First Anglo Mysore War: Causes, Events, and Outcomes

Most people who studied Indian history in school remember Tipu Sultan and his long fight against the British, but far fewer people know about his father Hyder Ali and the war that set the whole rivalry in motion. The first Anglo Mysore war was fought between the Kingdom of Mysore and the British East India Company, and it ran from 1767 to 1769.

It was the opening round of a conflict that would keep flaring up in South India for the next three decades and eventually end with the fall of Mysore itself. This article looks at why the war broke out, how the fighting actually went, and what the Treaty of Madras meant for both sides once the dust settled.

What Was the First Anglo-Mysore War

The first Anglo Mysore war 1767 was a conflict between Hyder Ali, the ruler of Mysore, and the British East India Company, which by this point controlled Madras and had grown fairly confident after its earlier wins in Bengal.

It wasn’t a simple two-sided fight, though. The Nizam of Hyderabad and the Marathas were both pulled into it at different points, sometimes fighting against Hyder Ali and sometimes, oddly enough, fighting alongside him.

That back-and-forth in alliances is actually one of the more interesting parts of this whole story, and it says a lot about how fragile and self-interested the politics of eighteenth-century India really were.

Causes of First Anglo-Mysore War

The causes of the first Anglo Mysore war go back a couple of years before the actual fighting started. After the British had secured Bengal, they turned their attention south and began pushing to expand their control over the Carnatic and the Northern Circars, a stretch of territory along the eastern coast.

In November 1766, the East India Company signed a treaty with Asaf Jah II, the Nizam of Hyderabad, agreeing to hand over the Northern Circars to the company in exchange for British help protecting the Nizam against Hyder Ali, who by then had built up one of the strongest and most modern armies in the region.

Hyder Ali, for his part, had actually tried to work something out with the British earlier. He made more than one offer of alliance, but the company turned him down because it didn’t fit with the deal they already had going with the Nizam. That rejection didn’t sit well with Hyder Ali, and it left him increasingly boxed in, since both the Nizam and the Marathas were uneasy about how fast Mysore was growing and had already started talking about ways to check his power.

So you had a mix of territorial ambition on the British side, old rivalries with the Marathas and the Nizam, and Hyder Ali’s own refusal to be pushed around, all coming together to make war more or less unavoidable.

How the War Unfolded

A Coalition That Didn’t Hold Together

Fighting broke out in January 1767, when the Marathas moved into northern Mysore, possibly to get ahead of a similar move by the Nizam. Hyder Ali, always a sharp negotiator, paid the Marathas roughly thirty lakh rupees to pull back, and they had already withdrawn beyond the Krishna River by the time the Nizam launched his own invasion in March.

For a short stretch, the Nizam and the British fought together against Mysore, and Hyder Ali’s forces even faced setbacks near Trichinopoly and elsewhere toward the end of 1767. The British also held off a combined Mysorean and Hyderabadi force during the siege of Ambur that November and December.

What makes this war genuinely fascinating, though, is what happened next. Hyder Ali managed to talk the Nizam around and got him to switch sides, leaving the British to fight largely on their own for a stretch.

The company hit back by threatening Hyderabad directly, which rattled the Nizam badly enough that he signed a fresh treaty with the British in 1768, this time agreeing to hand over the Diwani rights of Mysore once Hyder Ali was defeated. That move burned bridges between Hyder Ali and the Nizam for good, but it didn’t break Hyder Ali’s resolve.

Hyder Ali’s March on Madras

Left without his earlier ally, Hyder Ali kept fighting, defeated a British force sent from Bombay, and took Mangalore. Then, in a move that really rattled the British administration, he marched his army straight toward Madras in March 1769 and appeared almost at the gates of the city. Madras at the time was the company’s key base on the eastern coast, and the sight of Hyder Ali’s forces so close to it was enough to force the British to the negotiating table almost immediately. There was no long siege or dramatic final battle here — it was really the shock of how quickly and how close Hyder Ali got that decided things.

Treaty of Madras

The Treaty of Madras was signed on April 4, 1769, and it officially ended the war. The terms were fairly straightforward: both sides agreed to return any territory they had captured from each other during the fighting, prisoners were exchanged, and the two parties agreed to help each other out if either was attacked by a third party in the future. That last clause sounds minor, but it turned out to matter a great deal.

When Mysore went to war with the Marathas in 1771, the British didn’t send any help at all, even though the treaty said they should. Hyder Ali saw this as a broken promise, and that sense of betrayal is widely seen as one of the key reasons the Second Anglo-Mysore War broke out about a decade later.

Result and Aftermath

Calling the first Anglo Mysore war a clean win for either side would be a stretch. Neither army wiped the other out, and there wasn’t a dramatic territorial handover at the end. What did change, though, was the balance of confidence.

For the first time, the East India Company had been forced to sit down and negotiate a treaty with an Indian ruler from a position of real weakness rather than dictating terms. That was new, and it left an impression on both sides. The British came away realizing that Mysore under Hyder Ali was a serious military power and not something to underestimate again, while Hyder Ali came out of it with his reputation and his army stronger than before.

The peace didn’t last, of course. The unresolved issues around the defensive alliance clause, combined with ongoing suspicion between Mysore and the company, meant fighting would break out again in 1780 in the Second Anglo-Mysore War, and then twice more after that, right up until Tipu Sultan’s death in 1799 finally brought Mysore’s independence to an end.

Why This War Still Matters

Even though it’s often treated as a smaller episode compared to the later Anglo-Mysore wars, the first one set the tone for everything that followed. It showed that a well-organized regional power could hold its own against the East India Company, at least for a while, and it planted the seeds of mistrust that would keep the conflict going for another thirty years.

If you’re studying Indian history or just curious about how the British slowly tightened their grip on the subcontinent, this war is a good starting point, and you’ll find more pieces like this one on Indian history over on BharatStories.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the first Anglo Mysore war fought between?

It was fought between Hyder Ali, the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, and the British East India Company, with the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Marathas both getting involved at different points on shifting sides.

When did the first Anglo Mysore war 1767 actually start and end?

The war began in January 1767 and ran until the Treaty of Madras was signed on April 4, 1769.

What were the main causes of the first Anglo Mysore war?

The war grew out of British expansion into the Carnatic and Northern Circars, a treaty between the British and the Nizam aimed at containing Hyder Ali, and Hyder Ali’s own rejected offers of alliance with the company.

What did the Treaty of Madras actually say?

It called for both sides to return captured territory, exchange prisoners, and support each other if attacked by an outside power, though the British later failed to honor that last part.

Who really won the first Anglo Mysore war?

There wasn’t a clear military winner, but Hyder Ali came out looking stronger politically, since he forced the East India Company to negotiate rather than dictate terms, something that hadn’t happened before.