June 23rd: Today in 1757 the British won the Battle of Plassey, a huge victory that led to their total domination of the Indian continent. Almost forgotten now this battle was the stuff of Colonial legend, the battle to avenge the Black Hole of Calcutta and to drive the French from India.

These battles most have been something to see, mass formations of troops, the colorful uniforms, mass bands and huge cannons seem to be so fantastic as to be unrealistic but once they were all part of how battles were fought. The mass formations of troops were to keep the troops together and to get the inaccurate weapons of the day to concentrate their fire, colorful uniforms helped units stay together and were thought to intimidate, the music was used to give orders to the troops as well as improve morale, and the huge cannons were there as much for intimidation as anything else. In its time it all made sense but we look at it now and think it was madness, I wonder what our battles will look like to the people a couple of hundred years from now?

This entry was posted on Friday, June 23rd, 2006 at 3:25 am and is filed under History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.