First Anglo-Mysore War
The First Anglo-Mysore War (1767–1769) was a conflict in India between the Sultanate of Mysore and the East India Company. The war was instigated in part by the machinations of Asaf Jah II, the Nizam of Hyderabad, who sought to divert the company's resources from attempts to gain control over the Northern Circars.
Background[edit]
The eighteenth century was a period of great turmoil in Indian subcontinent. Although the century opened with much of the subcontinent under the control of the Mughal Empire, the death in 1707 of Emperor Aurangzeb resulted in the fracturing of the empire, and a struggle among viceroys and other local rulers for territory.[2] In the 1740s and 1750s, French and British colonial companies became more active in these local conflicts. By the Third Carnatic War (1757–1763), the British had gained somewhat solid footholds at Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, and had also marginalised (although not eliminated) the influence of other colonial powers. Their eastern holdings at Madras were strongly influenced by treaties with the Nawab of Carnatic, Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah, whose territory surrounded Madras. The other major powers in the east were the Nizam of Hyderabad, formerly a viceroyalty of the Mughal Empire but declared independent in the 1720s, held in the 1760s by Asaf Jah II, and the Sultanate of Mysore, which occupied the high plains between the Eastern and Western Ghats, the mountain ranges separating the coastal plains of India from the interior.
Nominally ruled by the Wodeyar dynasty, Mysore had come into the hands of Hyder Ali, a Muslim military leader, in 1761.[3] Each of these powers intrigued with and against the others, and sought to draw the power of the French and British colonial companies to serve their objectives. The colonial powers sought to influence the local powers to gain either direct control of territory, or the revenues from territory nominally controlled by a local ruler beholden to them for financial and military support. Since European military training was significantly better than local practices, the latter was particularly important; small numbers of disciplined European or European-trained forces could defeat larger Indian armies composed mainly of poorly trained infantry and cavalry.[4]
Consequences[edit]
Hyder Ali, apparently emboldened by the agreement with the British, engaged in war with the Marathas in 1770, and asked the British support them if and when the Marathas penetrated Mysorean territory.[41] The British refused to assist him, even though they were also drawn into conflict with the Marathas in the 1770s. Hyder's battles did not fully end until 1779, when the Marathas negotiated an alliance with him and the Nizam for united action against the British. This led to the beginning of the Second Anglo-Mysore War in 1780.[42] This conflict devastated much of the Carnatic, and also failed to decisively resolve differences between Mysore and the British. Resolution occurred in 1799 with the defeat and killing of Hyder's son Tipu Sultan, and the restoration of the Wodeyars as British clients.