The Battle of Adyar (also the Battle of Adyar River) took place on 24 October 1746. The battle was between the

French East India Company The French East India Company (french: Compagnie française pour le commerce des Indes orientales) was a colonial commercial enterprise, founded on 1 September 1664 to compete with the English (later British) and Dutch trading companies in th ...

men and

Nawab of Arcot The Carnatic Sultanate was a kingdom in South India between about 1690 and 1855, and was under the legal purview of the Nizam of Hyderabad, until their demise. They initially had their capital at Arcot in the present-day Indian state of Tamil N ...

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.

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 Pondicherry (), now known as Puducherry ( French: Pondichéry ʊdʊˈtʃɛɹi(listen), on-dicherry, is the capital and the most populous city of the Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the sout ...

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 Quibble Island is a river island in the city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is formed by the encirclement of the Adyar River and one of its tributaries. It is situated between the neighbourhoods of Mylapore and Adyar. It abuts the sout ...

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.

Significance

The battle of Adyar was one of the first that illustrated the overwhelming superiority of 18th century European military firepower in the Indian sub-continent, while also demonstrating that even a sizeable cavalry force was no match for a well-equipped, disciplined infantry. The

flintlock Flintlock is a general term for any firearm that uses a flint-striking ignition mechanism, the first of which appeared in Western Europe in the early 16th century. The term may also apply to a particular form of the mechanism itself, also know ...

musket and a flexible and mobile artillery enabled around one thousand defenders of the French-held fort to vanquish ten thousand Mughal troops. After the battle cemented the French position in Madras, they and the English continued to

spar SPAR, originally DESPAR, styled as DE SPAR, is a Dutch multinational that provides branding, supplies and support services for independently owned and operated food retail stores. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932, by Adriaan van Well, ...

over French-controlled

and British-held Fort St. David without either side gaining territory. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle resulted in the French handing Madras back to the British, in exchange for Louisbourg in 1748.

References

Battles involving France Conflicts in 1746 1746 in India First Carnatic War History of Tamil Nadu {{India-hist-stub