1757
Battle of Plassey
Mir Jafar's betrayal decided the battle. The Company took control of Bengal, the start of British rule in India.
Battles · Colonial and World War I
Colonial Wars and World War I
14 battles and sieges from 1757 to 1922. Each links to its own page with the sides, the commanders, the result and a map.
1764
Battle of Buxar
The Company beat the combined armies of the Mughal emperor and two nawabs. In 1765 Shah Alam II granted it the right to collect the revenue of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.
1799
Siege of Seringapatam
Tipu Sultan died fighting at the walls of his capital, and Mysore, the strongest kingdom resisting the Company in the south, fell.
1827
Battle of Navarino
The allied fleet destroyed the Ottoman and Egyptian navy at anchor. It sealed the independence of Greece.
1842
Retreat from Kabul
In the First Anglo-Afghan War about 4,500 soldiers and 12,000 camp followers retreated from Kabul in winter. Almost all were killed or captured, one of Britain's worst disasters in Asia.
1857
Siege of Delhi
The uprising of 1857 made the old Mughal emperor its figurehead. After Delhi fell he was tried and exiled to Rangoon, ending the Mughal dynasty.
1882
Battle of Tel el-Kebir
A dawn attack broke Urabi's army in about an hour. Britain occupied Egypt, which stayed under British control for the next seventy years.
1898
Battle of Omdurman
Machine guns and artillery cut down the Mahdist army: around 12,000 Sudanese were killed in a morning, against fewer than 50 on the other side. Sudan came under British and Egyptian rule.
1911 to 1912
Italian Invasion of Libya
Italy took Libya, the last Ottoman province in Africa. Local resistance went on for twenty years under leaders such as Omar Mukhtar, who was hanged in 1931.
1914 to 1915
Battle of Sarikamish
Enver Pasha sent the Third Army over snowbound mountains in midwinter. Most of it was lost, many men to cold and disease rather than fighting.
1915 to 1916
Gallipoli Campaign
The Allies tried to force the straits and take Istanbul. After eight months they withdrew, and Mustafa Kemal became a national hero.
1915 to 1916
Siege of Kut
After a siege of nearly five months about 13,000 British and Indian troops surrendered, one of Britain's worst defeats of the war.
1917
Fall of Jerusalem
Allenby walked into the city on 11 December 1917. After four centuries of Ottoman rule, Jerusalem passed to Britain.
1922
Battle of Dumlupinar
The decisive battle of the Turkish War of Independence. Within weeks the Turks took Izmir, and the war ended with the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.
Other kinds of war
The book, 75% off
Read the whole story in Urdu
Khilafat aur Jangen puts this history in one Urdu PDF: 64 pages, 14 maps, family trees, charts and timelines from 632 to 2026.
$1.50$6.0075% off