Tell about Battle of Plassey ?

The fighting took place about 150 kilometres (93 mi) north of Calcutta.

This was near Murshidabad which was the capital of Bengal at the time.

Plassey is the anglicised version of Palashi. The battle was between Siraj ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal, and the British East India Company.

The young Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ad-daula, had taken Calcutta from the East India Company with a huge army in June 1756, when the notorious Black Hole episode occurred.

It was not until August that the news reached the Company in Madras and not until October that Clive, now 32 years-old, left for Calcutta at the head of a mixed European-Indian force of some 2,500 men.

The battle took place after the attack and plunder of Calcutta by Siraj-ud-daulah and the Black Hole tragedy (Sir William Meredith, during the Parliamentary inquiry into Robert Clive's actions in India, vindicated Siraj ud-Daulah of any charges surrounding the Black Hole incident) .

He drove Siraj’s army out early in January 1757.

Clive decided that the best way to secure the Company’s interests in Bengal was to replace Siraj with a new and more pliant nawab.

The troubles between Siraj-ud-daulah and the British led to the Battle of Plassey.

He found a candidate in a discontented elderly general named Mir Jafar. After complicated conspiratorial discussions and the promise of enormous bribes to all concerned, a secret agreement was smuggled into the women’s quarters of Mir Jafar’s house, which was being watched by Siraj’s spies, and Mir Jafar signed it.

First, the British had strengthened the fortification around the Fort William without telling the Nawab.

Siraj knew or suspected there was a conspiracy against him, despite Clive’s earnest protestations to the contrary, and moved south to Plassey.

Secondly, they abused the trade privileges granted to them by the Mughal rulers, which caused heavy loss of customs duties for the government.

On 13 June, Clive moved north with some 2,000 Indian sepoys and 600 British infantry of the Thirty-Ninth of Foot plus close to 200 artillerymen with ten field pieces and two small howitzers.

Third, they gave shelter to some of his officers, for example Krishnadas, son of Rajballav, who fled Dhaka after misappropriating government funds.

Ambiguous messages were coming in from Mir Jafar and Clive was moving into a dangerous situation against heavy odds. He seems to have had a crisis of confidence and summoned his officers to a council of war on 21 June.

Hence, when the East India Company started further enhancement of military preparedness at Fort William in Calcutta, Siraj asked them to stop.

The majority, including Clive, voted against action. At that point, according to his friend Robert Orme, Clive retired into a grove of trees where he stayed for an hour in meditation.

The Company did not stop, so Siraj-ud Daulah retaliated and captured Kolkata (Shortly renamed as Alinagar) from the British in June 1756. The Nawab gathered his forces together and took Fort William.

On his return he gave orders for the army to move on to Plassey.
The confrontation came on a cloudy morning north of the village of Plassey on the bank of the Hughli river.

The British sent more soldiers under Colonel Robert Clive and Admiral Charles Watson from Madras to Bengal.

The British retook control of Calcutta. Clive then took control of the French fort of Chandernagar. The battle was fought during the Seven Years' War (1756–63). The French East India Company sent a small group to fight against the British.

Clive’s army was drawn up in three divisions, as was the Nawab’s army of perhaps 40,000 men with its war-elephants and more than 50 cannon.

Siraj-ud-Daulah had more soldiers and chose to fight at Plassey. The British were worried about having fewer soldiers.

They formed a conspiracy with Siraj-ud-Daulah's demoted army leader Mir Jafar as well as others such as Yar Lutuf Khan and Rai Durlabh. Mir Jafar, Rai Durlabh and Yar Lutuf Khan brought their soldiers near Plassey but did not actually join the battle.

One division was commanded by Mir Jafar. After an opening cannonade, a crash of thunder at noon heralded a torrential downpour of rain that lasted half an hour.