British Expansion through Wars

Talking about the Anglo-Mysore Wars & Anglo-Maratha Wars in 1772, Warren Hastings  was appointed as the governor of Bengal. A workable administration in Bengal was to be given by Hasting as by this time i.e. 1772 in Bengal the two-government system was well established. Oudh and Hasting also made a pact for an alliance. There was no political and territorial achievement in Madras and Bengal and before this, the Bombay presidency was downgraded. They started to observe over the western coastal areas and then against Marathas they found themselves on battlefields.

The Anglo Mysore wars and the Anglo Maratha wars resulted in full control of a majority part of India. This is also known as the Conquest of Mysore.

Anglo Mysore Wars

 First Anglo Mysore War (1767 – 69)

1. In the first Anglo-Mysore War which was against Haider Ali and all the three Nizam of Hyderabad, the Marathas and the British fought together.

2. As per the treaty signed in 1766 which hereby says that Nizam had surrendered Northern Circars for the support of the British that’s why the British sided with the Nizam.

3. Against the British the war was won by Haider Ali and by the end of the war, an opposing treaty was signed in April 1769 which is known as the Treaty of Madras.

Second Anglo Mysore War (1780-84)

1. Against the British all three of them, the Marathas, Nizam and Haidar Ali fought together.

2. Haider seized Arcot in 1780 and Colonel Baillie was defeated.

3. By this the British somehow managed to secure Marathas support.

4. In 1782 during the Second Anglo Mysore War, Haider Ali died, and his son Tipu came after him.

5. In 1784  Tipu Sultan came and the Second Anglo Mysore War ended by signing a treaty of Mangalore by Tipu Sultan.

About Tipu Sultan

Till his death, Tipu ruled Mysore until the Fourth Anglo Mysore War.

He introduced a new system of Coinage, a new calendar and new scales of weights and measures.

At Srirangapatna to show support Tipu planted a ‘Tree of Liberty’ as he was interested in the French Revolution and by the time Tipu also became a member of the Jacobin Club.

Under Tipu, Mysore prospered economically.

Third Anglo Mysore War (1790-92)

 1. In the Third Anglo War, the triple Alliance i.e. The Marathas, British and Nizam fought together against Tipu Sultan.

2. At the cost of Tipu’s neighbours particularly the Raja of Travancore who was associated with the British because of which Tipu tried to expand his territories. This was one of the reasons for the Third Anglo Mysore war.

3. At the end of the war, Dindigul, Malabar and Baramahal were seized by the East India Company.

4. In 1792, Tipu signed the Treaty of Srirangapatnam. The terms of the Treaty were dictated by the British.

Fourth Anglo Mysore War (1799)

 1. The Fourth war was short and final.

2. Tipu died in 1799 while defending Srirangapatna which was the capital of Mysore.

3. The French threats to British supremacy were eliminated in India by the end of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War.

Anglo Maratha Wars

The next is the Anglo Maratha Wars that happened in three rounds of wars between Marathas and the British East India Company.

First Anglo Maratha War (1775-82)

The main reason for the first Anglo Maratha war was the Struggle for power between Raghunath Rao and Sawai Madhav Rao.

Second Anglo Maratha War (1803-05)

The reason for occurence of 2nd  Anglo maratha war was, the thirst of Wellesley to impose a subsidiary Alliance on the Marathas. In the second Anglo Maratha War, Scindia, Bhonsle and Holkar fought against the British.

Third Anglo Maratha war (1817-18)

By this time, Governor-General Lord Hastings was appointed in 1813 and he was determined to signify British domination in India.

First Anglo Sikh War

Later the Anglo Sikh struggle i.e. The First Anglo-Sikh War was fought in 1845-1846 between the Sikh Empire and the British East India Company. It resulted in the conquest and the  partial conquest of the Sikh empire and under the British suzerainty cession  of Jammu and Kashmir declared as a separate princely state.

Second Anglo Sikh War

The second Anglo Sikh war took place in 1848 and 1849. The Sikh were defeated in this war and Punjab was annexed by the East India company,  which eventually became the North West frontier province.

Lieutenant William Anderson and Patrick Vans Agnew were sent on 19th April 1848 to take charge of Multan from the Diwan Mulraj. They were murdered there and Sikh Troops join the open rebellion.

The Background and causes of the war:

By Maharaja Ranjit Singh the Sikh kingdom of Punjab was disbanded and was brought together during the early years of the nineteenth century at the same time as the British-controlled territories which were advanced by conquest or annexation to the borders of Punjab. With the British, Ranjit Singh maintained a policy of wary friendship, surrendering some south territory of the Sutlej River while at the same time building up his military forces both to dishearten aggression by the British and to wage war against the Afghans. To train his army he hired American and European mercenary soldiers and also into his army he incorporated contingents of Hindus and Muslims.

Conclusion 

The Mysore Wars happened in four battles (1767-69, 1780-84, 1790-92, and 1799) between Mysore and the East India Company which was known as the Anglo Mysore Wars. There was a time when Mysore consisted of today’s Karnataka i.e. some parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.  Then the Anglo Maratha war which had 2 reasons which led to the final conflict between the Marathas and British first is the growing thirst of Marathas for their lost territories to get them back and the second is imprudent controls over the chief and Maratha nobles by the British. The Anglo Sikh struggle in which British victory East India seizes the Sikh Empire and the entire Punjab region up to Peshawar.