Second Anglo-

Mysore War

The Second Anglo–Mysore War was a

conflict between the Kingdom of Mysore
and the British East India Company from
1780 to 1784. At the time, Mysore was a
key French ally in India, and the conflict
between Britain against the French and
Dutch in the American Revolutionary War
sparked Anglo–Mysorean hostilities in
India. The great majority of soldiers on the
company side were raised, trained, paid
and commanded by the company, not the
British government. However, the
company's operations were bolstered by
Crown troops sent from Britain, and by
troops sent from Hanover,[1] which was
also ruled by Britain's King George III.
 Second Anglo–Mysore War
Part of the Anglo-Mysore wars

Depiction of action in the 1783 Siege of

Cuddalore.

Date 1780–1784

Location South India

Result Treaty of Mangalore

status quo ante bellum

Belligerents

Mysore  Great Britain

Arakkal Kingdom
 Nawab of Savanur  Electorate of
Nawab of Hanover
Banganapalle East India
Company
 France
 Dutch Republic

Commanders and leaders

Hyder Ali Sir Eyre Coote

Hector Munro
Tipu Sultan
Sir Edward Hughes
Karim Khan Sahib
Sayed Sahib
Sardar Ali Khan Sahib
Makdum Ali
Kamaluddin
Husain Ali Khan
Bahadur
 Admiral Suffren
Marquis de Bussy-

Following the British seizure of the French

port of Mahé in 1779, Mysorean ruler
Hyder Ali opened hostilities against the
British in 1780, with significant success in
early campaigns. As the war progressed,
the British recovered some territorial
losses. Both France and Britain sent
troops and naval squadrons from Europe
to assist in the war effort, which widened
later in 1780 when Britain declared war on
the Dutch Republic. In 1783 news of a
preliminary peace between France and
Britain reached India, resulting in the
withdrawal of French support from the
Mysorean war effort. The British
consequently also sought to end the
conflict with Mysore, and the British
government ordered the Company to
secure peace with Mysore. This resulted in
the 1784 Treaty of Mangalore, restoring
the status quo ante bellum under terms
company officials such as Warren
Hastings found extremely unfavourable.

Background
Hyder Ali rule Mysore (though he did not
have the title of king). Stung by what he
considered a British breach of faith during
an earlier war against the Marathas, Hyder
Ali committed himself to a French alliance
to seek revenge against the British. Upon
the French declaration of war against
Britain in 1778, aided mostly by the
popularity of philosopher Benjamin
Franklin, the British East India Company
resolved to drive the French out of India, by
taking the few enclaves of French
possessions left on the subcontinent.[2]
The company began by capturing
Pondicherry and other French outposts in
1778. They then captured the French
controlled port at Mahé on the Malabar
coast in 1779. Mahé was of great strategic
importance to Hyder, who received French-
supplied arms and munitions through the
port, and Hyder had not only explicitly told
the British it was under his protection, he
had also provided troops for its defence.
Hyder set about forming a confederacy
against the British, which, in addition to the
French, included the Marathas and the
Nizam of Hyderabad.

War
This section needs additional citations for
verification. Learn more
Theater map for the First and the Second Anglo-
Mysore Wars

The Battle of Pollilur, where the forces of Hyder Ali

effectively used Mysorean rockets and Rocket
artillery against closely massed British forces.
In July 1780 Hyder Ali invaded the Carnatic
with an army of 80,000. He descended
through the passes of the Eastern Ghats,
burning villages as he went, before laying
siege to British forts in northern Arcot. The
British responded by sending a force of
5,000 to lift the sieges. From his camp at
Arcot Hyder Ali sent part of his army under
the command of his eldest son, Tipu
Sultan, to intercept a British force from
Guntur sent to reinforce Colonel Hector
Munro's army 145 miles (233 km) to the
north at Madras.[2] On the morning of 10
September 1780, the British force from
Guntur under the command of Colonel
William Baillie came under heavy fire from
Tipu's guns near Pollilur. Baillie formed his
force into a long square formation and
began to move slowly forward. However,
Hyder Ali's cavalry broke through the
formation's front, inflicting many
casualties and forcing Baillie to surrender.
Out of the British force of 3,820 men, 336
were killed. The defeat was considered to
be the East India Company's most
crushing loss in India at that time. Munro
reacted to the defeat by retreating to
Madras, abandoning his baggage and
dumping his cannons in the water tank at
Kanchipuram, a small town some 50
kilometres (31 mi) south of Madras.[3]
Naravane states in fact that it was a
massacre with only 50 officers and 200
men taken prisoner, one of them Baille.[4]

