in 1757 the british east india company won the battle of plassey and took control of the wealthy region of bengal the company a private corporation using contracted foot soldiers now governed more people than the english crown just over a century later the british controlled the majority of the indian subcontinent either directly or through princely states what began as a trading mission transformed into total domination the rest of asia fared no better but why didn't history play out differently why didn't indian powers have the political economic and military wherewithal to resist european colonization why wasn't 1757
marked by bengali soldiers sieging and taking london and more broadly how did the west become so much more powerful than the east historians have pondered these questions for centuries but while there's no perfect answer new scholarship is painting us a more complete picture let's focus on the period from the late 1400s to the late 1700s the age in which europe began to push outward in 1453 ce the ottomans conquered constantinople cementing their power meanwhile the momlix controlled the red sea these near east powers established a tight stranglehold over the silk road trade routes europeans salivated
over the profits near east middlemen made trading with the rest of asia indian textiles chinese porcelain indonesian spices this inspired the great powers of europe to establish a direct trade with asia that would circumvent the ottomans and mamluks entirely but the europeans were minor players in the global economy at this time the prosperous asian powers had no incentive to establish a direct trade with distant europe and so it was europe who would have to seek out asia not the other way around this would lead to some fascinating developments consider the iberians spain and portugal there
were only two options for circumventing ottoman and malmo intervention round the coast of africa or sail west into the unknown in the mid 15th century portugal was suffering from scarce wood supplies in response the portuguese crown encouraged the construction of larger more efficient vessels by providing tax benefits to shipbuilders who built big and so shipbuilders in portugal began to develop larger vessels they also incorporated innovative new shipbuilding technologies from neighboring north africa this led to the production of massive ocean glowing vessels that could be fitted with heavy cannons perfect for a long intercontinental journey using
these vessels the portuguese were able to round the cape of good hope in 1498 and reach asia portuguese explorer vasco de gama arrived on the indian coast making direct contact with indian powers for the first time using similar vessels the spanish also attempting to find a route to india that would circumvent the ottomans bumped into the new world jackpot the discovery of the new world flooded european markets with silver which would soon have an enormous impact on the dynamics between europe and asia the sudden excess of silver made europeans very attractive trading partners for asian
powers who were facing a systemic silver shortage in fact records indicate that the silver shortage in asia was responsible for a number of political crises across the continent and so european merchants arriving in the east essentially bought their way into asian trade hegemony using their newfound silver supply with europeans establishing a direct trade a new dynamic had formed asia generated products in demand in europe and europeans paid for those products with silver as they had an abundance of silver on hand europeans had become ideal trading partners for example the first british trading post in india
fort st george near chennai was actually encouraged by the local poligar lord who so badly wanted the british trading there that he offered to pay for half the construction cost he also offered military protection and tax privileges it's important to understand that europeans adopted a conciliatory policy towards asian great powers in fact early records reveal that the europeans respected feared and even admired their most significant asian counterparts the moguls the qing the vijayanagara empire the tokugawa shogunate and others according to a dutch official in japan in 1707 to show our teeth or to use violence
is completely impossible unless we want to leave this land and never come again europeans willingly operated on the fringe and avoided direct confrontation with the asian great powers but maritime city-states they could be targeted from the 1500s to the mid-1700s the european focus on maritime exploits played to their strengths with massive cannon-fitted ships europeans had an advantage in most naval battles they could also lay siege to fortified coastal cities thus early europeans like the portuguese limited their aggression to small coastal enclaves this was not a problem for the indian great powers at times they even
encouraged european aggression surprise in 1510 ce the vegetarian empire assisted the portuguese in taking goa from the bijapur sultanate in fact vegeta even sent an allied pirate leader with five thousand soldiers under his command to help the portuguese take goa goa was the hub of the maritime horse trade to the vegenegar empire it was preferable for the horse trade to be controlled by the neutral portuguese than for it to be controlled by a rival sultanate so we know that the dynamic between the european and asian powers was largely cooperative from the 1500s to the mid-1700s
though much fanfare has been made about early european aggression it was constrained to small coastal enclaves and only with the explicit or implicit permission of asian great powers but this dynamic would not last forever starting in the mid 1700s more than two centuries after vasco de gama landed in south india the europeans did begin to aggressively expand how did they transform their trading networks into colonial empires let's keep our lens pointed at india for now number one european institutions were stable enough that they outlasted their strongest rivals in india for example the british were active
for more than a century before mogul power finally waned the mughals were replaced by the marathas hyderabadis bengalis sikhs rajputs missourians and others with imperial power in india split between so many different entities the british began to assemble the building blocks of a colonial empire number two european officials couldn't be easily bribed to switch sides though the agents of european trading companies did regularly accept bribes they could not be easily bribed into treasonous activity why problematic european officials could simply be replaced they had no independent political power by contrast indian lords were easily bribed to
switch sides and most indian soldiers were bound to their lord through land or clan ties as such disloyal indian lords could not simply be replaced they had independent political power number three europeans were not risking much by fighting far away from home when europeans lost battles in asia it did not threaten their civilizational existence or even their mission they could simply regroup and reinforce but when an indian power lost battles it could lead to total collapse indian powers were especially vulnerable to a total and sudden collapse due to the domino effect of local lords switching
