Note 344 — Chapter VII

I am alive to the peril of a civilian who presumes to differ from a distinguished officer on so purely technical a matter as the manœuvres preceding a general action, but it seems to me that Colonel Malleson has missed this point. Coote, so far as I can gather, not only forced Lally to fight but also to forego at least part of the advantages which he had prepared for himself. One would infer from Malleson's narrative that Lally adhered to the position which he had chosen from the first. "His left, thrown forward, resting on a tank and, supported by an entrenchment on the other side of it, formed an obtuse angle with his line and commanded the ground over which the enemy must pass." Orme's account, which is the fullest, is extremely confused; but he says distinctly that Lally was obliged to wheel round his right, which would necessarily imply that the left could no longer be thrown forward, and that the battery at the entrenched tank could no longer rake the whole of his front. And this I take to have been a principal object of Coote's manœuvre. Again, the smaller tank, which in Lally's first position is spoken of as being in his left front, is described in the action as being in his rear (Orme), implying that Lally must have changed position half if not three-quarters left. Finally, Lawrence's Memoirs, though meagre on this point, speak distinctly of a first and second disposition of the French.