Instead of following up the victory and

pressing on for a decisive victory at
Madras, Hyder Ali instead renewed the
siege at Arcot, which he captured on 3
November. This decision gave the British
time to shore up their defences in the
south, and despatch reinforcements under
the command of Sir Eyre Coote to
Madras.[3]

The British Army encamped below the rock of

The British Army encamped below the rock of
Sholingarh

Coote, though repulsed at Chidambaram,

defeated Hyder Ali three times in
succession in the battles of Porto Novo,
Pollilur and Sholinghur, while Tipu was
forced to raise the siege of Wandiwash,
and besieged Vellore instead. The arrival
of Lord Macartney as governor of Madras
in the summer of 1781 included news of
war with the Dutch Republic. Macartney
ordered the seizure of the Dutch outposts
in India, and the British captured the main
Dutch outpost at Negapatam after three
weeks of siege in November 1781 against
defenses that included 2,000 of Hyder Ali's
men. This forced Hyder Ali to realize that
he could never completely defeat a power
that had command of the sea, since British
naval support contributed to the victory.

Tipu also defeated Colonel Braithwaite at

Annagudi near Tanjore on 18 Feb 1782.[4]
This army consisted of 100 Europeans,
300 cavalry, 1400 sepoys and 10 field
pieces. Tipu seized all the guns and took
the entire detachment as prisoners. In
December 1781 Tipu had successfully
seized Chittur from British hands. These
operations gave Tipu valuable military
experience. Both Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan
successfully gained alliances with Ali Raja
Bibi Junumabe II and the Muslim Mappila
community and later met with Muslim
Malay from Melacca under Dutch service.

During the summer of 1782 company

officials in Bombay sent additional troops
to Tellicherry, from whence they began
operations against Mysorean holdings in
the Malabar. Hyder Ali sent Tipu and a
strong force to counter this threat, and the
latter had successfully pinned this force at
Panianee when he learned of Hyder Ali's
sudden death due to cancer. Tipu's
precipitate departure from the scene
provided some relief to the British force,
but Bombay officials sent further
reinforcements under General Matthews to
the Malabar in late December to relieve
before they learned of Hyder Ali's death.
When they received this news, they
immediately ordered Matthews to cross
the Western Ghats to take Bednore, to the
extent that he felt compelled to do so
despite a lack of sound military footing for
the effort. He successfully entered
Bednore, which surrendered after
Matthews successfully drove Mysorean
force from the ghats. However, Matthews
had so overextended his supply lines that
he was soon thereafter besieged in
Bednore by Tipu, and forced to capitulate.
Matthews and seventeen other officers
were taken to Seringapatam, and from
there to the remote hilltop prison of Gopal
Drooge (Kabbal Durga)where they were
seemingly forced to imbibe a lethal
poison.[5]

On the east coast, an army led by General

James Stuart marched from Madras to
resupply besieged fortifications and to
dispute Cuddalore, where French forces
had arrived and joined with those of
Mysore. Stuart besieged Cuddalore even
though the forces were nearly equal in
size. The French fleet of the Baillie de
Suffren successfully drove away the
British fleet, and landed marines to assist
in Cuddalore's defence. However, when
word arrived of a preliminary peace
between France and Britain, the siege was
ended. General Stuart, who was engaged
in disputes with Lord Macartney, was
eventually recalled and sent back to
England.

