Battle of Ooscota (or Ooscata) was a land battle in the First British-Mysore War, a conflict between the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

and

Hyder Ali Hyder Ali (''Haidar'alī''; ; 1720 – 7 December 1782) was the Sultan and ''de facto'' ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India. Born as Hyder Ali, he distinguished himself as a soldier, eventually drawing the attention of Mysore's ...

, the sultan of the

Kingdom of Mysore The Kingdom of Mysore was a geopolitical realm in southern India founded in around 1399 in the vicinity of the modern-day city of Mysore and prevailed until 1950. The territorial boundaries and the form of government transmuted substantially ...

. It took place on the night of the 22–23 August 1768. Ooscota, the location of the battle, is the modern

Hoskote Hoskote (historically known as Ooscota or Ooscata) is a taluk or city in Bangalore Rural District, India. Headquartered at the Hoskote town, it consists of five hoblis - Kasaba , Anugondanahalli, Jadigenahalli, Nandagudi and Sulibele. There ...

Bangalore Rural district Bengaluru Rural district is one of the 31 districts in Karnataka, India. It was formed in 1986, when Bangalore District was divided into Bangalore Rural and Bangalore Urban. Presently in Bangalore Rural district, Bengaluru North District ther ...

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Background

The British under Colonel

Donald Campbell Donald Malcolm Campbell, (23 March 1921 – 4 January 1967) was a British speed record breaker who broke eight absolute world speed records on water and on land in the 1950s and 1960s. He remains the only person to set both world land a ...

, and the

Maratha Empire The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern India, early modern polity in the Indian subcontinent. It comprised the realms of the Peshwa and four major independent List of Maratha dynasties and states, Ma ...

forces under

Murari Rao Murari Rao (Murari Rao Ghorpade, ; 1699 – 8th May 1779) was a Maratha general and statesman who held Gooty and the surrounding territories, which extended eastward to Madras and Pondicherry. From 1741 to 1743, he administered the fort of Ti ...

Ghorpade Ghorpade is a surname and family name found among Marathas, Marathi Brahmins in the Indian states of Maharashtra and Karnataka and may refer to members of the Ghorpade Dynasty. Ghorpade Dynasty The Ghorpade Dynasty, notable for its origins in the ...

were under march, and they encamped near Ooscata. The British contingent invited the Maratha to encamp within their defensive lines, but due to the illness of Mohammed Ali, the

Nawab of Arcot The Carnatic Sultanate ( Persian: ; Tamil: ; Urdu: ) also known as Carnatic State or Arcot State was a kingdom in southern India between about 1690 and 1855, ruled by a Muslim nawab under the legal purview of the Nizam of Hyderabad, until thei ...

, Rao declined, and they threw up their own picket a short distance away. Meanwhile, Hyder Ali was nearby and decided to attack the Maratha forces in the night.

Battle

The Mysore cavalry attacked behind Hyder Ali's

war elephant A war elephant is an elephant that is Animal training, trained and guided by humans for combat purposes. Historically, the war elephant's main use was to charge (warfare), charge the enemy, break their ranks, and instill terror and fear. Elep ...

s, which took down the defences. Rao instructed his cavalry to remain unmounted, so that his forces could bring down any mounted troops; knowing them to be enemy. In the chaos Rao's state elephant broke loose, and wielding its chain as a weapon, threw back the cavalry in the face of the supporting infantry. Disheartened the Mysore troops retreated, with a loss of some ,500 troops compared with the Maratha losses of 18. As the British had been alerted and were advancing to relieve the Maratha, Hyder Ali decided against further attacks. The British lost Cambell's '' aide de camp'', Gee who had ridden to the Maratha camp to investigate, and been shot down under Rao's blanket orders to kill mounted men.

References

1768 in British India Ooscota Ooscota Ooscota Ooscota History Bangalore Rural district Military history of Bengaluru {{India-battle-stub