The History Of Bangalore

While history books fixate on the dramatic midnight breach of the Bangalore Fort, the entire Mysore campaign was actually decided two weeks earlier in the blood-soaked streets of the commercial city. On March 7, 1791, Lord Cornwallis launched a brutal, house-to-house assault on the Bangalore pete—a fortified manufacturing powerhouse of over a hundred thousand citizens. In this episode, Ramjee Chandran uncovers the terrifying reality of 18th-century urban combat, the tactical genius of the pete's defenses, and the tragic fall of Colonel Moorhouse, whose legendary death at the Yelahanka Gate was immortalized by British art but fundamentally misplaced by history.

Key Details from the Script:


The Forgotten Metropolis: Most historians skip straight to the fort's midnight breach, but the pete of 1791 was a massive, fortified industrial city in its own right. Inhabited by roughly 108,000 people, it featured its own water grid fed by the Dharmambudhi tank, vast granaries, and a taramandala—one of Tipu Sultan's advanced state armaments factories utilizing water- and wind-driven boring machines.


Cornwallis's Two-Phase Gambit: Recognizing that the pete was the logistical heartbeat of the region, Cornwallis calculated that the fort could not be taken first. The British strategy required capturing the marketplace, grain supplies, and repair yards to feed and sustain his starving army before turning their heavy guns on the fortress walls.


The Yelahanka Gate Wall of Fire: At dawn on March 7, British redcoats and Bengal sepoys hacked through jungle-like overgrowth to storm the pete. While the Doddapete barricade fell to a swift bayonet charge, the advance ground to a bloody halt at the northern Yelahanka Gate, where Mysore forces unleashed a devastating crossfire from flanking towers and residential rooftops.


The Sacrifice of Colonel Moorhouse: Stranded under heavy fire, Colonel Moorhouse—the revered founder of the Madras Sappers—refused to retreat. He brought heavy 18- and 24-pounder siege cannons to point-blank range to deliver a simultaneous shattering salvo against the teak doors. Moorhouse was shot twice in the body, continued commanding, and was killed after two more balls shattered his head and chest.


The Whiskers Charge: Moorhouse’s guns successfully punched a gap in the masonry just wide enough for one man. As Lieutenant Ayre squeezed through the opening first, the sidelined General Medows casually cheered him on like a spectator at a cricket match, famously shouting to the 36th Regiment Grenadiers: "Well done! Now, whiskers! Support the little gentleman!" before stepping in to take command.


Brutal and Secret Urban Warfare: Once inside, the British cleared the narrow lanes, warehouses, and shops in two hours of fierce, undocumented hand-to-hand combat. Though British accounts largely omitted the grim details of the urban slaughter, the pete fell at the cost of 130 British lives, completely undermining Tipu's scorched-earth strategy by handing Cornwallis the markets and water lines he desperately needed.


The Historical Error of Robert Home’s Painting: Robert Home’s masterpiece, "The Death of Colonel Moorhouse," created a centuries-long tradition claiming Moorhouse died at the eastern Ulsoor Gate. Modern historical mapping reveals this is entirely wrong; Moorhouse actually fell at the northern Yelahanka Gate, which stood where the modern Mysore Bank building stands today—miles away from the Ulsoor Gate Police Station.


Tipu's Enraged Retaliation: Stunned by the rapid loss of his industrial hub, an enraged Tipu Sultan refused to concede the city. He immediately ordered a massive counterattack, dispatching an entire division from Basavanagudi under General Qamardeen Khan with strict mandates to recapture the pete at all costs.

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Follow Ramjee Chandran on Instagram and Twitter: @ramjeechandran

The theme music for the show was composed by German-Indian Koln based percussionist, Ramesh Shotham. Ramjee Chandran's photos by Asha Thadani.

RESEARCH AND SOURCES: All our episodes are based on published research and archive records. To request information about our sources, write to hob@explocity.com. Let us know if you are a researcher (either institutional or independent) and also provide some information about why you need this information. Researchers will get priority. We only have time to engage serious, academic queries so please understand if we do not respond to casual requests.

