French Ambitions and Secret agents in India: An
assessment of the travels of the Abbe Carre from France to India from a global
perspective
Figure 1: The French minister of finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert. He tried to expand the French Political-economic network into India by sending Viceroy De La Haye and the Abbe Barthelemy Carre. Source: http://www.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org
/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Colbert-5.jpg
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In 1672 a French expeditionary fleet led by Viceroy of
Madagascar De La Haye, and François
Caron, the Director of the newly founded French East India Company (French:
Compagnie française pour le commerce des Indes orientales) reached a town called St.Thome on The East
Coromandel Coast of India. The town had received the name of St.Thome because
according to a local legend the disciple of Jesus Christ called Thomas traveled
to India to spread the gospel and became a martyr. They had received the task
to establish a foothold for the French Empire by the French minister of Finance
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who was trying to undermine Dutch trade on a global
scale. At about the same time Colbert send a priest, the Abbe Barthelemy Carre from
France via the Middle East to India, with letters and orders to support the
Viceroy and the director in their mission to expand the French empire. France
had been a latecomer in the “race” to acquire new trading posts and territories
abroad and therefore the government felt compelled to catch-up to the Dutch
Republic, England and Spain.
The Viceroy had traveled to St.Thome after an unsuccessful attempt to establish a base on Ceylon. Their plans on Ceylon were thwarted by the Dutch, who had established a firm control of the island a few years before after a long struggle with the Portuguese. The ships that the Viceroy had sent to India in order to procure supplies were intercepted, forcing De La Haye to abandon the base. At St.Thome the French made an attempt to buy supplies but were refused by the local commander. St.Thome was then a part of the Golcondan Sultanate which had close ties to the Dutch company. De La Haye decided to open fire on the town to “persuade” the commander to alter his decision. As a result they were granted the much needed supplies. However some of the French officers felt insulted by the actions of the Golcondan commander and persuaded the Viceroy to attack St.Thome. The assault was a success and the troops started to prepare the defenses and send officers to Madras, a town a few miles from St.Thome but controlled by the English, to organize a supply route. But, as mentioned before St.Thome was part of the Golcondan Sultanate and on top of that an appanage of the Golcondan Intendant-General Nawab. The capture of the town was seen as an open act of war by the Golcondan government causing them to raise an army and send them to St. Thome to besiege the town. At The same time the Abbe Barthelemy Carre traveled undercover through the Sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda, sometimes dressed as a Persian merchant to avoid detection by agents of the Golcondan government or by Dutch spies, for the Dutch in India had chosen to hinder any French plan. The spies were mainly looking for French deserters who fled to Golconda on a, more or less, regular basis as the war dragged on and supplies at St.Thome started to dwindle, in order to hand them over to the Golcondan government where they were tortured to extract information about the weaknesses of the French defensive positions at the town. A couple of months after the capture of the town an event occurred in Europe, on the other side of the world, which was about to change the situation in favor of the Golcondans. A war broke out between the Dutch and the French, which is known today as the third Dutch-French war. This allowed the Dutch to become more aggressive towards the French, and therefore it was decided to send a fleet to block the port of St.Thome, effectively cutting of the last supply route. As the Abbe arrived at the capital of Golconda where he met a Portuguese vicar and who invited him to stay at his house, the French troops at St.Thome faced starvation. The English governor of Madras, though French allies in the war, refused to openly support the French out of fear of Golcondan retribution as well as his discontent about the idea that the French wanted to settle at such a close proximity to Madras, for if they were to succeed, they were to become trade competition to the English. This left the French at St.Thome with two options: Either surrender to the Golcondans or break the siege. The Viceroy and his command chose the latter and made preparations to conduct a sortie, which was executed at the 9th of March 1673. The attack took the Golcondans by surprise, as during the battle about 10.000 soldiers including the commanding general Montel (Mandala) Naik. On top of that the troops managed to capture all Golcondan artillery, to blow up a gun of 120 pound and to capture all the siege works and trenches in which 60.000 Golcondan men had been engaged. As a result the siege was completely abandoned. The news traveled to the Golcondan capital where it reached the government as well as the Abbe, who disguised as a Persian merchant, visited the royal court frequently to eavesdrop on conversations. It is on the court that he also hears conversations of people stating that the sultan wants peace but that he is being pressed by Dutch lobbyists, who have a lot of credit at the court, and by the intendant-general who wants to recapture his appanage. It is from the diary of this priest turned spy that we have access to all this information as he wrote it down on a daily basis. After hearing of this news, the priest decides to continue his travel towards St.Thome to support the French efforts. This sortie was followed by another successful one on the next day, and these were to be the last big battles around St.Thome. However the Dutch sea-blockade was continued and the road from Madras to St.Thome, the only remaining supply route, was frequently raided by Golcondan soldiers. As the Abbe Barthelemy Carre reaches St.Thome he decides that he would be most useful in Madras, where he would try to persuade the governor to support the French or at least allow for the transport of supplies. This plan only partly succeeds, as the governor keeps trying to thwart the priest’s plans. In the end not enough supplies reach St.Thome and the Viceroy surrenders St.Thome to Golconda in 1774. This raises the question of why Colberts plan, using a network which included men such as