Field Despatches 1612–1857British East India Company
All Major Battles
From a handful of trading factories to the armies that broke Mysore, the Marathas and the Khalsa — the military campaigns that forged Company Raj.
This chronicle lists the wars and the named actions that matter for the making of British India. Casualties, commanders and treaties are given where they changed the map.
I.Battle Register
Principal wars and the engagements most frequently cited in the military and civil-service record.
| Year | Action / War | Opponent | Commander (EIC) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1612 | Battle of Swally (Suvali) | Portuguese | Best / Downton | Company victory |
| 1686–90 | Child’s War (1st Anglo-Mughal) | Mughal Empire | Josiah Child | Company check; farman later |
| 1746 | Capture of Madras | French | — | Madras lost (restored 1748) |
| 1746 | Battle of Adyar / St. Thomé | Nawab of Carnatic + French | — | French/Company tactical win |
| 1751 | Siege of Arcot | Chanda Sahib / French | Robert Clive | Clive holds the fort |
| 1757.06.23 | Battle of Plassey | Siraj-ud-Daulah + French | Robert Clive | Decisive; Bengal opened |
| 1757 | Capture of Chandernagore | French | Clive / Watson | French expelled from Bengal |
| 1760.01.22 | Battle of Wandiwash | French (Lally) | Eyre Coote | French power broken in south |
| 1764.10.23 | Battle of Buxar | Mir Qasim + Awadh + Mughal | Hector Munro | Diwani of Bengal (1765) |
| 1767–69 | 1st Anglo-Mysore War | Hyder Ali | — | Treaty of Madras |
| 1780 | Battle of Pollilur | Hyder Ali / Tipu | Baillie | Worst Company defeat of the era |
| 1780–84 | 2nd Anglo-Mysore War | Hyder / Tipu | Coote / others | Treaty of Mangalore |
| 1790–92 | 3rd Anglo-Mysore War | Tipu Sultan | Cornwallis | Treaty of Seringapatam |
| 1799.05.04 | Storm of Seringapatam | Tipu Sultan | Harris / Wellesley | Tipu killed; Mysore broken |
| 1779 | Battle of Wadgaon | Marathas | Cockburn / Egerton | Convention of Wadgaon |
| 1803.09.11 | Battle of Delhi | Scindia (Bourquin) | Gerard Lake | Mughal emperor under Company |
| 1803.09.23 | Battle of Assaye | Scindia / Bhonsle | Arthur Wellesley | Wellington’s hardest fight |
| 1803.11.01 | Battle of Laswari | Scindia | Lake | Maratha artillery smashed |
| 1817–18 | 3rd Anglo-Maratha War | Peshwa / Holkar / Bhonsle | Hastings / Hislop | Maratha Confederacy ends |
| 1818.01.01 | Battle of Koregaon | Peshwa Baji Rao II | Staunton | Small force holds |
| 1814–16 | Anglo-Nepalese (Gurkha) War | Gorkha Kingdom | Ochterlony | Treaty of Sugauli |
| 1824–26 | 1st Anglo-Burmese War | Konbaung Burma | Campbell | Arakan, Assam, Tenasserim |
| 1839–42 | 1st Anglo-Afghan War | Dost Mohammad / tribes | Keane / Elphinstone | Retreat from Kabul disaster |
| 1843 | Battle of Miani / Hyderabad | Talpur Sindh | Charles Napier | Sind annexed |
| 1845.12.21 | Battle of Ferozeshah | Sikh Khalsa | Hardinge / Gough | Narrow, bloody |
| 1846.02.10 | Battle of Sobraon | Sikh Khalsa | Gough | 1st Sikh War ends |
| 1849.01.13 | Battle of Chillianwala | Sikh Khalsa | Gough | Costly; near-defeat |
| 1849.02.21 | Battle of Gujrat | Sikh Khalsa | Gough | Punjab annexed |
| 1857–58 | Indian Rebellion / Mutiny | Sepoys + princely risings | Clyde / Outram / Havelock | Crown takes over Company |
II.The Carnatic Wars, 1746–1763
European war exported to the Coromandel. The Austrian Succession and then the Seven Years’ War gave the French Compagnie des Indes and the English Company an excuse to back rival nawabs. The lesson of Adyar (1746) was that a few hundred drilled Europeans could rout thousands of Carnatic horse. Clive’s defence of Arcot (1751) made his name. Eyre Coote’s victory at Wandiwash (22 January 1760) and the fall of Pondicherry (1761) ended French pretensions in India.
Battle of Wandiwash
Count de Lally’s last throw. Coote’s Madras army met the French in open field. French cavalry failed; Lally’s sepoys broke. Pondicherry was invested and surrendered the following year. After Wandiwash the French never again fielded a serious army in India.
