Siege Of Pondicherry

The 1778 Siege of Pondicherry was the first military action on the Indian subcontinent following the declaration of war between Great Britain and France in the American War of Independence.

A British force besieged the French-controlled port of Pondicherry, which capitulated after ten weeks of siege.

When word reached India in 1778 that France had entered the war, British military forces moved quickly to capture French colonial outposts there, capturing Pondicherry after two months of siege. The capture of the French-controlled port of Mahé on India's west coast motivated Mysore's ruler Hyder Ali (who was already upset at other British actions, and benefited from trade through the port) to open the Second Anglo-Mysore War in 1780. Ali, and later his son Tipu Sultan, almost drove the British from southern India but was frustrated by weak French support, and the war ended status quo ante bellum with the 1784 Treaty of Mangalore. French opposition was led in 1782 and 1783 by Admiral the Baillie de Suffren, who recaptured Trincomalee from the British and fought five celebrated, but largely inconclusive, naval engagements against British Admiral Sir Edward Hughes. France's Indian colonies were returned after the war.