Battle of Pollilur | |||||||
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Part of the Second Anglo-Mysore War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
East India Company | Mysore | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Eyre Coote | Hyder Ali | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
11,000 [2] | unknown | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
421 [2] | 2,000+ [2] | ||||||
The Battle of Pollilur was fought on 27 August 1781, between forces of the Kingdom of Mysore under Hyder Ali and British East India Company forces led by General Eyre Coote. The battle was fought on the site of a 1780 encounter in which a Company force was almost completely routed or captured.
In the 1781 battle, the company's army was organized into two lines. One line fought against the troops under Tipu Sultan. But Hyder Ali's army faced severe casualties and retreated to Kanchipuram.
After the battle, a shortage of provisions led Coote to move his forces toward Tripassore. [2] Both the sides retreated in a drawn battle and both claimed victory by firing a salute though the English claimed "dubious victory". [3] [4]
Much of the battle site has been altered owing to paddy cultivation. Two obelisks stand in memory of two officers who served in the army of East India Company. They stand on a higher ground than the surroundings and the inscribed text is very light and faded. Colonel George Brown and Captain James Hislop are remembered in the obelisks. [5]
The obelisk dedicated to Lieutenant Colonel George Brown bears the following text: [5]
Sacred to the Memory of Lieutenant Colonel George Brown
When Lieutenant of Grenadiers in Draper's Regiment
he lost his Right Arm on the storm of Conjevearam Pagoda occupied by Ye French
on the 18th of April ???? and fell in a general Action fought on this Field between the English
Forces and the Troops of Hyder Ally??? Bahaduer on the 27th of August 1781
esteemed by every Rank a gallant Soldier, an able Officer, and, an Honest Man.
The second obelisk, in memory of Captain James Hislop, displays the following text: [5]
Sacred to the memory of Captain James Hislop
who was killed by a Cannon Ball from the Enemy near this Spot,
The Field of Battle, 27 August 1781 while serving as Aid de Camp to
Lieut. General Sir Eyre Coote KB. Commander in Chief
------------------
His professional Abilities and private Virtues,
Were felt and acknowledged by all his Contemporaries.
Hyder Ali was the Sultan and de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India. Born as Hyder Ali, he distinguished himself as a soldier, eventually drawing the attention of Mysore's rulers. Rising to the post of Dalavayi (commander-in-chief) to Krishnaraja Wodeyar II, he came to dominate the titular monarch and the Mysore government. He became the de facto ruler of Mysore as Sarvadhikari by 1761. During intermittent conflicts against the East India Company during the First and Second Anglo–Mysore Wars, Hyder Ali was the military leader.
Lieutenant-General Sir Eyre Coote, KB was an Anglo-Irish military officer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1768 to 1780. He is best known for his many years of service with the British Army in India. His victory at the Battle of Wandiwash is considered a decisive turning point in the struggle for control in India between Britain and France. He was known by his sepoy troops as Coote Bahadur.
The Battle of Pollilur, also known as the Battle of Polilore or Battle of Perambakam, took place on 10 September 1780 at Pollilur near Conjeevaram, the city of Kanchipuram in present-day Tamil Nadu state, India, as part of the Second Anglo-Mysore War. It was fought between an army commanded by Tipu Sultan of the Kingdom of Mysore, and a British East India Company force led by William Baillie. The EIC force suffered a high number of casualties before surrendering. It was the worst loss the East India Company suffered on the subcontinent until Chillianwala. Benoît de Boigne, a French officer in the service of 6th Regiment of Madras Native Infantry, wrote, "There is not in India an example of a similar defeat".
The Second Anglo-Mysore War was a conflict between the Kingdom of Mysore and the British East India Company from 1780 to 1784. At the time, Mysore was a key French ally in India, and the conflict between Britain against the French and Dutch in the American Revolutionary War influenced Anglo-Mysorean hostilities in India. The great majority of soldiers on the company side were raised, trained, paid and commanded by the company, not the British government. However, the company's operations were also bolstered by Crown troops sent from Great Britain, and by troops from Hanover, which was also ruled by Great Britain's King George III.
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.
The Anglo-Mysore Wars were a series of four wars fought during the last three decades of the 18th century between the Sultanate of Mysore on the one hand, and the British East India Company, Maratha Empire, Kingdom of Travancore, and the Kingdom of Hyderabad on the other. Hyder Ali and his succeeding son Tipu fought the wars on four fronts: with the British attacking from the west, south and east and the Nizam's forces attacking from the north. The fourth war resulted in the overthrow of the house of Hyder Ali and Tipu, and the dismantlement of Mysore to the benefit of the East India Company, which took control of much of the Indian subcontinent.
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