The Company Fortress by Erik Odegard

Author:Erik Odegard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Leiden University Press

New Fortifications in Bengal and Coromandel

The first location to receive an upgrade in around mid-century was the Company’s lodge at Chinsurah (Chunchura) in Bengal in 1744. Bengal had been invaded by the Marathas two years earlier, and the VOC’s director of Bengal received permission to fortify the VOC’s lodge as a consequence. This did not change the VOC’s position in relation to the Nawab of Bengal. The Company did not receive other extraterritorial rights and did not suddenly claim sovereignty over tracts of territory. The fortification of the lodge was purely the result of the inability of local government to ensure the protection of the VOC’s buildings, stores, and activities. Bengal would, in the eyes of the High Government at least, remain a safe area in the event of war with European rivals, as it was assumed that the Nawab would prohibit hostilities. The goal of the new fort was thus to protect the Company’s stores and personnel from Maratha forces, which would predominantly be composed of cavalry. These considerations are clearly reflected in the design ultimately chosen: the existing walled compound received three new corner bastions and the gatehouses were made suitable for light guns (see figure 5.1). Om Prakash argued that the new fort at Chinsurah was held in high regard by VOC officials.20 In reality, perceptions quickly turned sour as the defects of the fort became apparent.

The director of Bengal at the time, Jan Albert Sichterman (1692-1764), called the new fort Gustavus, in honour of Governor-General Gustaaf Willem, Baron van Imhoff. Sichterman himself is better remembered for his considerable skill at setting up and maintaining an illegal private-trade network than for his skills in fortification design.21 Though he had been a soldier in the Dutch garrison at Namur before enlisting with the VOC, it does not seem that Sichterman had any formal training in fortification design, and the reconstruction of the VOC lodge at Chinsurah does not follow any formal school of design. The lodge at Chinsurah had been rebuilt in the early 1680s by Hendrik Adriaan van Reede during his stay there on his inspection tour.22 The open-plan establishment had then been reconstructed into a closed, rectangular lodge, shut off from the outside world by walls and gates. The goal of this reconstruction, however, had not so much been to keep outsiders out, as to keep the VOC’s personnel in. Even then, Chinsurah was known within the VOC as the establishment that offered the best opportunities for private trade and enrichment. Van Reede’s walls and strictures that all personnel should live inside the walled compound had the aim of making the movements and actions of Company personnel more controllable. This aim, apparently, failed, for fifty years later Sichterman could still amass a considerable fortune in illegal private trades, working closely together with Joseph Dupleix, the French Governor-General in India.23 Van Reede’s reconstructed lodge formed the basis of the new ‘fort’ Gustavus and the original aim – keeping personnel in – was still prominent in the redesign.

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