In February 1791, Charles Cornwallis marched out of Fort St. George with a singular obsession: total redemption for his humiliating defeat at Yorktown. His target was Bangalore, the heavily fortified, stone-hewn "gatekeeper" of the Mysore plateau. But moving a massive army of twenty-one thousand troops, sixty-seven war elephants, and an unyielding battering train required an astronomical forty thousand bullocks—all racing against a strict four-month window before the monsoons turned the roads to impassable mud. In this episode, Ramjee Chandran details Cornwallis’s brilliant flanking manoeuver through the narrow Mugali Pass, a thick morning fog that brought two rival armies face-to-face, a bloody cavalry clash, and the tactical miscalculation by Tipu Sultan that brought the legendary Madras Sappers to the unbroken walls of Bangalore.

Key Details from the Script:


The Invisible Plaque: Hidden on the curved stone masonry of the Delhi Gate at Bangalore Fort, a tiny plaque marks the exact spot where the British broke through on March 21, 1791—an event that fundamentally birthed the cantonments and modern layout of the city today. The bustling modern road beneath it was once the fort's formidable defensive moat.


The Ghost of Yorktown: Driven by the lingering shame of surrendering to George Washington a decade prior, Cornwallis refused to manage this war from a distant desk. He took personal, aggressive command from the front, determined to establish an advanced base at Bangalore to permanently break Tipu Sultan.


The Logistics of an Empire: The scale of the British marching column was staggering. Accompanied by thousands of camp followers, it included a massive artillery train of eighteen-pounder siege guns—each weighing two and a half tons. Managing forty thousand bullocks that required constant fodder and water meant Cornwallis had to conquer Bangalore before the June monsoons arrived.


The Mugali Pass Deception: Expecting the British to use the predictable southern entry points like the Gajalhatti Pass, Tipu Sultan concentrated his forces there. Cornwallis executed a brilliant feint, feigning south before pivoting sharply north to haul his heavy guns up the narrow Mugali Pass defile, bloodlessly placing his entire army onto the high ground of the Mysore plateau.


The Vanishing Fog: As the British advanced rapidly, capturing Kolar and Hoskote, Tipu's guerrilla horsemen—the irregular "looties"—harassed their flanks under the cover of dense, blinding fog. On March 5, the mist suddenly lifted like a cinematic reveal, leaving both massive armies staring directly at one another across a narrow, unpassable marsh.


A Bloody Prelude: The standoff shattered the next morning on March 6 when Tipu’s forces ambushed a British detachment. A fierce counter-charge by British cavalry was devastated by Mysorean rockets and musketry. Senior British commander Colonel Floyd was shot in the face and narrowly rescued by a corporal, leaving the British with over two hundred men dead and three hundred irreplaceable horses lost.


Tipu’s Fatal Miscalculation: Believing the thick stone walls of Bangalore Fort could endure a prolonged siege that would exhaust British supplies, Tipu left the fortress under the command of his Killedar, Bahadur Khan, and 8,000 troops. Tipu retreated to Kengeri to orchestrate external ambushes. However, he failed to gauge the unique methodology of the Madras Sappers—combat engineers specialising in tunneling parallels and mapping geometric weak points.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Prestige Group, that makes this podcast possible.

Follow The History Of Bangalore on social, here:

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Follow Ramjee Chandran on Instagram and Twitter: @ramjeechandran

The theme music for the show was composed by German-Indian Koln based percussionist, Ramesh Shotham. Ramjee Chandran's photos by Asha Thadani.

RESEARCH AND SOURCES: All our episodes are based on published research and archive records. To request information about our sources, write to hob@explocity.com. Let us know if you are a researcher (either institutional or independent) and also provide some information about why you need this information. Researchers will get priority. We only have time to engage serious, academic queries so please understand if we do not respond to casual requests.

Before Lord Cornwallis's army could ever march on the plateau, the outcome of the Third Anglo-Mysore War hung precariously on the decisions made inside a single room in Pune. In this episode, Ramjee Chandran takes us behind the scenes of a high-stakes diplomatic chess match. Two rival embassies—the British led by Charles Warre Malet, and Mysore led by Tipu Sultan’s top negotiators—competed fiercely for the ultimate prize: ten thousand elite Maratha cavalry riders. From nocturnal meetings with the "Maratha Machiavelli," Nana Phadnavis, to a public state humiliation and a sophisticated network of paid informants, discover how the British narrowly leveraged territorial greed against a prophetic warning to secure the Triple Alliance that sealed Bangalore's fate.

