Haidar ali and tipu sultan

CHAPTER VII

INVASION OF TRAVANCORE

IT will be remembered that in 1766 Haidar Ali overran Malabar. Among the chiefs who then tendered their submission was the Raja of Cochin, whose territory, abutted on that of the Travancore Raja. In 1761 the Zamorin of Calicut had invaded Cochin. The Raja had sought aid from his neighbour who despatched a force under General de Lanoy, which drove out the Zamorin, and the reward for this service was the cession of a tract of country on which fortifications were erected, extending thirty miles from an estuary on the coast to a range of inaccessible hills. A strong fort was built at Kariapilli on the coast, while a wall 20 feet thick and 12 feet high, with stone batteries and bastions at intervals, was constructed all along the frontier. It was further protected by a deep ditch while bamboos and thorny shrubs were planted close to the well on the side of the ditch. These defences were called the ‘Travancore Lines,’ and were intended to resist attacks from Malabar. Haidar, after his invasion of Malabar, had coveted Travancore, but the opposition of the Dutch at Kranganur (Kadangulur), and his own military operations on the eastern coast, arrested his designs.

Tipu was aware that the possession of Malabar would give him command of the western coast, thus facilitating the importation of munitions of war, and enabling him to attack the English from two sides. He therefore determined on its conquest. It was not difficult for him to find plausible pretexts for the attack which he meditated, partly on the ground that the Travancore Raja had erected the defences on the territory of his feudatory the Cochin chief, aggravating the insult by purchasing from the Dutch the forts of Kranganur and Ayakota, and partly by reason of Travancore having afforded protection to rebellious fugitives from Malabar. He at first endeavoured to secure the aid of the Cochin Raja in his designs. But that chief evaded his demands, and Tipu proceeded to attack the defences, regardless alike of the remonstrances of Travancore and the objections of the Madras Government, to which the latter State owed allegiance.

On December 28, 1789, Tipu’s army, under the personal command, appeared before the walls, his force consisting of 14,000 infantry and 500 pioneers. By daybreak of the 29th, his troops had gained an entrance and taken possession of a part of the ramparts to the right, the Travancore soldiers contesting each post, but being compelled to retreat before the enemy till they were forced back upon a strong position where, with the aid of a small gun, they made a stand. Fresh troops were ordered up by Tipu to carry the building, and support the leading corps. But the movement was clumsily performed, and in the confusion which ensued, a small body of the defenders, who were posted in a thick cover close to the ramparts, threw in such a heavy fire that the assailants were repulsed, and a panic ensued⁶¹. The whole of Tipu’s army was soon in precipitate flight, he himself being carried away by the rush. The ditch was filled with the bodies of those who were forced on from behind and trampled under foot before they could extricate themselves. The bearers of Tipu’s palankeen were among the fallen, and he himself escaped with the greatest difficulty, through the exertions of some faithful servants, but lamed in the efforts he had made to save himself. In the hurly-burly he lost his sword and shield, which were taken away in triumph to Trivandrum the capital of Travancore. He is said to have lost no less than 2,000 men in this miserable affair.

Lord Cornwallis, then Governor-General, had intimated to the Madras Government his readiness to consider impartially any claim which Tipu Sultan might urge against the sale -to the Travancore Raja of the places above referred to. At the same time he pointed out the inadvisability of submission to untenable demands. When he learned that Tipu had by his rash action shown his contempt for any pacific overtures, he despatched on March 30, 1790, explicit instructions to the Madras Government not to allow a faithful ally to be overwhelmed by an insolent and cruel enemy.

Tipu had, indeed, forwarded to Madras a lame explanation of his attack upon the Lines, alleging that his troops were merely searching for fugitives, and had accidentally come into collision with the Travancore army. But he had no intention of desisting from his purpose, and, smarting under the defeat which he had sustained, he ordered siege-guns to be despatched at once from Seringapatam, and recommenced the attack. Batteries were erected close to the defences in the early part of March. Yet although Tipu spoke with derision of the ‘contemptible wall, nearly a month elapsed before the ramparts were destroyed. A breach being then effected, the Travancore troops were compelled to retreat, and Tipu directed the immediate demolition of the fortifications, sending off as spoil to his capital 200 pieces of cannon, and a vast quantity of ammunition,

At the time when the assault of the Lines took place, there were two English regiments of native troops at Ayakota, belonging to the Madras establishment, as well as one European regiment, and two of Sepoys, which had been despatched from Bombay to the same place. But the vacillation of the Madras Government, and want of enterprise on the part of the commanding officers themselves, prevented their co-operating with the Travancore troops in the defence.

The Mysore army, flushed with success, now began to lay waste the country with fire and sword, desecrating and despoiling temples, and burning towns and villages, whose wretched inhabitants fled to the hills, where many were seized and made prisoners. The ruins to be seen at the present day testify to the ferocity of the invaders, while all the records of antiquity and the archives of the Travancore State were consumed in the burning pagodas, public offices, and houses. These atrocities were perpetrated with the express sanction of Tipu Sultan, who himself marched with his main army southward to Alwai, a favourite watering-place of the Travancore Raja. He contemplated the reduction of the whole province. The Diwan, Kasava Pillai, had, however, strengthened the garrisons at the principal posts, and constructed stockades along all the backwater-passages on the coast, so as to intercept the progress of the enemy. In the meanwhile the monsoon set in, and the whole country was soon under water so that no communication could be maintained except by boats. Tipu, despairing of accomplishing big purpose under these adverse circumstances, and hearing that the English were assembling an army at Trichinopoli, was compelled to withdraw his troops in haste and retreat to Palghat, losing a large number of men on his way. The local chronicler grandiloquently compares his abrupt departure with the disastrous retreat of Napoleon from Moscow.