"No Tipu Sultan. No World War 1."
Which Indian does not know Tipu Sultan? The brave Mysore king, the championer of India’s freedom, the magnificent warrior,and the lion hearted king. What people little know is that he was also India’s first Missile Man, much before the latter one, but equally brilliant. Tipu Sultan had an all consuming passion for the science of rocketry (they didn’t put it in the mega serial, so don’t rack your brains).
Tipu talks at length about his tryst with rocketry in the military manual he wrote, the Fathul Mujahidin. Tipu distributed copies of his military manual to all of his officers, who included divisions of “Cushoons” or battalions of missile launchers. He also defined in the manual, a multiple rocket launcher (much like a musical organ) that could launch up to 10 rockets. Rockets could be of various sizes, but usually consisted of a tube of soft hammered iron about 8 inches (20 cm) long and 1.5 to 3 in (3.8 to 7.6 cm) in diameter, closed at one end and strapped to a shaft of bamboo about 4 ft (1 m) long. The iron tube acted as a combustion chamber and contained well packed black powder propellant. A rocket carrying about one pound of powder could travel almost 1,000 yards. In contrast, rockets in Europe, not being iron cased, could not take large chamber pressures and as a consequence, were not capable of reaching distances anywhere near as great.
In the famous Battle of Seringapatnam, British troops were initially greeted with salvoes of 2000 high precision rockets raining down on their troops, which led to some interesting observations on part of the Englishmen. Anyhow, among them was one William Congreve, who being the smart aleck that he was, quietly got to lay his hands on one rocket (unused, fortunately for him).
Political cartoon by James Gillray making fun of Lord Cornwallis for retreat from Seringapatam battle owing to Tipu's rockets.
Once back in England, by demonstrating remarkable skills of reverse engineering, he awoke the world to the use of “Congreve rockets”, which were then inducted into the armies of all major nations. These Congreve rockets played the decisive role in not only the Napoleonic Wars, but also the 1812 American war, the Crimean War and so on. Basically, they played a major part in all those wars which resulted in Britain becoming the most powerful nation on earth, which led to the industrial revolution, which in turn led to the arms race, which in turn led to world war, which in turn led to today. Thanks Tipu for making our day!!
Interesting Trivia bit: It was the light from these very “Congreve rockets” in the 1812 American War which finds mention in America’s National Anthem, the Star Spangled Banner as “”And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air”.
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