Battle of Plassey
East India Company victory at the Battle of Plassey
View full image ↗ How was this image made?
The creative brief sent to the image model. These are instructions, not a record of what actually happened.
Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗Most of Clive's supposedly British army were Indian sepoys — about 2,100 of roughly 3,000 men.
23 June 1757: a cannonade, then rain
Near Palashi in Bengal on 23 June 1757, Robert Clive's East India Company army confronted the much larger army of Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah and its French artillery contingent. The National Army Museum puts Clive's force at about 3,000 — roughly 2,100 Indian sepoys and 800 Europeans — against a nominal 50,000 including 16,000 cavalry.
After an inconclusive cannonade, heavy rain interrupted the fighting. Company gunners covered their ammunition; much of the Nawab's artillery became unusable.
The men who did not fight
Most of the troops controlled by Mir Jafar, Yar Latif Khan and Rai Durlabh remained spectators — Banglapedia puts roughly two-thirds of Siraj's army in that category, standing by under disaffected commanders. Clive and Bengali financiers had secretly agreed to replace Siraj with Mir Jafar.
After the loyal commander Mir Mardan was mortally hit, the Nawab's forces began withdrawing. The Company attacked again, and the withdrawal became a general rout.
Six miles of pursuit
Clive reported pursuing the retreating army for six miles, passing more than forty abandoned cannon. The Company held the battlefield by evening.
His report counted 22 Company dead and 50 wounded, chiefly sepoys, against about 500 dead on the other side. Siraj returned to Murshidabad and was displaced within days, with Clive installing Mir Jafar as Nawab under the conspirators' prior agreement.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 4 sources 2 audit passes
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →
What the sources leave uncertain
- Contemporary and later estimates differ slightly. Clive reported about 1,000 Europeans, 2,000 sepoys, eight cannon and an opposing army of 15,000 horse, 35,000 foot and more than forty cannon; the National Army Museum gives about 3,000 Company troops and fifty Nawabi guns.
- The large headline total for Siraj's army is nominal strength, not the number that actively fought: Banglapedia says roughly two-thirds stood by under disaffected commanders.