The British Conquest of India (1798-1806) II. The 4th Anglo-Mysore War

How did Britain conquer southern India? In this video (Part 2 of a 5-part series), we go over the ultimate British victory over Tipu Sultan in the 4th Anglo-Mysore War, as well as the subsequent suppression of Dhondia Wagh's rebellion (the first independent campaign of Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington). In the process, we begin to consider the reasons behind the defeat of the indigenous Indian militaries, as well as why the British were able to control their vast and populous territories.
SCRIPT: strategosstuff.blogspot.com/2...
All errors are my own.
▬ CHAPTERS ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
0:00 - Start
0:45 - 4. The 4th Anglo-Mysore War
11:58 - 5. Suppression (1799-1803)
▬ SOURCES ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Ahuja R; Christof-Füchsle M (eds). A Great War in South India. Walter de Gruyter 2020.
Corrigan G. Wellington. Hambledon Continuum 2001.
Davies H. Wellington’s Wars. Yale University Press 2012.
Holmes R. Wellington. Harper Perennial 2007.
Howard M. Wellington and the British Army’s Indian Campaigns. Pen & Sword Military 2020.
Muir R. Wellington. Yale University Press 2013.
Roy K. War, Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia. Routledge 2011.
Severn J. Architects of Empire. University of Oklahoma Press 2007.
Bayly C. Empire and Information. Cambridge University Press 1999.
Chowdhury M. Empire and Gunpowder. Routledge 2023.
Habib I (ed). State and Diplomacy under Tipu Sultan. Tulika 2001.
Macdougall P. Naval Resistance to Britain’s Growing Power in India 1660-1800. The Boydell Press 2014.
Yazdani K. India, Modernity and the Great Divergence. Brill 2017.
▬ ATTRIBUTIONS ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Wikipedia (basic facts + dates)
Maps:
Google Maps
www.deviantart.com/cyowari/ar...
(India Topography)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_R...
(Rann of Kutch)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaveri#...
(River Kaveri)
www.toppr.com/ask/question/bh...
(River Tungabhadra)
www.deviantart.com/cyowari/ar...
(India 1794)
www.deviantart.com/cyowari/ar...
(India 1802)
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...
(European Empires 1800)
wanderingdutchie.blogspot.com/...
(DEI 1800)
Made using Microsoft Office 2013, Remote Mouse, ShureMV7, Audacity, WavePad, VideoPad and Poe.

[@tiscotisa9731]

In less than a month?!?! You spoil us

[@jonathon6756]

Let us rejoice, for the king has blessed us with another banger.

[@flaviusarcadiusvibes]

So GOOD! You deserve big bucks for this content. A genuine treasure to the field of history, you make difficult to picture parts of history understandable, on top of delivering a high-quality meta review of complex topics. Really impressive stuff.

[@MrChrisRCT3]

The GOAT pumps out another banger 🔥

[@Progamermove_2003]

What if a mercantilist governor has came in place of Mornington and had decided to not fight against Mysore? Would the British had somehow been able to take advantage of a potential Mysore-Maratha rivalry, or the Mysore, upon completing it's reforms, could've become a real threat to British? Great video btw.

[@freddekl1102]

Somehow I doubt that even if they Mysore modernized they would've been more than a speedbump to British, Sikh Empire had the same story There's only really one case of native power successfully modernizing and it's Japan - and they were different because European powers actively encouraged and helped them to do it, instead of being a target of expansion

[@StrategyStuff]