III.Bengal — Plassey and Buxar
Bengal was the richest province in Asia. Siraj-ud-Daulah’s capture of Calcutta (1756) and the Black Hole provoked the Madras relief expedition under Clive and Admiral Watson. Conspiracy inside the Nawab’s camp did as much as musketry.
Battle of Plassey
Clive’s force: about 3,000 (800 Europeans). Siraj: perhaps 50,000 with French gunners. A monsoon shower wet the Nawab’s powder; Mir Jafar’s wing never moved. Casualties on the Company side were trivial (27 killed). Siraj fled and was later murdered. Mir Jafar was installed as a client nawab.
Battle of Buxar
Major Hector Munro with roughly 7,000 Company troops faced the coalition of Mir Qasim (deposed Nawab of Bengal), Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh, and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II — perhaps 40,000. The Company line held; the coalition broke. Treaty of Allahabad (1765) gave the Company the Diwani — the right to collect revenue — of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.
IV.The Four Anglo-Mysore Wars, 1767–1799
Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan built the most dangerous Indian army the Company faced before the Sikhs: rocket artillery, French-trained infantry, fast horse. Pollilur (1780) was a catastrophe for a British column. Cornwallis forced Tipu to cede half his territory in 1792. Wellesley’s brother Richard finished the house in 1799.
Storm of Seringapatam
A breach was blown in the fortress walls. Tipu died fighting in the water-gate. The kingdom was partitioned; a restored Wodeyar raja took the remnant under Subsidiary Alliance. Arthur Wellesley (later Wellington) served in the campaign.
V.The Anglo-Maratha Wars, 1775–1818
Three wars. The first ended in humiliation at Wadgaon. The second (1803–05), directed by Wellesley and Lake, smashed Scindia and the Bhonsle of Nagpur in a single campaigning season. Assaye, fought on 23 September 1803, was the hardest of Wellesley’s battles before Waterloo. The third war (1817–18) extinguished the Peshwa and the Confederacy.
Battle of Assaye
Wellesley crossed the Kaitna with about 4,500 men against a Maratha army of 10,000 regulars and 30–40,000 irregulars with over 100 guns. He attacked the left. Casualties were savage — roughly a third of the European infantry. The Maratha line broke. Wellington later said Assaye was the bloodiest action he ever fought.
Battle of Koregaon
A detachment of the 2nd Bombay Native Infantry (largely Mahar troops) and a handful of Europeans under Capt. Staunton held a village against the Peshwa’s army for a day. The action is small in numbers, large in later memory.
VI.Anglo-Nepalese War, 1814–1816
The Gorkhas were the first mountain army the Company seriously underestimated. Early assaults on stockades failed. David Ochterlony’s methodical second campaign forced the Treaty of Sugauli: Nepal ceded Kumaon, Garhwal and the Terai. Gurkha battalions entered Company service soon after — a recruitment that lasted into the Crown army.
VII.The Sikh Wars, 1845–1849
Ranjit Singh’s Khalsa was the last Indian army that could meet the Company on equal terms: European-trained infantry, excellent artillery, Sikh cavalry. After his death the court collapsed into faction. The Sutlej campaign of 1845–46 (Mudki, Ferozeshah, Aliwal, Sobraon) was brutal. Ferozeshah came within hours of a British rout. The second war (1848–49) included the near-disaster of Chillianwala and the crushing artillery victory at Gujrat. Punjab was annexed; the Koh-i-Noor went to the Queen.
Battle of Ferozeshah
Gough and Hardinge attacked a entrenched Sikh camp. Night fighting, ammunition shortage, and Sikh counter-attacks nearly broke the line. Dawn and fresh troops saved it. Casualties on both sides were heavy.
Battle of Chillianwala
Gough’s frontal attack through jungle onto Sikh batteries. British cavalry was routed on one wing; colours were lost. Tactically indecisive, politically a shock in London. Gujrat six weeks later ended the argument with massed guns.
VIII.First Afghan War, 1839–1842
Auckland’s attempt to replace Dost Mohammad with Shah Shuja. The Army of the Indus took Ghazni and Kabul. Occupation rotted. In January 1842 the garrison marched out under Elphinstone; it was destroyed in the passes. One man, Dr Brydon, reached Jalalabad. Pollock’s Army of Retribution burned the Kabul bazaar and withdrew. A warning the Company did not fully absorb.
IX.1857 and the End of the Company
The Bengal Army mutinied. Siege of Delhi, relief of Lucknow, recapture of Cawnpore — Company and Crown troops, Sikhs, Gurkhas and Pathans restored control. The Government of India Act 1858 abolished the Company. Its armies became the British Indian Army. The battles listed above are the road that led there.