Third Anglo-Mysore War

The Third Anglo-Mysore War (1790–1792) was a conflict in South India between the Kingdom of Mysore and the British East India Company, the Kingdom of Travancore, the Maratha Confederacy, and the Nizam of Hyderabad. It was the third of four Anglo-Mysore Wars.

Quotes

• After taking and defending the town, the British armies now laid siege to the strong fort of Bangalore on 7 March 1791. Over the next fortnight, the fort was constantly attacked. Describing the siege, Wilks states: Few sieges have ever been conducted under parallel circumstances; a place not only not invested, but regularly relieved by fresh troops; a besieging army not only not undisturbed by field operations, but incessantly threatened by the whole of the enemy’s force. No day or night elapsed without some new project for frustrating the operations of the siege; and during its continuance, the whole of the besieging army was accoutered, and the cavalry saddled, every night from sunset to sunrise.
  • M Wilks, in Vikram Sampath - Tipu - The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (2024)

• Writing about the siege and fall of Bangalore, Wilks records: It was a bright moonlight; eleven was the hour appointed, and a whisper along the ranks was the signal appointed for advancing in profound silence: the ladders were nearly planted, not only to ascend the faussebray, but the projecting work on the right, before the garrison took the alarm, and just as the serious struggle commenced on the breach, a narrow and circuitous way along a thin, shattered wall, had led a few men to the rampart, on the left flank of its defenders, where they coolly halted to accumulate their numbers, till sufficient to charge with the bayonet. The gallantry of the Killedar, who was in an instant at this post, protracted the obstinacy of resistance until he fell; but the energy of the assailants in front and flank at length prevailed. Once established on the ramparts, the flank companies proceeded as told off by alternate companies to the right and left, where the resistance was everywhere respectable, until they met over the Mysore Gate: separate columns then descended into the body of the place; and at the expiration of an hour, all opposition had ceased.
  • M Wilks, in: Vikram Sampath - Tipu - The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (2024)

• With hostilities having ceased for now, the sepoys and officers were seen loitering around the vanquished capital. Some of the sepoys of the allied armies tried to make communication with their Mysorean counterparts, who spoke the same language or were of the same caste. But they were rebuffed, and one of them is alleged to have snapped: ‘It is my orders not to speak to you; and I am besides, not inclined to talk to people who come like thieves in the night, and attack the enemy when unprepared for their defence!’
  • Vikram Sampath - Tipu - The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (2024)