‘Advance and Be Forward’

Abstract

This chapter recounts how Lieutenant General Charles, the Earl of Cornwallis assumed the office of governor-general of India. It describes how he spent a considerable amount of time reading the latest intelligence reports from India — these included general intelligence estimates on the society, population and military strength of the increasingly disparate Indian political entities as the Mughal empire gradually fragmented, as well as more specific information collected on local rulers and military states. The chapter underlines how all of this helped to frame Cornwallis's understanding of the situation he could expect to find when he arrived in India. The chapter then shifts to discuss Britain's main opponent during Cornwallis's governor-generalship: Tipu Sultan of Mysore. It outlines how the combination of a detailed awareness of the military history of Mysore and of the wider history of the Indian subcontinent helped Tipu to transform his military. The chapter analyzes how Tipu Sultan posed a substantial threat to the British position in South India. More mobile, and capable in turn of neutralising British mobility, armed with longer-range weapons, and benefitting from larger numbers of infantry trained in European methods of warfighting, this chapter highlights that Tipu outmatched the British in nearly every department.