Fall of Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam

On May 4, 1799 British and allied troops stormed Seringapatam, the island fortress capital of Mysore. Its ruler, Tipu Sultan, was killed in the fighting, found later among the dead near a gateway. It was the end of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War and of the dynasty founded by his father, Haidar Ali.¹

Haidar Ali, a soldier who rose to power in the 1760s, and Tipu had fought the Company in three earlier wars, and Mysore had built a modern army, a navy, and iron-cased rockets that surprised British forces. Tipu had been forced to give up half his territory in 1792 and then looked for foreign allies, sending envoys to France during the French Revolution and the time of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt. The Governor-General, Richard Wellesley, used that contact as a pretext to attack in 1799. Troops under General Harris, with Hyderabad's help and Arthur Wellesley among the officers, took the city. The British put a child of the old Wadiyar family on the throne under a subsidiary alliance, which put Mysore's defence and foreign relations in Company hands. Tipu is now remembered by many as an early opponent of British rule, though historians also point to harsh actions in his own reign.¹