Hi, I’m the History Guy. I have a degree in history and I love history,
and if you love history too, this is the channel for you.
On July 4th, 1776, the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of
Independence from England. It explained why they chose to, as the document says,
dissolve the political bands which have connected them to another. The American
Declaration of Independence had far-reaching consequences, farther than most Americans realize,
and so it is fitting that we talk about a forgotten part of the American Revolution,
the unknown Indian theater of operations. I don't mean Native Americans, who did fight on
both sides in the American Revolution, I mean that the American Revolution sparked a war a
half a world away, on the subcontinent of India. It is a story of great empires and the reversing
fortunes of those at odds with them, and it is a story that deserves to be remembered.
The 18th century was a period of great change in conflict on the Indian subcontinent. The British
honorable East India Company had been chartered by the Queen in 1600 to facilitate trade in the
East Indies, and its rival the French East India Company, had been chartered later in
1660. At the time in the 17th century, India was largely dominated by the great Mughal Empire,
which was a Islamic Turco Persian Mongol Empire that traced its roots all the way
back to the Mongol invasions of the 1200s. And at its height, the Mughal Empire ruled more
than 4000 square kilometers of the modern-day countries of India and Afghanistan. And while
both the British and French East India companies were originally created to facilitate trade,
the situation changed in 1707, when the Mughal Emperor died and in the ensuing power struggle,
the Empire declined precipitously. And thus both the British and French started to engage
in territory gathering, trying to gather up the remains of the Mughal Empire, and both tried to
prevent the other from dominating trade on the Indian subcontinent. The two fought several wars
in the first half of the 18th century in India, and Britain got the better of France in those
Wars. By 1750 France had been relegated to just a few trading posts. The British East India Company,
on the other hand, had come to dominate much of India, and was a major military
and political player on the subcontinent. The British East India Company had its own army,
which was manned and equipped by the British East India Company, and at one point included
more than twice as many soldiers as the regular British army. The kingdom of Mysore was one of
the few that had resisted Mughal rule, and they dominated a part of the southwestern tip of the
subcontinent. After 1861 their effective ruler was an ardent anti-colonialist named Hyder Ali,
and while he wasn't actually the king, in his role as first adviser, he dominated the titular
ruler and carried the title of Sultan. Mysore was a large and powerful state,
and it was frequently at odds with neighboring Indian states over territorial disputes. As both
Mysore and the British East India Company were large and expanding empires, it's not a surprise
that they eventually came into conflict, and that first happened in 1767. The first Anglo-Mysore
War was really the result of machinations of a neighbouring Indian state, and in the two-year
war, the two essentially fought each other to a standstill. But eventually the East India Company
became concerned that they were diverting too many troops from other parts of India,
and so they sued for peace. It was a rare victory for a native Indian state, over the company.
And the peace did not last for long, in 1770 Hyder Ali became convinced that the British had broken
the rules of the treaty that had ended the first Anglo-Mysore War, when England refused to come to
their aid in a fight with a neighboring state. And so he chose to align himself with the British East
India Company's worst rivals, the French. Then in 1777, an American army under General Horatio
Gates, defeated a British Army under General John Burgoyne in upstate New York. It was a turning
point in the American Revolution. As a response, France officially signed a Treaty of Alliance
with the United States in February of 1778, and shortly thereafter declared war on Britain. The
French entry into the American Revolution had a significant impact on the course of the war,
and played a critical role in the victory, in the fall of 1781, of the combined American and French
force, under George Washington, over the army of British General Charles
Cornwallis at Yorktown. The British defeat at Yorktown is generally seen as the battle that
decided the conflict in America's favor, even though the war continued for two more years.
But the French entry into the American Revolution had another impact, because the British East
India Company saw the newly declared war as an excuse to try to remove the last few
French enclaves on the Indian subcontinent. And as some of those French enclaves were
under the protection of Mysore, that led the East India Company into conflict with Frances,
and by proxy and unbeknownst to them America's new ally, the kingdom of Mysore.
The second Anglo-Mysore War was fought between 1780 and 1784, and so it outlasted the conflict
that precipitated it, the American Revolution. It also outlasted the ruler of Mysore as Hyder
Ali died of cancer during the war and was replaced by his son the Tipu Sultan. And while,
like the first Mysore War, the two forces largely fought themselves to a standstill, it included
some significant victories by the Mysore army over the British East India Company, and regular
British troops. The victory of the Tipu Sultan in the Battle of Pollilur in September of 1780
for example, was considered the greatest defeat of the Company Army by regular Indian forces, to that
date, and the entire British force of some 7,000 men was either killed or captured in the battle.
While the two sides had really fought each other to a draw, and the Treaty of Mangalore, which
put an end to the second Anglo-Mysore War just returned everything to the state of affairs that
it was at before the war, it was in many ways a victory for Mysore. The inability to defeat Mysore
was a great humiliation to the British East India Company, and they were further humiliated when
their Commissioner had to walk all the way across Mysore to get to Mangalore, where the treaty was
signed. The war had such a negative impact on the stock value of the British East India Company,
that it played a significant role in a decision by Parliament in 1784, to essentially strip the
Company of its independence, and place it under direct control of the British Crown.
The second Anglo-Mysore war is a great example of the impact of far-flung empires. That a battle in
upstate New York can spark a war in India, is certainly a testament to the age of empire,
though of course this wasn't the first time that something like this happened. The French
and Indian War, which had been sparked in North America by George Washington, had resulted in
a worldwide war called the Seven Years War in the 1750s. But it does seem fitting that these
two peoples, the Americans in the revolution and Mysore in the war that that revolution sparked,
both ended up defeating the Colonial Power. But they were two peoples on a different trajectory.
While the Treaty of Paris would lead America to continuing growing influence and power, the Treaty
of Bangalore was the very last time that a Mysore ruler, and in fact any native ruler in India,
would be able to negotiate peace with the British on anything close to equal terms. The British
would lose some battles in the next hundred fifty years on the Indian subcontinent, but it would not
lose any more wars. In fact they fought two more wars with Mysore in the coming decade, defeating
Mysore, killing the Tipu Sultan and reducing the state to a small and subservient Princely
State. Ironically, the British Commissioner at the time of the third and fourth Mysore Wars was
Charles Cornwallis, the self-same general who had surrendered to Washington at the Battle of
Yorktown. And yet this unique time when two very different people's, because of a mutual alliance,
ended up contesting with the same great Empire half a world apart, deserves to be remembered
I'm the History Guy and I hope you enjoyed this edition of my series, five minutes of history,
short snippets of forgotten history five to ten minutes long. And if you did enjoy it then please
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