The British captured Mangalore in March

1783, but Tipu brought his main army over,
and after recapturing Bednore, besieged
and eventually captured Mangalore. At the
same time, troops from Stuart's army were
joined with those of Colonel Fullarton in
the Tanjore region, where he captured the
fortress at Palghautcherry in November,
and then entered Coimbatore against little
resistance.
William Baillie Memorial, Seringapatam

Plaque of the William Baillie Memorial,

Seringapatam
 Memorial for the Battle of Porto Novo,
1781 at Porto Novo

Treaty of Mangalore

Suffren meeting with Hyder Ali in 1782, J.B. Morret

engraving, 1789.
During this time, company officials
received orders from company
headquarters in London to bring an end to
the war, and entered negotiations with
Tipu. Pursuant to a preliminary cease fire,
Colonel Fullarton was ordered to abandon
all of his recent conquests. However, due
to allegations that Tipu violated terms of
the cease fire at Mangalore, Fullarton
remained at Palghautcherry. On 30
January the garrison of Mangalore
surrendered to Tipu, having lost half its
number principally to starvation and
scurvy.
The war was ended on 11 March 1784
with the signing of the Treaty of
Mangalore,[4] at which both sides agreed
to restore the others' lands to the status
quo ante bellum. The treaty is an
important document in the history of India,
because it was the last occasion when an
Indian power dictated terms to the
Company.

The great advantage to Tipu was the

psychological impact of his victory with
the British. The mode of conclusion was
highly satisfactory to him. The march of
the Commissioner all the way from
Madras to Mangalore seeking peace made
Munro remark that such indignities were
throughout poured upon the British "that
limited efforts seemed necessary to
repudiate the Treaty at the earliest time."

Aftermath
This was the second of four Anglo–
Mysore Wars, which ultimately ended with
British control over most of southern India.
Pursuant to the terms of the Treaty of
Mangalore, the British did not participate
in the conflict between Mysore and its
neighbors, the Maratha Empire and the
Nizam of Hyderabad, that began in 1785.
In Parliament, the Pitt administration
passed the Pitt's India Act that gave the
government control of the East India
Company in political matters.[6]

Battle Honour
A battle honour, Carnatic was awarded for
two periods: 1780-1784, during the Second
Anglo-Mysore War, when Hyder Ali
threatened Madras; and 1790-1792, during
the Third Anglo-Mysore War, up to the
siege of Mysore. Originally awarded to
three battalions of Bengal Native Infantry
in 1829, it lapsed after their disbandment
due to participation in the 1857 uprising. In
1889, it was awarded to twenty units of the
Madras Presidency Army. The battle
honour is considered repugnant.[7]

See also
Franco–Indian alliances
Mysore invasion of Kerala

Preceded by Succeeded by
Anglo–Mysore
First Anglo– Third Anglo–
Wars
Mysore War Mysore War

Preceded by
Succeeded by
First Anglo– Indo-British
Third Anglo–
Maratha conflicts
Mysore War
War

Notes
1. Hanoverians, Germans, and
Europeans: Colonial Identity in Early
British India, Chen Tzoref-Ashkenazi,
Central European History, Vol. 43, No.
2 (JUNE 2010), 222.
2. Barua (p.79)
3. Barua (p.80)
4. Naravane, M.S. (2014). Battles of the
Honorourable East India Company.
A.P.H. Publishing Corporation.
pp. 173–175. ISBN 9788131300343.
5. Tim Willasey-Wilsey 'In Search of
Gopal Drooge and the Murder of
Captain William Richardson, The
 Journal of the Families in British India
Society, no 31 Spring 2014 pp. 16-15.
6. C. H. Philips, "The East India
Company 'Interest' and the English
Government, 1783-4." Transactions of
the Royal Historical Society (Fourth
Series) 20 (1937): 83-101.
7. Singh, Sarbans (1993). Battle
Honours of the Indian Army 1757 -
1971. New Delhi: Vision Books.
p. 102. ISBN 8170941156.

Further reading
Barua, Pradeep (2005). The State at War
in South Asia. University of Nebraska
Press. ISBN 0-8032-1344-1.
 Kaliamurthy, G. Second Anglo-Mysore
War (1780–84) (Mittal Publications,
1987)
Roy, Kaushik. War, culture and society in
early modern South Asia, 1740-1849 &
Francis, 2011)
 This article incorporates text from a
publication now in the public
domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911).
"India". Encyclopædia Britannica. 14
(11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
p. 414.

Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Second_Anglo-
Mysore_War&oldid=905533692"

Last edited 2 months ago by Bbb23

Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless

otherwise noted.