Buxar completed what Plassey had begun… Discuss
Outcome of Battle of Buxar
Importance of the Battle of Buxar
The war between Mir Kasim and the Company broke out in
1763. In the series of encounters that followed, Mir Kasim was worsted. He escaped
to Oudh and organized a confederacy with the Nawab of Oudh and the Emperor in a
final bid to oust the English from Bengal. The combined armies of the three powers
numbering between 40,000 to 60,000 met an English army of 7072 troops commanded
by Major Munro at the battlefield of Buxar on 22 October 1764. Casualties on
both sides were heavy. The English won the day.
The Battle of Buxar was a closely contested battle in which
the losses of the English numbered 847 killed and wounded while on the side of
the Indian powers more than 2000 officers and soldiers were killed. If the victory
of Plassey was the result of British conspiracy and diplomacy, the same can
hardly be said of Buxar. Mir Kasim had made adequate preparations for the
conflict and the Nawab of Oudh had mustered his best soldiers in the field. Evidently
it was a victory of superior military power.
Buxar confirmed the decisions of Plassey. Now English powers
in North India became unchallengable. The new Nawab of Bengal was their stooge,
the Nawab of Oudh a grateful subordinate ally, the Emperor their pensioner. The
whole territory upto Allahabad lay at their feet and the road to Delhi open. Never
after Buxar did the Nawabs of Bengal or Oudh ever challenge the superior position
of the Company; rather the years following witnessed the tightening of English
grip over these regions.
If the Battle of Plassey had made the English a powerful
factor in the politics of Bengal, the victor of Buxar made them a great power
of norther India and contenders for the supremacy of the whole country. The English
now faced the Afghans and the Marathas as serious rivals int eh final struggle
for the Empire of Hindustan. If Plassey had imposed the European yoke on
Bengal, the victory of Buxar riveted the shackles of bondage.
The Battle of Buxar proved to be a decisive struggle with
far reaching political consequences in the destiny of India.
Opinions:
G. B. Malleson – Whether regarded as a duel between the
foreigners and the native, or as an event pregnant with vast permanent
consequences, Buxar takes rank amongst the most decisive battels ever fought. Not
only did the victory of the English save Bengal, not only did it advance the
British frontier to Allahabad, but it bound the rulers of Awadh to the
conqueror by ties of admiration, of gratitude, of absolute reliance and trust.
Alfred Lyall – The eventual and secondary consequences of
the Battle of Buxar were very important. The success of the English brought the
Emperor into their camp, intimidated the Vizier, carried the armed forces of the
Company across the Ganges to Benares and Allahabad, and acquired for them a
new, advanced and commanding position in relation to the principalities north
west of Bengal, with whom they now found themselves for the first time in
contact. By this war the English were drawn into connection with upper India,
and were brought out upon a scene of fresh operations that grew rapidly wider.
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