sides this is a well-established historical pattern the moryas guptas chalukyas palavas jainagar the list of sudden imperial collapses in indian history goes on and on number four european militaries had superior organizational discipline military developments in europe led to drill tactics and high organizational discipline this was made even more possible by the fact that europeans used regulars full-time professional soldiers though not universally the case many indian militaries had not yet established this level of organizational discipline as their soldiers were not full time on bengali soldiers their mode of fighting is crowding without any order and in
great confusion in imitation of their european neighbors they form into something resembling battalions but it is of little use their bravery does not compensate for their deficiency in discipline and tactics number five europeans used local soldiers by the mid-1700s european armies in india fielded mostly local soldiers ensuring that they were not at a numerical disadvantage how did that happen european trading companies and governments offered regular pay and pensions to soldiers who would fight for them in india this attracted skilled local soldiers who preferred guaranteed timely compensation by contrast indian powers granted feudal lords land and
tax assessment rights and through that system soldiers would eventually be paid but this system was high risk and created additional bureaucracy indian soldiers would sometimes be left unpaid or underpaid many indian soldiers saw european military contracts as desirable they chose to fight as regulars for the various east india trading companies serving under european officers how did the europeans develop these advantages while indians did not the answer lies in revolution hundreds of years in the making the military revolution hypothesis is based on the idea that artillery innovations in late medieval europe led to sweeping changes in
society some of which would prove advantageous for building colonial empires [Music] side note india did go through a mini military revolution in response to new artillery developments too check out my video on indian gunpowder empires for details okay back to the european military revolution in the 1400s new canons were introduced that could break medieval castle walls and so european rulers scrambled for a solution this led to a new style of artillery resistant fortifications with angled bastions and intersecting fields of fire known as star fortresses star fortresses were very expensive to build and required a large
and costly army to garrison or attack in fact successful sieges could take years these developments led to spectacular increases in budgets taxes and staffs european lords that were unable to manage these rising costs were eventually conquered by those with a centralized administrative apparatus that could raise more money the pressure to centralize and extend the state apparatus consumed many smaller feudal lords the european nation-states were born giving rise to many financial logistical and administrative innovations and so they suddenly found themselves advantaged consider the ocean-going warships that enabled european powers to establish maritime supremacy here's a little-known
fact the great powers of the east did have the technological know-how to build ocean-going warships with heavy cannons but the devil is in the details like star fortresses ocean-going warships were very expensive which reinforced pressures for more tax revenue and more intrusive state intervention but in india native powers were not sufficiently centralized maintaining a competitive naval fleet was simply implausible imperial powers like the moguls and vijaynagar did maintain navies in fact vegenegar used their navy to bully pegu and lunka into paying tribute but to build a fleet that could counter the europeans indian grey powers
would have had to take more direct control over their coastal feudatories they would also have had to spend imperial resources on ships as opposed to land armies in the indian context they had more pressing concerns land wars against ambitious indian rivals it was a lose-lose situation in the long term unless indian powers could figure out a way to centralize their administrations and rid themselves of feudal hierarchies despite european aggression in the early to mid 1700s the true shift in power began with the industrial revolution starting in the mid to late 1700s european development rapidly outstripped
that of the rest of the world and gave rise to roughly two centuries of global dominance what was the recipe for this great divergence one cup luck one pinch policy let's compare the wooden coal situation in england india and japan in the 1700's in india there were plentiful forests as such there were sufficient wood resources to fuel a vibrant economy there was no need to switch to the use of coal as a power source in england and japan however wood had been over harvested interestingly the british and the japanese approached the problem in very different
ways the japanese sought to fix the ecological damage they imposed very strict laws including capital punishment for wood harvesting without a license these policies were successful soon healthy forests returned and the normal use of wood could continue by contrast the british didn't try to fix anything england simply switched to the use of coal it helped that the coal deposits existed close to london the manufacturing center of england at the time the english didn't know that their reliance on coal would unlock the industrial revolution they didn't predict the steam engine power loom or high production factories
it was a lucky break that fueled an industrial revolution and thanks to strong protectionist policies british industries were healthy enough to take advantage of new commercial technology like the mechanized parallel by the early 1800s the british textile industry was able to produce at such a high volume and at such a low cost that they out-competed the entire indian textile industry which was the world's largest producer of textiles but indian powers did not have the time to properly react they were under fire from both colonial forces and opportunistic neighbors every year industrial europe grew more powerful
and the gap between the west and the rest of the world grew larger conquered indians were not useful to the british as producers or innovators they were now only useful as raw material providers and customers and so the indian subcontinent and many other parts of asia was rapidly de-industrialized while europe flourished but the world never stands still today the east is securing its historical position at the top of the global power hierarchy ending the west's 200 year turn got some exciting news for the channel i know a lot of you have been asking about whether
i'm going to start a patreon i've actually gone ahead and started a creator guild page on creator guild you can support me in a number of different ways from making custom requests to leaving tips it's a really interesting platform so if you'd like to support the channel go check it out
