. The British have plotted with Siraj-ud-Daula's 66-year-old general Mir Jafar to depose the nabob, and although Siraj-ud-Din flees to Murshidabad he is captured and put to death the night of July 2. Clive installs the Arab-born Mir Jafar as nabob, exacts a substantial indemnity, accepts £234,000 as his personal share plus the quitrent of the East India Company's territory, and becomes virtual ruler of Bengal. His puppet nabob Mir Jafar seized the government in 1740 with his brother-in-law General Ali Vardi Khan, conspired with others 16 years later to depose Siraj-ud-Doula, and has assured Clive that he would work with the British to exclude French interests from Bengal, pay £250,000 to Calcutta's European inhabitants as compensation for the loss of their city to Siraj last year, and pay £500,000 to the East India Company.

Burma's Aloung P'Houra captures the city of Pegu, takes the Mon king Binnya Dala prisoner, and establishes control over the entire region once ruled by the Toungoo dynasty (see Rangoon, 1755). He concludes a treaty with the British East India Company, whose troops are fighting French forces in the region and have helped him in his war with their ally Binnya Dala; he grants the company generous trade concessions (but see 1759).

Former French foreign minister René-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, marquis d'Argenson, dies at his native Paris January 26 at age 62, having devoted the last 10 years to literary pursuits.

British admiral John Byng is court-martialed, found guilty, and executed by a firing squad on the deck of his flagship in Portsmouth Harbor March 14 at age 52 (see 1755; Fiction, 1759).

Britain's George II dismisses his secretary of state William Pitt when his son William Augustus, duke of Cumberland, refuses to serve as commander in chief of the British Army unless Pitt resigns. But Pitt is recalled in June following a public outcry against the king. Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st duke of Newcastle, becomes prime minister once again in a coalition government whose secretary of state is his former enemy Pitt, who handles the nation's war with France while Newcastle, now 63, handles matters of patronage and obtains parliamentary support.

Vienna forms an offensive alliance with Russia against Prussia's Friedrich II February 2 as the Seven Years' War continues (see 1756). Friedrich responds by invading Bohemia with a well-drilled army whose men have been trained to fear the enemy less than their own officers. His Cleve-born cavalry commander Colonel Friedrich Wilhelm Seydlitz, 36, helps him rout an inferior and far less prepared Austrian army four miles east of Prague May 6, but at a heavy cost: of his 67,000 men (66 infantry battalions, 113 cavalry battalions, and 82 guns), 14,300 are killed and wounded. The Austrians, commanded by Prince Charles of Lorraine, number 60,000 (60 infantry battalions, 20 cavalry battalions, 59 guns), and at the end of the battle have lost 12,000 killed and wounded, with 4,500 taken prisoner. The Austrians take revenge June 18 at the Battle of Kolin, 27 miles east of Prague, where Marshal Leopold Jozef, graf von Daun, commands a force of 40,000 (42 infantry battalions, 17 cavalry squadrons, 145 guns) against Friedrich's 32,000 (32 infantry battalions, 116 cavalry squadrons, 50 guns). Now 51, von Daun has gained field experience in Sicily (1718), on the Rhine in the 1730s, fighting the Ottoman Turks in the late 1730s, and in the War of the Austrian Succession. Friedrich exhorts his troops to fight harder ("Schweinhunds, would you live forever?") but loses 13,768 killed, wounded, and missing, 45 of his guns are captured, and he is forced to lift his siege of Prague and evacuate Bohemia (Austrian losses total 9,000 dead and wounded). A charge by Colonel Seydlitz checks the Austrian pursuit, and Friedrich promotes him to major general, giving him the order of merit.