Key Details from the Script:


The Cavalry Mandate: Cornwallis’s approaching army was heavily encumbered by massive siege artillery required to smash the fortifications of Bangalore and Seringapatam. Moving at the slow crawl of bullock carts, they desperately needed the highly mobile Maratha cavalry to act as a defensive screen against Tipu Sultan’s fast-raiding light horsemen, known as "looties".


The Nocturnal Shadow Race: The British Resident at Pune, Charles Warre Malet, spent sleepless months enduring an agonizingly prolonged negotiation process. The stakes reached a fever pitch as he literally passed Tipu’s seasoned emissaries in the streets, knowing they were holding secret midnight conferences with the Maratha administration.


The Prophecy of Mysore: Tipu's seasoned diplomats, Qutub-ud-din Khan and Ali Raza Khan, arrived at court armed with fully paid-up historical debts and a shockingly accurate historical warning. They warned the Marathas that the British would never willingly stop absorbing territory, telling them: "If Mysore falls, the Marathas are next"—a prophecy that materialized exactly within thirty years.


The Maratha Machiavelli: Sitting at the center of the storm was the calculating chief minister Nana Phadnavis. Acutely aware that both warring empires needed him more than he needed them, he masterfully used delays as a tactical weapon to gather intelligence, drive up the bidding war, and weigh his options.


Bribery, Grievances, and Espionage: To shatter the deadlock, Malet operated aggressively within the fluid parameters of 18th-century Deccan politics. He planted active networks of informants to track internal court factions, distributed British funds to sympathetic ministers, and explicitly guaranteed that an alliance with the British was the only way to militarily recover the fertile Doab territories previously taken by Mysore.


The Public Snub and Final Deal: The ultimate diplomatic crisis occurred on June 8, 1790, when the Peshwa deliberately insulted Malet by granting Tipu’s ambassadors a lavish, highly public state audience. Despite the deep personal humiliation, Malet persevered. By February 1791, the tangible promise of immediate land recovery triumphed over Tipu's risky long-term vision, cementing the ten thousand cavalry soldiers needed to safely march on Bangalore.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Prestige Group, that makes this podcast possible.

Follow The History Of Bangalore on social, here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyofbangalore/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfBangalore

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HistoryOfBLR

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@HistoryOfBangalore?si=mnH3BsYfI4BUU234

iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1323-the-history-of-bangalore-163453722/

Follow Ramjee Chandran on Instagram and Twitter: @ramjeechandran

The theme music for the show was composed by German-Indian Koln based percussionist, Ramesh Shotham. Ramjee Chandran's photos by Asha Thadani.

RESEARCH AND SOURCES: All our episodes are based on published research and archive records. To request information about our sources, write to hob@explocity.com. Let us know if you are a researcher (either institutional or independent) and also provide some information about why you need this information. Researchers will get priority. We only have time to engage serious, academic queries so please understand if we do not respond to casual requests.

One line is all we need in history records that Charles Cornwallis invaded Bangalore in 1791. But behind that single line lies a sweeping story of defeat, humiliation, and a decades-long struggle for redemption. In this episode, Ramjee Chandran charts Cornwallis's journey from his agonizing, ghosted surrender to George Washington at Yorktown to his arrival in India as a powerful, dual-mandate ruler. When the initial British campaign of 1790 crumbles under the brilliant guerrilla tactics of Tipu Sultan, Cornwallis realizes he cannot run a war from a desk in Calcutta. Stepping into the field himself, he gathers a massive force, bypasses Tipu’s traps, and sets his sights squarely on his first major objective on the plateau: the fortified arsenal town of Bangalore.

Key Details from the Script:


The Stain of Yorktown: On October 19, 1781, Cornwallis skipped his own surrender ceremony to George Washington, claiming illness and sending a subordinate to hand over his sword—cementing his status as the face of a historic national disgrace.


The Trenton Irony: A decade before Cornwallis marched into Mysore to fight Tipu, his father Hyder Ali was celebrated as a hero in revolutionary America; during victory toasts in New Jersey, toast number eleven was explicitly dedicated to Hyder Ali.


The "Incorruptible" Nobleman: Despite losing the American colonies, Cornwallis used his aristocratic lineage to rebuild his career, famously earning a reputation for absolute integrity by repeatedly denying corrupt financial favors to the Prince of Wales.


The 1790 Failure: The war's opening phase under General William Medows was an utter disaster for the British. Tipu used the monsoon terrain and fast-moving light cavalry ("looties") to run circles around the British, leaving over a thousand colonial soldiers sick before a major battle was even fought.