'What ifs' are always difficult. It's possible that, if the UK stuck to mercantilism, they might have been happy to just stick to their coastal strips forever and merely try to get inland India as their 'sphere of influence' (like China or Latin America) thru economic/political/cultural domination. However, you can also argue that UK expansion would have happened regardless of mercantilism b/c of structural factors. Most notably, SoIs tend to turn into actual empires once other great powers start injecting themselves into the space. We saw a little of that in M's use of FRA activities in IND as a justification for expansion; later on, defense vs RUS would used as the justification for the UK advance into NW IND and the surrounding borderlands. So perhaps even a mercantilist UK might eventually establish an empire over inland IND, if only to pre-empt another power from doing the same. As for potential for a reformed IND state to be a threat to UK IND - it's possible, but as the rest of the 19C shows, it wasn't easy to keep pace with EUR, esp. after industrial revolution. During this time, MYS had a iron/steel industry and the stuff it produced was qualitatively better than EUR, BUT it was also producing only 15-20% of what UK was doing (EDIT: see follow-up response). The revenues of the MYS state were also only like c.7% of UK's (EDIT: corrected, see follow-up response). So behind the surface-level military comparisons (arguably the easiest of the modernizations to achieve), there were serious gaps in state strength btwn EUR and non-EUR which would require comprehensive, almost prescient reforms to 'fix'. Half-hearted/incomplete efforts would probably just see the state falling into the various 'Westernization' traps of the 19C: unsustainable debt (EGY), military failure (CHI), or rebellion + fragmentation (TUR).

[@Progamermove_2003]

@@StrategyStuff Such a complete and exhaustive reply. I really appreciate your analysis. Thanks for taking the time to explain it and once again it was a great video!

[@FFFanboy7]

@@StrategyStuff "Only" 15-20% of what the UK was doing? That sounds like a crazy high number to me. What's the source for it? Are you counting the production across the whole british empire, or across the home isles, or across british india, or how? I dont know the full context of how the British Steel industry was at this time but obviously the UK became one of the most important producers of steel in this era, so its quite surprising to me that there was this much activity in India. If you've got more info to expand on this i'd be interested.

[@StrategyStuff]

@FFFanboy7 Right, I did some extra research and I think the 15-20% figure can be misleading. 1stly, the figures are for iron production: and during the latter half of 18C, the numbers are indeed c.4-7k ton/year for MYS (Yazdani, Great War in South India) and c.20k/year for England and Wales (King, The British Iron Act 1750 - can google). The catch is that UK also imported c. 45k tons/year of iron, mostly from Sweden and RUS. In the 1790s, Cort et al developed methods that allowed the commercial production of bar iron using coal, rather than charcoal, which had hitherto been a major limiting factor in domestic UK iron production. This development, coupled up with protectionist UK tariffs during the Napoleonic Wars, caused domestic UK production to substitute out foreign imports. So in 1788 UK iron production was still at 32k tons/year, but by 1810 it exploded to 130k tons/year. UK imports of iron accordingly slumped to c.10k. (Evans, Ryden. Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the 18th Century, Chp. 4 - google).

[@vasekk.8168]

As a former IR student I see just one downside with your content: too late! :) These would have been so useful during my college years, you have no idea. Please keep them coming!

[@krushnaji4940]

I am region of India which was a part of Nizam kingdom I can tell you it was feudal society until Indian independence

[@josww2]

Great video, love your content, looking forward to the rest of the series!

[@meraklmuskulpesent8313]

I highly appreciate your work. Thank you.

[@bigsarge2085]

Fantastic. I always learn something new!

[@Anjana-]

My friend recomended this channel and I've been eagerly waiting for this episode for last one week. Happy that you uploaded.☺️❤

[@iakona23]

Thank you so much!

[@SmoothCake]

Hey man, I just wanted to say your content is really amazing. I have learned a lot of interesting new stuff through your videos. Even as a history enthusiast, your videos provide the kind of depth of knowledge that most other history channels cannot replicate. Please keep making videos, I am sure they will be more and more popular as time goes on.

[@5hitC0mbo]

great stuff man

[@micahistory]

i am so glad to see you back again, I love how you cover these often neglected parts of history

[@Anton2046gfkn]

Seeing this channel return from the dead is one of the best things to happen in media in 2023.

