Siege of Pondicherry (1760–61)

01Blockade

Through 1760 Coote took the French posts one by one, Arcot among them. Lally tried to hire help from Mysore, and Haidar Ali sent a force that achieved little. By September the British had invested Pondicherry on the land side, while a squadron under Steevens kept supply ships away. Inside, food ran out and Lally quarrelled bitterly with the civil council. A storm on 1 January 1761 wrecked several British ships, but the blockade held.

02The fall of the French capital

The British batteries opened in December and breached the walls. On 15 January 1761, with his garrison starving, Lally surrendered. The Company’s Madras council ordered the fortifications and public buildings destroyed, to settle the score for the French razing of Fort St David. Lally was sent to England as a prisoner, went back to France to answer for the defeat, and was tried and beheaded in Paris in 1766. Pondicherry was returned to France by treaty in 1763.

Battle · December 1758 – February 1759Siege of Madras (1758–59)Lally came to India to drive the English out, took Fort St David, and then sat down before Madras. Two months of bombardment failed to break Fort St George.Read →