Richard Holmes - Wellington - The Iron Duke

In my opinion, he is at present awkwardly situated, and he will require all the powers which can be given him to keep in order the officers who will be in this army. Your presence will diminish his powers, at the same time that, as it is impossible you can know anything of military matters, your powers will not answer this purpose … 11

Arthur’s loyalty to Harris was rewarded by particular praise for his ‘masterly arrangements in respect to supplies’. However, Harris told Arthur that he was reluctant to commend him publicly because ‘others would be displeased and jealous’, and Arthur himself admitted that, because of his relationship with the governor-general, others in the army thought him ‘very little better than a spy’. 12

The governor-general took his brother’s wise advice, and remained in Madras whence, on 3 February 1799 he ordered an advance into Tipoo’s territory, with Harris moving up from the east with more than 20,000 troops, 4,300 of them European, while a smaller force from the Bombay army under Lieutenant General James Stuart advanced eastwards from the Malabar coast. Harris reached Amboor on 18 February, and was joined there by a contingent of the Nizam of Hyderabad’s army. There were four Hyderabad infantry battalions under Captain John Malcolm, with a mixture of British and Indian officers, a large force of Moghul cavalry – ‘some good, some bad’, wrote Wellesley – under Captain Patrick Walker, and thirty-six guns. The Company provided six infantry battalions, four from Madras and two from Bengal. The force was commanded by the Nizam’s chief minister (and perhaps son), Mir Allum. It was proposed to provide him with a senior adviser, and to stiffen his force with a British battalion. Wellesley and the 33 rdwere the logical choices, not least because Mir Allum, aware that Wellesley was the governor-general’s brother, actually asked for him.

The arrangement did not please everybody. Three of the four major generals in Harris’s army enjoyed substantial commands, but the fourth, David Baird, commanded a brigade far smaller than the Hyderabad force. Baird was a brave but tetchy Scot, one of whose officers called him ‘a bloody old bad-tempered Scotchman’. He got on badly with Indians, and his temper had not been improved by his long imprisonment by Tipoo in the previous war. Hearing that he was kept shackled to another prisoner, Baird’s mother observed that she was sorry for the man who was chained to her Davie. Baird complained to Harris that he should have been given the Hyderabad appointment, but Harris stuck to his decision.

The advance resumed on 21 February. The army was still in British-controlled territory, and the road had been carefully prepared. Nevertheless, progress was slow, perhaps ten miles a day, with a day’s halt every three, and it was not until 6 March that the main force at last entered Tipoo’s territory. When Cornwallis had invaded along the same route eight years earlier, Tipoo had defended Bangalore, but this time he demolished its defences and his troops fell back westwards, burning the crops as they went. This was a sound strategy, if a harsh one, for if there was no fodder for the bullocks in Harris’s army, the expedition could not succeed: it was the failure of supply that had forced Cornwallis to abandon his advance on Seringapatam in 1791. Tipoo’s irregular cavalry – Wellesley thought them ‘the best kind in the world’ – hung about Harris’s columns as they advanced, ready to exploit any gaps in the line of march, and making it impossible for all but the strongest of foraging parties to leave the main body.

On 10 March, enemy cavalry attacked Wellesley’s rearguard near Kellamungellum and overran a half-company of Madras infantry. Wellesley personally led the decisive counter-attack and was never pressed as hard afterwards. It was now clear that the main route to Bangalore was so badly ravaged that even the brinjarries were finding it hard to feed their bullocks, and Harris wisely swung south-west towards Cankanelli, heading directly for Seringapatam, and moving across country that Tipoo’s men had not had time to burn. Progress was still painfully slow, largely because of pay disputes amongst the Company’s bullock-drivers. There was good news from the west, however. On 15 March, Harris heard that Stuart’s column had beaten off a full-scale attack at Sedaseer, and that Tipoo’s army had recoiled eastwards. Harris’s force continued to trudge forwards across flat, fertile land laced with groves of trees known as topes.

Early on 27 March 1799, Harris set out for Malavelly, a straggling village six miles away from his previous camp; it contained abundant water and so was to be that evening’s campsite. It is unusually difficult to be sure of what happened, for contemporary accounts are unclear, and Malavelly itself has since straggled more widely. But what seems certain is that a large part of Tipoo’s main army, with two heavy guns, had taken up a position on a low ridge west of the village, blocking the main road. Although the quartermaster-general’s men were already laying out the camp in Malavelly, Harris decided to give battle as soon as he could, for if he defeated this section of Tipoo’s army, there would be less of it to defend Seringapatam. His force moved with its British contingent to the north of the road, and the Hyderabad army to the south; both columns preceded by cavalry and infantry outposts, the latter, ‘the pickets of the day’, drawn from all the infantry regiments.

The British force swung north-west of Malavelly, shaking out from column of march into line as it did so, though with natural obstacles ensuring that instead of all three leading brigades being side by side, they advanced with one up and two back. The Hyderabad army, perhaps five miles further south, also swung into line, each battalion moving in column, with its individual companies in column, one behind the other, with enough space between them to deploy into battalion line when the time came. HM’s 33 rdwas to the right front, near the main road, and the Company’s battalions were echeloned back to its left, each about 200 yards behind the one on its right. The Hyderabad battalions probably formed a reserve. Wellesley, mounted on Diomed, galloped along his line, checking that the spacings were correct and noting that the 33 rdwas now just ahead of the leading British brigade, across the road to its right. As he ascended the gentle ridge held by Tipoo’s men, he ordered his battalions to form line of battle, and quickly the advancing force completed its deployment into a long two-deep line.

Thus far Tipoo’s position had been marked by occasional puffs of white smoke as the cannon fired, but now a large force of infantry, 2–3,000 strong, came down the hill, making straight for the 33 rd. What followed was a repeat of what had happened at Boxtel in 1794, and was the precursor of what was to occur in dozens of future encounters. Wellesley ordered the 33 rdto halt, and then gave the order to fire. Although the Mysore troops ‘behaved better than they have ever been known to behave’, the measured volleys were too much for them, and although they ‘almost stood the charge of bayonets of the 33 rd’, they took to their heels. On the other side of the road, Tipoo’s cavalry charged Baird’s brigade, but this was only to gain time so that the rest of his army could retreat, and it slipped away before Harris’s jaws could close around it.

Harris continued his advance on 28 March, swinging south to cross the broad River Cauvery not far from Sirsoli and then turning north to approach Seringapatam, neatly outflanking Tipoo’s field army as he did so. Tipoo, his confidence already shaken by defeats at Sedaseer and Malavelly, withdrew into the fortress. Seringapatam lies on an island in the Cauvery. At that time of year the river was almost dry, and both of its branches, the North and South Cauvery, could be crossed on foot with little difficulty. But things were very different in the rainy season, when the water was too deep for fording but too fast-flowing for boats to be used easily. With the change of seasons approaching, Harris needed to take the place by the end of May.