[@Playerone1287]

Bro you're awesome, I wonder why no Indian KZbin channels and textbooks has taught us this deep, and belive me I've read most of the school and college textbooks

[@daa7241]

Probably you are dumb coz this is in ncert and tamil nadu 10-12th I can confirm

[@ItsMeChillTyme]

Indian textbooks are not interested in teaching history in particular but setting a tone or narrative that fuels the hearts and minds of future generations. It's a mythos about the founding with every incident mentioned tainted in a very black and white "us vs them" narrative. As if there was an "Indian whole" that was the "us" and the brits that was the them. The way its taught, it completely misses the mark that within India there were competing states just like on the European contintent.

[@GBERTS]

always very good!

[@erickromero5638]

LETS GOOOOOOOOO, new india conquest video just drop out 🔥🔥🔥

[@istn9478]

At last! You are the best

[@caiodavi9829]

thanks for the info. i am gonna go conquer argentina using the knowledge i obtained from this channel.

[@AGS363]

Remember: Nepotism is okay, if the results are good!

[@LillianKoi]

Fantastic videos! I'm really glad you're still around here. British conquest of India is such a poorly understood conflict filled with myths and inaccuracies so this is extremely heplful!

[@leanderbarreto980]

I live in Goa, yet have never heard of Dhondia Wagh, great stuff

[@anon2034]

That was a quick release! Can you explain in a video after the series is over how these minor wars (like the "Mud War") were fought?

[@StrategyStuff]

A lot of these wars were basically British sepoys marching to a fort and A) either storming it, or B) retreating due to lack of supplies or the locals fleeing to the hills/jungle. I'm afraid the sources I read don't go much further than that. There was plenty of room for negotiations etc, but in keeping to their idea of 'fair dealing', if UK felt that their 'good faith' was violated, they wouldn't hesitate to kill/sack/burn the target. The Mud War (named after the 'mud forts' that were resisting UK) wasn't much different. In this case, Bengal Army sepoys attacked a few north Indian forts/walled villages (Sasni, Kachaura) on the frontier zone btwn UK (formerly Awadh) and Mughal/Maratha-Shinde territory. Its of minor relevance to the broader story, because it put the Bengal Army within kilometers of the major Shinde forts at Aligarh and Agra.

[@anon2034]

@@StrategyStuff Thank you for clarifying it.

[@sudheerkumar4421]

please provide the list of books and sources also for this series...been a huge fan of ur content for a long time...thank u!!

[@StrategyStuff]

Sources are in the description

[@sudheerkumar4421]

@@StrategyStuff oh..thank u

[@dingusdean1905]

I can’t wait for the next episode, I’m eager to hear about the Anglo-Maratha wars since the Marathas actually won against the EIC, so it’d be interesting to see what they did right compared to Tipu Sultan

[@yamnayaseed356]

The Marathas didn’t win the war of 1803-1805

[@MustardAndFries]

That was the first Anglo-Marathas war, the next war that would be covered is the second which the Anglos defeated the Marathas in. Similarly this was the fourth Anglo-Mysore war.

[@andrewcornelio6179]

There were 3 Anglo Maratha wars and 4 Anglo Mysore wars which spanned several decades. The Marathas won the first war and lost the second two. Mysore won the first, stalemated the second, and lost the final two. The main reason why the British gained the upper hand later on was because they were able to find indian allies. During the third and fourth Mysore war, the British received help from the Marathas and Hyderabad. After Mysore was subdued, the British were then able to defeat the Marathas with the help of Hyderabad, the Mughals, and a rebellious faction of the Maratha empire.

[@alileevil]

Pretty sure the British gained control over all of the Maratha empire.

[@Open89182]

Nah, they lost in the second war.

[@SimonBea1]

Finally I find a well made documentary about how the British conquered India! Thanks!

[@PATRICKFOSTER01]

Honey, cancel the plans. Strategy Stuff just uploaded a new video.

[@paullunsford8921]

This is extremely good. Out of curiosity, how do you make your maps?

[@StrategyStuff]

Powerpoint - with a bit of inspiration taken from the maps made by the US Military Academy at West Point. It's mostly just tracing, cutting/pasting, making assumptions re: borders/routes and trying to make the result less of a graphical mess lol.