De La Haye, Carre and Caron, to establish a foothold for the French in India failed despite the military victories? Though the lack of supplies might seem the easy answer, the situation is more complex and can be best explained via the use of a global perspective and the use of network theory. Social network theory is a theory utilized by historians that aims to explain historical phenomena, such as events, developments etc. by looking at the social/political/economic networks that existed throughout history. A network consists of several nodes, sometimes clusters of nodes that are connected with each other through ties. This essay aims to look at the social/political/economic network that is used in wartime during the events mentioned above, which were recorded in the travel account of the Abbe Barthelemy Carre. This means that I will show that networks can play a more important role than battles in a war. To my knowledge there hasn’t been a big academic debate around the events described here. But since network theory hasn’t been applied to this primary source either it can be very rewarding to do so. As the reader might be able to deduce, the events reveal two functioning rival networks. The network of the French, who are trying to establish a foothold, in network terms referred to as a node, and the Dutch-Golcondan political/economic network that already is in place in India. The relevant nodes in the French network are mainly St.Thome and the more or less dysfunctional node of Madras as well as the Colbert. Those of the Dutch Golcondan, network are the capital of Golconda, Ceylon, Batavia, where a part of the Dutch fleet departed from to block St.Thome and the Republic itself as well as other Golcondan cities. The account above demonstrates how the networks function as it shows how the ties between the nodes are used. It is clear that these ties are used for the transport of soldiers, supplies, agents, information and letters. Examples given are the connections that the Dutch have at the Golcondan court to press the king to continue the war despite the losses that the army endures, and the spy network that is looking for French deserters to acquire information about the French defenses. The fact that the French connection to Madras, the English controlled town and node in the network, is dysfunctional proved to be detrimental to their efforts. The primary source, as previously mentioned, is a travel account of the Abbe Barthelemy Carre himself. It consists of several hundred pages and was written in French as a report for Colbert as well as a memory for the Abbe himself. The account was published by Carre in 1699, several decades after the events. I am using an English translation for this research. What must be said is that the account is very biased towards the French as becomes clear by the priest praising the strength of the French after hearing about the victories achieved at St.Thome. The account is best used for studying social networks, because of its extensive nature and closeness to the events as well as the fact that it reveals, though unintentionally, how part of both global networks functioned. Conclusion Concluding it is shown that networks and how they are used are vital to explain historical phenomena such as the French defeat at St. Thome and their failure to extend the network into India. This is partly the result of the Dutch-Golcondan network being in place longer and the fact that it is utilized more efficiently to extract information, by spotting and capture deserters, and in lobbying in the royal town of Golconda. This shows how important it is to have the right connections in the right place as demonstrated by Casale’s article about global politics[1] as well as the importance of information networks in general for commerce[2] and politics. But despite the efforts and planning of Colbert, Carre and Viceroy De La Haye the French did not succeed in establishing a new node in India. The global perspective becomes clear as a skirmish around the town of St. Thome grows into a war of two kingdoms and eventually a war of more than four nations because of the global connections these nations maintain among each other, be it hostile or friendly. This thesis shows that decisions made on one end of the world have a high impact on the other side of the world. As for the account itself it can be said that its bias towards the French is obvious. Furthermore the role that Barthelemy Carre played is likely to have been exaggerated. On top of that he is a priest and as is shown believes that the power of the French in India is divine. The Abbe does not show much interest in his surroundings or the local markets and wares that they offer as in the well-known travel account of Marco Polo. Carre remains focused on his immediate surroundings and the people he meets. For on the one side he fears being caught by Dutch or Golcondan spies and on the other side he is looking for helpful information about the situation at the court in Golconda as well as the situation around St. Thome. This being said it is clear that as economic information is the salt in the merchant’s letter so is a well-established network of information, supplies and diplomatic relations the oil that keeps the war machine running.[3] MMB [1] Giancarlo Casale, “Global Politics in the 1580s: One Canal, Twenty Thousand Cannibals, and an Ottoman Plot to Rule the World” in Journal of World History, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Sep., 2007), 282. [2] Sebouh Aslanian, “"The Salt in a Merchant's Letter": The Culture of Julfan Correspondence in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean” in Journal of World History, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Jun., 2008), p. 187. [3] Aslanian, “"The Salt in a Merchant's Letter": The Culture of Julfan Correspondence in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean”, 187. Primary Source: Carré, Barthélemy, trans. Sir Charles Fawcett and Sir Richard Burn. The travels of the Abbé Carré in India and the Near East, 1672 to 1674. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1990. Further reading on social network theory: Aslanian, Sebouh “"The Salt in a Merchant's Letter": The Culture of Julfan Correspondence in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean” in Journal of World History, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2008, p. 127-188. Casale, Giancarlo. “Global Politics in the 1580s: One Canal, Twenty Thousand Cannibals, and an Ottoman Plot to Rule the World” in Journal of World History , Vol. 18, No. 3, 2007, p. 267-296. Wetherell, Charles. “Historical Social Network Analysis”. International Review of Social History 43 (1998), Supplement, 125-144. |