War in Mysore

Chicksands covers a wide variety of historical material, and is especially strong concerning subjects like the American Civil War. Another area that continues to grow as boxes are opened is that of works on the Indian Subcontinent.

Not surprisingly, many of the works are about the Sepoy Rebellion, but there are also volumes on lesser known conflicts such as the Anglo-Mysore Wars. I came across the following book concerning the Third Anglo-Mysore war:

This narrative focuses on the culmination of the war: the siege of Seringapatam in 1792 that resulted in a treaty between the British East India Company, Mysore, and their respective allies. It features some very detailed plates and illustrations:


as well as exceptional maps and orders of battle. The book is in very good condition considering its age, and was probably rebound in the 1930s (thanks Jan!).

In addition to Dirom's narrative, I also discovered a personal account of British Officer David Price who participated in these conflicts:


Price dedicates this work to his good friend - another officer named 'Moor'. While searching for more information about these books, I found that both have been digitized by other libraries. This digitization allowed me to search for Price in Dirom's narrative, but he received no mention. However, his friend 'Moor' is mentioned once for an act of bravery in command and subsequent serious (but not fatal) wounding.

These digital copies of antiquarian works are most helpful in that one often gains the ability to search them for such specific information. On the other hand, one may lose something in the process...

Here you can see a comparison of one of the highly detailed maps that has been so well preserved in our Chicksands copy of the 1794 narrative:


While the digitized version unfortunately could not account for the fold-out pages:


It goes to show just how important these original (not just digitized!) copies are to preserve and make available for researchers.

Official Secrets and Official History

We pulled three copies of this out of one box. You may notice that it has two "confidential" stamps on it. It was published in 1926 but the Foreign Office, India Office, and Government of India objected to it because it contained details of secret wartime negotiations with Persian authorities, particularly over oil. Efforts were made to expunge the objectionable material but the author, Brigadier-General Frederick Moberly, stood his ground. In the end 500 copies were printed with 350 kept in Britain and stamped "confidential" and 150 going to India and stamped "Secret". Nothing is known about the copies sent to India, and only a few of the original "confidential" British copies still exist.

We know all of this because someone pasted a copy of a Guardian newspaper clip detailing all of this when the volume was declassified, the article is dated 27 October 1987.



It says that the U.K. Government issued a reprint when it was declassified, but these copies are labeled "confidential" which means they were part of the original print! One of the copies has this sticker on the front with detailed instructions about returning it because it was confidential:


If that newspaper article wouldn't have been pasted in we never would have known, so thank you to whoever thought to put it in there! An interesting example of the perils of official history.

I'm off the project as I'm heading off to the National Archives in Ottawa for the summer to do research about Dollar-a-Year Men in WWII Canada, but I've drafted a number of posts and will throw them up over the next couple of weeks. All the best Project Chicksands!