Introduction
Summary
In 1782, two regiments of the army of the Electorate of Hanover with approximately two thousand soldiers sailed from England to India, where they served as auxiliary troops for the British East India Company in the Second Anglo-Mysore War. They participated in one significant battle, the Battle of Cuddalore, in June 1783, after which they served in various missions, including an expedition to the southern parts of the Carnatic and into Mysore in the latter half of 1783. After the war the two regiments stayed in India, mainly in garrison duties. They were also engaged in survey missions and contributed to the mapping of southern India. Due to heavy disease casualties, the two regiments were reinforced by four new companies in 1786–7 so that altogether 2,800 soldiers were sent from Hanover to India. They stayed there until 1791–2, when most of the survivors returned home and many of them reintegrated into the Hanoverian Army. Returning officers soon became involved in a new war against France, and many of them joined the King's German Legion, continuing their military cooperation with the British until 1815. the subject of this book is not the military history of this expedition, which was admittedly marginal to Hanover, India and the British Empire, but the publications of officers from these Hanoverian regiments that appeared in Germany between 1782 and 1807, and how these publications can be used to gain a better understanding of the German discourse on European colonialism, especially British colonialism in India, during the late Enlightenment.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- German Soldiers in Colonial India , pp. 1 - 12Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014