A major history, comprehensive and detailed. The contents are divided into five parts for ease of reference. The maps are particularly well executed. The Regt was disbanded in 1933. Bibliography, Index (names of British officers only). Apps: list of former COs, idem other officers (British and Indian), a selected list of SNCOs. Appendices include detailed services of the British officers, also services of VCOs with dates of their appointments & some notes of their war services.

From 1760 to 1869, four generations of one family from the Scottish Highlands sought their fortunes in the service of the East India Company. As they worked their way up through the ranks of the empire, the Baillie family left numerous footprints in India and recorded their fascinating experiences in letters sent home to Scotland. Drawing on thorough research of the military, political, and economic events of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and an extensive collection of family letters that depict the lives and personalities of his ancestors, Alexander Charles Baillie brings the history of British India to life. The compelling documents, lost for over a century with many reproduced here, reveal changing race relations and social attitudes, cultural tensions, military and civilian battles, economic pressures, and the rise and decline of the East India Company. The book focuses especially on two members of the family – William of Dunain, a military officer, and John of Leys, a civil servant – whose numerous adventures and misadventures impart provocative clues about the workings of the empire and the daily lives of its most influential figures. An exciting, invaluable, and personalized glimpse into the past of India, Scotland, and the East India Company, Call of Empire will appeal to genealogy enthusiasts and social and global historians.

The Battle of Pollilur on 10 September 1780, fought as part of the Second Anglo-Mysore War, was one of the worst defeats the British ever suffered on the Indian subcontinent. It was fought between a Brigade Column of the East India Company, led by Colonel William Baillie, and the Mysore Army, under the command of Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan. Heavily outnumbered and wounded in battle, Baillie was taken prisoner and eventually died isolated and in captivity in Seringapatam, in the state of Karnataka near Mysore, on 13 November 1782. News of Pollilur aroused widespread consternation in England that India was lost, yet the news of Baillie's defeat and capture have been shrouded in mystery. Was Colonel Baillie really responsible for this military failure? What role did his contemporaries, such as General Sir Hector Munro of Novar who ws encamped a few miles away from the battle, play? In this engaging new biography, derived from fresh new research and archival material previously unseen, Alan Tritton presents the true story of William Baillie's life and death in India with the Madras Army of the East India Company covering the period 1760-1782. Overturning the consensus view of the disaster at Pollilur, Tritton provides an original angle in reassessing Colonel Baillie's blame for the defeat, and questions whether he should be remembered as a failure or, rather, a Scottish military hero. This book will prove essential reading for specialists and enthusiasts of British military and imperial history.