The Indian March of Paul (Russian: Индийский поход Павла, romanized: Indiyskiy pokhod Pavla) was an ultimately unrealized plan by the Russian Empire and French First Republic to invade the British East India Company's possessions in India. It was abandoned following the assassination of Paul I of Russia in March 1801.
Though Russia and Great Britain were allied during the War of the First Coalition, the simultaneous failures of the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland and Italian and Swiss expedition in 1799 precipitated a change in Russia's attitudes towards the British.[1] Paul I, in his self-declared role as Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, was also angered when Britain rejected his demands to cede control over Malta to Russia in October 1800. He hastily broke with Britain and allied himself with the French, who came up with a plan for a Franco-Russian expedition against British India.
- ^ Schroeder 1987, p. 245.