ARMIES AND WARS OF THE FRENCH EAST INDIA COMPANIES 1664-1770
Rene Chartrand Helion & Company (2024) £35.00 354 pages (softback) ISBN:9781804513408 helion.co.uk
Many wargamers will be aware of the British campaigns in eighteenth and nineteenth century India because the victories of Robert Clive, Eyre Coote, Lord Lake, Arthur Wellesley, Hugh Gough and Charles Napier expanded the power of the Honourable East India Company until British dominance in the subcontinent led to Queen Victoria becoming Empress of India. Less familiar is the HEIC’s rival, the French Compagnie des Indes (Company of the Indies) which was formed in 1719 by uniting the various French companies, holding overseas trade monopolies and privileges, that had maintained their own private armies and navies, independent of royal forces.
Number 124 in Helion’s From Reason to Revolution 1721-1815 series is subtitled ‘European, Asian and African Soldiers in India, Africa, the Far East and Louisiana’.
The author states that it is “the first book length study published concerning the military forces maintained by the French East India companies, be it in the English or French languages.”
Following a seven-page Chronology of Main Events and Engagement from Vasco da Gama reaching Calicut in 1498 to the closing of the Company of the Indies in 1770, and an Introduction describing the origins and development of the Mughal Empire in India, the first fourteen chapters contain a narrative of events involving the French. The author has given more attention to the battles that were not against the British which are not covered in British military histories, than to battles such as Plassey, for which there are many sources in English.
The next six chapters cover Military Organisation and Establishments; Lifestyles of the Troops at Home and Overseas; Asiatic Soldiers; European Cavalry, Foreign Units, Volunteers, Engineers and Gunners; Portable Weapons, Accoutrements and Ordnance; and Uniforms of the Company troops. The final chapter, Militias, describes those in the Ile de France (now Mauritius), Ile de Bourbon (now the overseas department of La Reunion) and Louisiana. A three-page Select Annotated Bibliography concludes the book; there is no index.
Full page colour plates by Patrice Courcelle depict twelve figures of different soldiers of the Company, such as a fusilier of the garrisons of Lorient, Louisiana and Senegal, 1720s - early 1730s; a sepoy fusilier, coastal India, late 1740s; a fusilier of the European Companies, coastal India, c.1750-1751; a sepoy fusilier, Nellore District, c.1750-1755; and an artilleryman, African Caffre fusilier, and grenadier a cheval of Bussy’s Deccan Army, 1750s. Five pages of commentaries on these plates appear at the end of the text.
Eighteen pages of colour illustrations contain reproductions of contemporary Indian paintings, uniform plates by Eugene Leliepvre, Michel Petard, Lucien Rousselot and Robert Marrion, and some illustrations of regimental colours, with commentaries on the same pages. The book also contains 189 black and white illustrations, including modern and contemporary maps, plans of forts, photographs of surviving artefacts and illustrations of uniforms.
For wargamers, the eighteenth-century struggle in India between the English and French companies has much to offer: regular European troops from their existing Austrian Succession or Seven Years’ War miniature armies; Indian sepoys, raised and given training in European tactics by the rival companies; and colourful, irregular armies of Indian warriors commanded by maharajahs and princes upon elephants. This book provides all of the information necessary to portray the forces of the Company of the Indies on the tabletop.