Did you know that the Turkish Caliph actually beseeched Tipu Sultan to ally with the Turks against France!!

Vive La Liberte! Viva La Egalite! Vive La Fraternite ! – Thus spake Tipu Sultan when asked to chose between France and Turkey!!

On the 16^th January 1799,  the Governor General of India Richard Wellesley wrote to Tipu Sultan informing  him of the following:

1. The French have insulted and assaulted the acknowledged Head of the ‘Mahomedan Church’ and that they have provoked a cruel war in the heart of that country, revered by every Mahomedan as the repository of the most sacred monuments of the Mahomedan faith.
2. There is now a firm and intimate alliance between te Grand Seignior (Sultan) of Turkey and the British nation for the purpose of opposing the ‘excesses’ of the French.
3. The Sultan of Turkey is fully apprised of the connection between Mysore and the French for purposes hostile to England, and the Sultan offers to Tipu Sultan the salutary fruit of his experiences with the French in form of a letter.

A letter from Sultan Selim, Emperor of the Turks and Caliph is attached to Wellesley’s letter where the Caliph apprises Tipu of the following:

1. France has attacked Turkey’s province  – Egypt unprovoked. One of the French Generals by name Napoleon has reached Alexandria and is rallying the Arabs to join him against the ‘Beys’ of Egypt (Ethnic Turkish/Circassian (Non-Arab) Governors).
2. The Sultan has learnt that the French want to divide the Arabia into several republics and to extirpate Mussulmans from the face of the earth.
3. The French are bent upon the overthrow of all sects and religions, and have invented a new religion, under the name of Liberty; they themselves profess no other belief but that of Epicurus and Pythagorus. They have not even spared the territories of the Pope of Rome which from times immemorial have been held inviolable by all the European nations.
4. The Caliph expects that Tipu will break off all contact with the French and assist his brethren Mussulmans in the general cause of religion.

But unknown to both the English and the Caliph, Tipu had a year ago, in May 1797 itself pledged allegiance to Republican ideals when he participated in the opening of a Jacobin club in Seringapatam. Standards of Liberty were brought out that day , a tree of liberty was planted and all who  assembled there including Tipu himself wore a ‘cap of liberty’. The Mysorean army saluted the Jacobin club with a volley of shots from 2300 cannon and 500 rockets!

On the 16^th of February, 1799 Tipu wrote back to the Turkish Sultan mentioning:

1. He had understood the purport of the Caliph’s letter.
2. Even though the Caliph makes no mention of it, Tipu writes that ‘…whatever ground of uneasiness and complaints the English may have given me, when by the Divine aid and intervention of your good offices, all differences will be compromised, and opposition and estrangement converted to cordiality and union…’ This was Tipu telling the Caliph that he was aware the British were behind this letter.
3. Tipu promises all assistance and a concerted effort to the Turkish Sultan against the French.

That Tipu had no intention at all of allying with the Turks against France is clear because just a week earlier to Tipu replying to the Grand Turk,  Tipu’s agent Du Buc had already embarked at Tranquebar to proceed to France on an embassy. Tipu’s costly embassies to Constantinople and Versailles had only brought Georgian slave women from Turkey but watchmakers, cannon-founders, gardeners and  armourers from France. Tipu was well aware of the difference in capabilities of the two states. Tipu had requested the Caliph for help against the British way back in 1787, but no help had arrived from there till date.

In 3 months time from then towards the end of the siege when Tipu’s French officers realized that holding on for longer was futile, the senior officer Monsieur Chapuis asked the Sultan “ to deliver him (Chapuis) and the rest of  the French to the English so that an accommodation may be made between the contending parties…” This was because the English had made it known that they were at the gates of Seringapatam because of Tipu’s alliance with Republican France. Tipu in response to Chapuis replied back in his inimitabile style, as recounted by an eyewitness to that time, Mir Hussain Ali Khan – “..if on your account, you being strangers from a distant land, the whole of our kingdom should be plundered and laid waste, well and good; but you shall not be delivered up:..” . A day from then, Tipu would be dead, fighting by his soldiers’ side on May 4, 1799.

The curious fact that Tipu could not be moved by religious reasons and external pressure to choose his allies showed his independence of thought, which was among his qualities that riled the English and also hastened his end.

Images of Republican and Monarchist French Corps Flags taken by the British at Seringapatam

References:

Collection of Select letters, W. Kirkpatrick

Tarikh i Tipu Sultan, M H A K Kirmani

History of Tipu Sultan, Mohibbul Hasan

Waqaiat i Manzil i Rum, Ghulam Qadir

Tiger of Mysore, Denys Forrest

Tigers round the Throne