Battle of Pollilur

Overview

The Battle of Pollilur was fought on 27 August 1781, between forces of the Kingdom of Mysore under Hyder Ali and British East India Company forces led by General Eyre Coote. The battle was fought on the site of a 1780 encounter in which a Company force was almost completely routed or captured.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Significance

The Battle of Pollilur (also known as Polilore or Perambakam), fought near Conjeevaram in present-day Tamil Nadu, was one of the most consequential reverses suffered by the East India Company during the Second Anglo-Mysore War. The EIC brigade column, led by Colonel William Baillie, suffered heavy casualties before surrendering to the combined Mysore force under Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan. Contemporary observers treated the scale of the defeat as without precedent on the subcontinent; French officer Benoît de Boigne, serving in the Madras Native Infantry, wrote that there was 'not in India an example of a similar defeat.' The engagement remained the worst loss the East India Company sustained in India until the Battle of Chillianwala, underscoring the military capacity of Mysore and the limits of EIC operational reach in the Carnatic theater during this phase of the war.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (2)