Two French armies totaling about 100,000 men have invaded Prussia in April, and the Battle of Hastenbeck July 26 ends in a French victory over a British army in Hanover under the command of William Augustus, duke of Cumberland. Prince Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, 21, of Brunswick (Braunschweig)-Lüneburg leads a gallant cavalry charge that establishes the young man's reputation. His uncle Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick, succeeds Cumberland, who promises to evacuate Hanover in the Convention of Klosterzeven signed in September. George II repudiates the agreement and dismisses his son.

A Russian army that has invaded eastern Prussia defeats Friedrich's forces August 30 at Gross-Jagersdorf. Swedish forces invade Prussia's province of Pomerania in September, the Austrians reach Berlin October 15, but the Battle of Rossbach 26 miles southwest of Leipzig November 5 gives Friedrich a crushing victory over a combined French and Austrian army, whose strength is about 41,000 men as compared to Friedrich's 21,000. Friedrich has given his young general Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz command of his entire cavalry, elevating him over the heads of two senior generals, and Seydlitz's 38 squadrons completely rout the enemy (only seven of Friedrich's other battalions fire any shots); Prussian casualties number only 165 killed and 376 wounded, while the Franco-Austrian army under the command of Prince Charles de Soubise and Prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen suffers 3,000 killed and wounded; Friedrich takes 5,000 prisoners, captures 67 guns, and gives General von Seydlitz the order of the Black Eagle, but Seydlitz has sustained a wound and will not rejoin the army until next year. Louis XV (or his mistress, Mme. de Pompadour) says, "Aprés moi le déluge" ("After me, the flood"), an expression that has long since become proverbial. Friedrich marches his men 200 miles in 16 days and defeats the Austrians once again December 5 at the Battle of Leuthen, 10 miles west of Wroclaw (Breslau), hurling 35,000 men against 60,000 Austrians under the command of Prince Charles of Lorraine and Marshal Leopold Jozef, graf von Daun, but the Austrian general Franz Moritz, Count Lacy, distinguishes himself once again, and although the Prussians kill and wound 6,750 of the enemy, take 12,000 prisoners, and capture many enemy guns, their killed and wounded total 6,400.

Profligate John Wilkes gets himself elected to Parliament for Aylesbury (see 1754). Heavily in debt, he has spent a reputed £7,000 on his election campaigns, bribing voters shamelessly in hopes that he may find opportunities through his political connections to revive his flagging fortunes (see 1763).

The Ottoman sultan Osman III dies at age 58 after a 3-year reign. His nephew, 40, will reign until 1773 as Mustapha III.

Thomas Pownall wins appointment as British governor of Massachusetts and arrives at Boston August 3 (see 1754). He receives an appeal almost immediately from General Webb for help in resisting a French attack against Fort William Henry on Lake George, but before the reinforcements can arrive the fort has fallen to forces under the command of Louis de Montcalm, marquis de Saint-Véran (see 1756). Some 2,000 Abenaki, Caughnawaga, Huron-Peton, Malecite, Micmac, Nipissing, and Ottawa warriors supplement the army of 6,000 French regulars; the fort is garrisoned by only 2,500 men, including five companies of infantrymen under the command of Colonel George Munro and 1,000 colonial forces from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and New York; French cannonballs penetrate the walls of the fort, French siege mortars then splinter the walls. Montcalm offers Munro generous surrender terms, but his Indian allies seek plunder and when they find very little they fall upon the fort's sick and wounded, killing many of them before being stopped by the French. The tribesmen carry off camp followers who include mostly blacks, women, and children, and they attack Munro's retreating column the next day, killing nearly 200 with knives and tomahawks and carrying off hundreds more, but the scalps, captives, and clothing that they take are infected with smallpox, beginning an epidemic that will decimate their settlements. What they perceive as Montcalm's effort to deny them their promised spoils makes them far less willing to support the French. The French and Indian War that has brought British and French forces into conflict is a North American offshoot of Europe's Seven Years' War, and the massacre at Fort William Henry so antagonizes the British and Anglo-Americans that their acrimony toward the French and their Indian allies intensifies to outright hatred (see 1758).