भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)

boom of cannons and the swaggering wagers with empires as the tempting
stakes, we would rather discuss it a little later so far as it will be possible to
do so.
929. The French: Of the European nations that followed suit after the
Portuguese and tried their hand at the eastern trade and the overseas
empires, the French, were the last to appear on the scene. For the French
East India Company was floated as late as A.D. 1664. But they prospered
quickly in their commercial activities. Why, if credit is to be given to any
European, who thought for the first time of acquiring not only small
scattered footholds but large empires in India and who tried to realize these
ambitious schemes of his by large-scale military intervention in Indian
politics, it was French Governor Dupleix. The next claimant to that honour
is that vagabond and tempestuous English youth, Robert Clive, who entered
India as a common soldier, but who soon came to command large armies
and to lay the foundations of the vast British Empire in India. The basic
idea underlying the schemes of these two far-sighted young men was that
with proper training, great drilled and well-disciplined armies could be
formed here in India out of the very Indian soldiers within a very short time,
and that, with competent, efficient and uncorruptible European military
officers and commanders at the head of this very Indian army, they could
easily build up their strong Empires in India. It will be discussed in its
proper place, how great was the harvest that these daring schemes reaped in
the years to come.
930. It is, however, proper to discuss the French affairs in India to a
certain extent. For, although for a time, the French and the English fought
amongst themselves on the Indian soil and although they took opposite
sides in the internecine civil wars of the Indian Kings and Princes, in the
end the French were on losing grounds. Again their defeat at the hands of
the English in the European theatres of war rendered the French authorities
in India thoroughly incapable of defending their positions against the ever
increasing severity of the English attacks. The leaders like Dupleix, Busie,
Suffren and others, who worked hard and spent the best of their energies for
the expansion of the French empire in India, were very shabbily treated at
home by the French people and the French Govenment. Nobody
appreciated their best efforts at the proper times nor gave them any support.
Again, this Indian army of the French fought against the Marathas, on a few
occasions, only to receive stunning blows and as such when it was clear that