Anglo-Mysore Wars

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The Anglo-Mysore Wars were a series of wars fought in India over the last three decades of the eighteenth-century between the Kingdom of Mysore and the British East-India Company, represented chiefly by the Madras Presidency. The fourth war resulted in the overthrow of the house of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan (who was killed in the final war, in 1799), and the dismantlement of Mysore to the benefit of its pro-British allies.

The First Anglo-Mysore War saw Haider Ali inflicting crushing defeats on the combined armies of the Marathas, the Nizam of Hyderabad and the British. The kingdom of Mysore gained large tracts of land to the North after this war.

The Second Anglo-Mysore War saw the rise of Tippu Sultan as a brave and powerful military leader. Soldiers from Mysore decimated British armies in the East, repelled a joint Maratha-Hyderabad invasion from the North and captured territories in the South.

In the Third Anglo-Mysore War, Mysore was invaded from all four sides. The kings of Travancore, Coorg and a few small states such as Pudukottai in the South allied with the British to attack Mysore from that direction. The Marathas attacked from the North and the West and the Nizam and the British from the East. Despite facing early defeats, the kingdom of Mysore repelled these attacks, though Tippu had to settle for a treaty with the British.

The Fourth Anglo-Mysore War saw the defeat of the kingdom of Mysore. Mysore was again attacked from all four sides. Tippu's troops were outnumbered 4:1 in this war. Mysore had only 35,000 soldiers, whereas the British commanded 60,000 troops. The Nizam of Hyderabad and the Marathas launched an invasion from the North. Tippu decided to fight to the finish despite seeing defeat in the face. When the allied invasion with a strong force of 150,000 soldiers failed to overcome Tipu's forces after several weeks of fighting the British tried to lure two of Tipu's most trusted ministers, Mir Sadiq and Dewan Purnaiah. They were successful in bribing Mir Sadiq to commit treason against Tipu but were unsuccessful with luring Purnaiah against Tipu. Mir Sadiq betrayed Tipu which resulted in the invasion of the fort of Seringapatam by British troops. Tippu died bravely fighting these troops, personally killing at least fourteen of them, but succumbing to British bullets.

Much of Tipoo Sultaun's territory was annexed by the British, the Nizam and the Marathas. The core of it, around Mysore and Seringapatam, was handed over to the Indian prince belonging to the Wodeyar dynasty, whose forefathers had been overthrown by Hyder Ali, and whose descendants ruled the Kingdom of Mysore until 1947 when it joined the Union of India.

The Battles of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764) which established British dominion over East India, the Anglo-Mysore wars (1766-1799) and the Anglo-Maratha Wars (1775-1818) consolidated the British claim over South Asia, resulting in the British Empire in India, though pockets of resistance among the Sikhs, Afghans and Burmese would last well into the 1880's.