[@TacitusKilgore165]

Lets goooo

[@0MVR_0]

interesting origin of hearts and minds

[@Captain_Carrot]

Great vid as always. One minor nitpick though - maybe I'm going crazy and/or you always talked like that, but you seem to have started always pronouncing " 's" as [ses]. It's only like that after words that end with an "s" by themselves, but in general it's just pronounced [s]. So "Harris's" is indeed [Harrises], but "Tipu's" is simply [Tipus].

[@StrategyStuff]

Thank you for telling me! I’ll admit I wasn’t in the best form when I recorded and checked the video, sorry…

[@Captain_Carrot]

@@StrategyStuff no problem. It didn't detract from the video, and judging by the fact that I'm the only one to point it out, not many people noticed anyway.

[@vinfacts11]

How important was Bengal to these South Indian campaigns? Like I know you mentioned that they taxed Bengal heavily to fund the wars there (correct me if i'm wrong), but how else? Did the British get most of their troops from Bengal to fight in Mysore?

[@StrategyStuff]

No, the troops from Bengal (actually, mainly Awadh) fought in Northern India, except of course the European troops which were transferred wherever needed. It's usually blamed on the taboo on travelling overseas ‘kala pani’, but imho UK probably also understood that local troops would be better suited for S IND conditions. Bengal's main contribution was cash - during this period, UK revenues from Bengal alone (c.6-7m GBP) were about 2x the revenues of the MYS state (c.3m GBP). Of coz Bengal tax wasn't all used for war, c.0.75m GBP annually was sent to CHI for tea. London actually had to send 4m to IND as emergency funding during 2nd UK-MAR War.

[@zhubotang927]

That’s the classic failure pattern to resist colonialism. Most imperial rulers thinks the colonists were successful because the way they wage war but actually they were successful because of the way they rule their subjects in their home country. Qing Dynasty tried to modernize their navy and army. Draining their treasury to procure rifles, artillery and gunboats. What they could buy was often a generation behind and at an extortionate rate. Consequently such modernizations alienated their subjects and exacerbated domestic political problems. What is more is in Qing Dynasty case, the officers in charge of the modernized army supplanted the imperial power and became warlords. The only success case was the Japanese one. They reformed politically. It wasn’t guns and bullets that were behind the Western ascendancy. It was their modern form of government and capitalism and market economy that underpinned their martial prowess.

[@xijinpig8982]

I think the map of Indian states needs Sindh, Gurkha Empire and Sikh Empire to be added at the very least... besides the current states in the map, Gurkhas and Sikhs especially will come in very handy to understand later stages of the British Colonisation of India. In a way, Nepal exists today as a sovereign state because it was the only Indian empire that had little to offer to the British upon hypothetical conquest and managed to keep itself independent by hook or by crook.

[@sandeepk4093]

Sikh empire and Sindh were not part of India/EIC at that point

[@xijinpig8982]

​@@sandeepk4093 Neither were the 5 Maratha states but they're shown in this map so we can see how the British interacted with the Indian states. Also, Sindh and Sikh Empire did end up being absorbed into the EIC, just before the Sepoy Mutiny, everything except parts of Burma, Balochistan, Arunachal and KPK were part of the EIC. He is moving in a chronological timeline and Mysore just got annexed.

[@sandeepk4093]

The British had no way of annexing Sikh empire and Sindh until after invasion of neighbouring independent states and kingdoms. Maybe he'll include their boundaries once the Marathas and other adjacent states have been taken in

[@syedabishosainrizvi7817]

what happened in the first 3 Anglo-Mysore wars? (All I know is that the third one went really bad for Mysore too)

[@StrategyStuff]

The first 2 (fought under Hyder Ali iirc) were essentially draws: back then, MYS used its light cavalry to raid S IND incessantly, even threatening Madras at one point. UK forces were constantly threatened by the appearance of MYS cavalry; but otherwise they were able to take a fort or 2. As for the 3rd war: MYS under Tipu began transitioning away from light cav to Europeanized infantry. His army achieved some initial results as it invaded Travanacore, but ultimately they were forced into retreat by UK forces (led by Cornwallis of US Revolution infamy). UK, however, proved unable to capture Seringapatam, so had to accept MYS' continued independence, tho it also imposed reparations/concessions that totaled up to 50% of MYS' pre-war revenue.

