Page 80 - All About History - Issue 52-17

The Tiger of Mysore

Tipu’s rockets

A terrifying weapon that
rained death from above
In 1801, long before copyright became the norm,
it was quite easy for Colonel William Congreve,
known for his development of rocketry, to borrow
generously from the designs and operations of
the Mysore rocket. With this he developed and
tested some of the biggest sky rockets available
in London. News of the terrors sown by Mysore’s
famous ‘rocket men’ on the British troops during
A mural painting inside Daria the First and Second Anglo-Mysore Wars had
Daulat Bagh – the summer
Palace of Tipu Sultan reached Britain even before Innes Munro, a
British soldier, wrote his A narrative of the military
to forget. In the days following Tipu’s defeat, to be well stocked to keep his vast army, some operations, on the Coromandel coast… in 1789.
British soldiers looted an estimated £1,600,000 100,000 men, at its height, ready for engagement. “Hyder Aly also employs some thousands of
men for throwing rockets. This is a missive (sic)
of ‘prize money‘, consisting of coins, jewels, richly Lands were divided according to their yield, and
weapon and made in the same form as those
worked cloth, furniture and carpets. These were taxed accordingly. There were graded taxes for
used by schoolboys, with this difference, that the
distributed to the rank-and-file and colonels alike. cash crops like sugarcane, and wet or irrigated
stalk is a thick bamboo, eight or ten feet long,
After the plunder, the British feared the sultan’s lands were taxed at four times the rate for dry
which has a tube of iron, six to twelve pounds
possessions might become powerful symbols or rain-fed lands. He was keen to encourage the weight, fixed to the end of it, in which the fuse
of martyrdom, so Arthur Wellesley intervened cultivation of cash crops like betel nuts (a tasty and the powder are placed… upon dry grounds,
to prevent the auctioning of Tipu’s extensive snack) and sandalwood, known for its fragrance. they are pointed horizontally… often creating
wardrobe to stop them falling into the hands of He imported silk worms from Bengal and Muscat great damage, particularly amongst cavalry and
the “discontented Moormen of this place.” The to begin what would become famous as Mysore ammunition tumbrils.”
‘Mysore Family‘, as Tipu’s descendents were called, silk. He maintained and enlarged local breeds of Although the rockets or ’fire arrows’ had been
used in one form or another throughout history,
were dispatched first to Vellore Fort and then cattle under the amrit mahal, or sultan’s cattle
the Mysore rockets of the late 18th century were
distant Calcutta. Soon after, a medal was issued in department, unique to Southern India.
far more advanced than anything Britain had ever
honour of that victory, depicting the British lion The restless monarch was not content with
known or used. This was because the iron tubes
mauling the Mysore tiger. It is no surprise that the regulating and improving his agrarian economy,
containing the propellant increased the thrust and
British were so quick to rewrite the life and times and wanted to modernise some of its other sectors range greatly .Colonel
of this implacable enemy. fast. At this time, India did not have a well- Arthur Wellesley, later
A soldier
developed and ruthless merchant class that Britain the hero of Waterloo,
of Tipu
Modernise or perish and other colonial powers possessed, so Tipu headed a troop that Sultan uses
Sultan saw the need for the state to step up and was disordered by his rocket as
As well as a fierce military ruler, Tipu Sultan the “tremendous a flagstaff
fill that void. He encouraged the establishment of
also oversaw many economic and administrative fire of musketry and
state-run factories at Bangalore and Seringapatam,
experiments. Most of Mysore’s revenues came rockets” in a grove
Bednore and Chitaldurg, Chennapatna and
from the cultivation of the local land, so the near Srirangapatna on
Chickballapur, for the production of everything
sultan’s first priority was to ensure that a good 5 April 1799, a setback
from cotton and silk cloth to cannons and sugar,
proportion of the revenues due from land were he was keen to forget
from paper and glass to guns and muskets. in later life.
actually collected. The state coffers would need
Despite these innovations, Mysore’s enemy, Rigorous research
the British, still possessed superior industry and and systematic studies
technology. Eager to level the playing field, the at the Royal Woolwich
In this illustration by Gillray, Tipu Arsenal under
mocks General Lord Cornwallis during sultan turned to another western power: France.
his retreat from the island capital in 1791 Tipu had a long- standing alliance with the French Congreve in 1801 led
to the manufacture
of 13,109 rockets by
“British August 1806. Britain’s
rapidly developing
technologies had
soldiers looted reaped the rewards
of the experiments
in warfare by one of
an estimated its implacable foes,
Tipu Sultan.
£1,600,000”
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