Question

describe the cause of the ultimate success of the British in their conflict against the French company​

Answer 1

Explanation:

This article throws light upon the eight causes for the failure of French in India.

The causes are: 1. French Government 2. French Company 3. Seats of Power in India 4. Naval Strength 5. Policy of Conquest in Place of Commerce 6. Lack of Enthusiasm and Enterprise 7. Lack of Financial Support 8. Personal Incompetence.

Cause # 1. French Government:

The French Government in the 17th century and for the major part of the eighteenth (till we reach the French Revolution in 1789) was a personal despotism.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The policy of the Government was determined by the whims of the monarch.

The French Government did not realise the importance of the colo­nial empires in India and America, and got her involved in the Continental War near her home which precluded her from sending adequate help to her colonies abroad.

Alfred Lyall rightly points out: “India was not lost by the French because Dupleix was re­called, or because La Bourdonnais and D’ Ache both left the coast at critical moments or because Lally was head-strong and intractable. Still less was the loss due to any national inaptitude for distant and perilous enterprises in which the French have displayed high qualities. It was through the short-sighted, ill-managed Eu­ropean policy of Louis XV, misguided by his mistresses and by incompetent ministers, that France lost her Indian Settlements in the Seven Years’ War”.

Martineou’s remarks that “no policy was more in opportune” not to retain in Europe all the French land and naval forces “and it is perhaps because we dispersed them to Canada and India, parti­cularly to Canada, that we lost the Seven Years’ War. At that time … the primary interests of France required her to confine her attention to Europe. When the house is on fire, one does not think of the stable”. But France had made the initial mistake by rever­sing her traditional alliance against Austria by the Diplomatic Revolu­tion which brought her erstwhile enemy Austria to her side which was a liability rather than any accession to strength to her.