[@thecharlemagnekid9997]

great video! it would be interesting to see a more general discussion of westernization efforts by non-european states and why they often seemed to fail like the tanzimat period in turkey and chinas "strong state"

[@micahistory]

It really is crazy how one company took over a whole civilisation

[@sandeepk4093]

*civilizations

[@shorewall]

Divide and Conquer.

[@cynic2201]

Patreon now

[@onlyfacts4999]

Interesting how Indian resistance is so weak

[@AndrewRoberts11]

Surley the title should read "The Irish brothers' conquest of India (1798-1806) ..."

[@chynabad9804]

Dhondia WAAAAAAGH and His Majesty's Royal Marines?

[@majormung8304]

Have you learned about grand strategy through self study, or did you get a related degree?

[@StrategyStuff]

I have a grounding in politics and intl relations but it is mostly self study.

[@leaveme3559]

What a sad state of affairs for india that was..... i guess british conquest was a massive kick in the head for us a wake up call to push out of feudalism.... i wonder what the future holds for us tho.... I hope its not as fucked as the past 200 years were

[@rohitnirmal1024]

Dhondya= Stone in Marathi, Wagh= Tiger in Marathi

[@maxryabokon1515]

So India was conquered not because it was backward, as some suggested. One of the most important reasons was that it was divided and British used old " divide and conquer" tactics.

[@ihmpall]

Superpower 2020

[@solariangeopolitics9944]

🤣

[@lesliesimon7491]

Do we get reparation from British?

[@digitalcommunist6335]

You were weak , they made you strong. No. Weak indian learned to fight from strong british! Jai Hind!

[@julianshepherd2038]

Some people say that we Brits were just money grabbing ruthless barbarians but we also enjoyed annoying the French.

[@mrsupremegascon]

As a French, I approve this.

[@guilhermefaleiros4892]

The british make my eyes sore

[@andrei19238]

why did tipu adopt such a passive strategy? this isnt explained very well

[@OCinneide]

He knew he couldn’t beat the experienced British soldiers in the field, so he pulled back his troops to the capital and tried to hold out until the monsoons started and would force the British to retreat. But that year the monsoons were delayed and the British managed to capture the capital.

[@andrei19238]

@@OCinneide was there no way to delay the british advances using his cavalry? or try to harras their supplies

[@OCinneide]

@@andrei19238 they probably did that as well. But I honestly do not know. The video creator states that the British often over claimed how effective the light cavalry of the Indians were at raiding.

[@StrategyStuff]

It really is a sort of fatalistic strategy, in that Tipu was relying on the monsoon to save him. The War caught him while he was in the process of transitioning from cav-led force to Europeanized force, so T was left in situation where A) MYS sepoys couldn't beat UK sepoys and B) NOT enough MYS light cav to effectively harass/stall the large UK force (since he had to disband many of them to pay for Europeanization). Essentially, T had NO good options re: military resistance. For T, it was literally monsoon or bust - in this war, he made NO effort to defend anywhere outside of S'patam. He even demolished the forts of Bangalore + Hosur in the face of the UK advance (probably coz he was afraid that UK might retreat to those places in event of monsoon). As for raiding, T didn't have enough light cav to really devastate S India like in previous wars. His scorched-earth tactics did force Harris to alter his campaign route a few times, but NOT enough to stop him from arriving at S'patam. It also didn't help that the late monsoon meant that the Kaveri River was not the obstacle that Tipu hoped it would be.

[@andrei19238]

@@StrategyStuff had the monsoon come, would this really have stopped the british fromm returning next year?

[@RC-du7zu]

I can’t wait to see what these “changes to Indian society” might entail.

[@johnw574]

Hyderabad was not an indigenous power, it was a vassal state of the mughal empire, another invasive power that conquered India. The British conquest of India was not of Europeans conquering poor innocent natives...

[@benjaming4151]