The Masterstroke Strategy: Realizing his generals were thoroughly outmatched, Cornwallis arrived in Madras in December 1790 to take personal command. He consolidated 21,000 troops and planned a surprise flanking maneuver through the rugged Mugali Pass to bypass Tipu’s scorched-earth defenses.


Bangalore First: Cornwallis understood the geography perfectly; to open the road to Tipu's capital at Seringapatam, he first had to conquer the critical fortified hinge and arsenal town of Bangalore.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Prestige Group, that makes this podcast possible.

Follow The History Of Bangalore on social, here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyofbangalore/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfBangalore

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HistoryOfBLR

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@HistoryOfBangalore?si=mnH3BsYfI4BUU234

iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1323-the-history-of-bangalore-163453722/

Follow Ramjee Chandran on Instagram and Twitter: @ramjeechandran

The theme music for the show was composed by German-Indian Koln based percussionist, Ramesh Shotham. Ramjee Chandran's photos by Asha Thadani.

RESEARCH AND SOURCES: All our episodes are based on published research and archive records. To request information about our sources, write to hob@explocity.com. Let us know if you are a researcher (either institutional or independent) and also provide some information about why you need this information. Researchers will get priority. We only have time to engage serious, academic queries so please understand if we do not respond to casual requests.

The five-year peace between Mysore and the East India Company was never a truce; it was simply a race to rearm. Ramjee Chandran breaks down the high-stakes geopolitical chess match that shattered the Treaty of Mangalore. Enter Lord Charles Cornwallis, a general eager to erase the shame of his surrender to George Washington at Yorktown. When the small state of Travancore strategically provokes Tipu Sultan by purchasing two Dutch forts, the "Tiger of Mysore" is forced to defend his vital lifeline to the sea. Discover how a dispute over a thorn-filled ditch and a frantic farcical hiding game by the Raja of Cochin unleashed the formidable Triple Alliance—setting the stage for the Third Anglo-Mysore War and the eventual landlocking of Tipu's empire.

Key Details from the Script:


The Looming Shadow of Bangalore: During the five years of uneasy peace following 1784, Tipu heavily fortified Bangalore—transforming it into an essential garrison town, arsenal, and the ultimate strategic hinge between the Carnatic plains and the Mysorean interior.


Cornwallis’s Mandate: Arriving in 1786, Lord Cornwallis found a disorganized Madras Presidency. Haunted by his defeat in the American War of Independence, he was impatient to neutralize Tipu but required a legitimate casus belli (justification for war) to void the existing treaty.


The Provocation: In 1789, the British-aligned Kingdom of Travancore purchased two Dutch forts (Cranganore and Ayacottah) that sat in territory subordinate to Mysore. This commercial deal effectively placed a British-protected enclave right on Tipu’s western flank, threatening his only access to global maritime trade and French assistance.


The Anxious Farce: Sensing the impending storm, the Raja of Cochin (a Mysore vassal) tried to avoid choosing sides. When Tipu summoned him, the Raja feigned illness and locked himself in a room to escape Tipu's visiting minister.


The Invasion: On December 29, 1789, diplomatic patience expired. Tipu breached the defensive lines of Travancore. By April 1790, he launched a full-scale invasion, dismantling their fortifications and sending 200 captured cannons back to Bangalore.


The Triple Alliance: Cornwallis seized his trigger. Through the relentless backroom diplomacy of British Resident Charles Warre Malet in Pune, the British successfully bought, flattered, and maneuvered the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad into a massive, multi-front coalition against a structurally isolated Mysore.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Prestige Group, that makes this podcast possible.

Follow The History Of Bangalore on social, here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyofbangalore/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfBangalore

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HistoryOfBLR

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@HistoryOfBangalore?si=mnH3BsYfI4BUU234

iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1323-the-history-of-bangalore-163453722/

Follow Ramjee Chandran on Instagram and Twitter: @ramjeechandran

The theme music for the show was composed by German-Indian Koln based percussionist, Ramesh Shotham. Ramjee Chandran's photos by Asha Thadani.

RESEARCH AND SOURCES: All our episodes are based on published research and archive records. To request information about our sources, write to hob@explocity.com. Let us know if you are a researcher (either institutional or independent) and also provide some information about why you need this information. Researchers will get priority. We only have time to engage serious, academic queries so please understand if we do not respond to casual requests.