Twenty thousand British troops ring French Pondichéry; the garrison numbers under 1,500

News that France had entered the American war reached the Indian subcontinent by July 1778, and British forces moved fast to claim French territory there. By August 20, 1778, General Hector Munro's army of nearly 20,000 men had surrounded Pondichéry, capital of French India, defended by Governor Guillaume de Bellecombe with roughly 700 French troops and 400 sepoys. Admiral Edward Vernon's fleet of five ships blockaded the coast. Every other French post in India had already fallen without a fight; Pondichéry alone chose to hold…