Important Battles question: Which factor most directly enabled the Company’s victory at Plassey (1757)?

The source-backed, question-specific record explains: Plassey followed conflict over Company privileges, fortification and the Nawab’s authority, but the battlefield result depended heavily on conspiracy and non-cooperation within Siraj-ud-Daulah’s command. Mir Jafar and other leading officers withheld effective support. Reducing the cause to the disputed “Black Hole” narrative or to one provocative act obscures the political bargaining and betrayal that made a small Company force victorious. This evidence establishes the historical relationship required in this Important Battles item. A correct solution must preserve the exact battle, date, participants, commander, location, outcome or significance requested by the stem. Similar periods, genres or national traditions do not make two battle facts interchangeable. Option A gives Defection and non-cooperation by leading members of the Nawab’s camp and satisfies every condition stated in the question. The remaining choices—A decisive naval battle in the Bay of Bengal, A formal Mughal order removing Siraj-ud-Daulah and The arrival of a large British army from Europe—do not satisfy the complete requirement. The reliable checking method is to identify the named battle first, recall or verify its verified participant or outcome, and then read qualifiers such as “both works,” “original language,” “first published,” “correctly matched” or “incorrectly matched.” These qualifiers determine what counts as the answer. Replaying that method for this Important Battles question confirms Defection and non-cooperation by leading members of the Nawab’s camp without relying on.