The death of the Dutch-born Commander Valiya-kappitan Eustachius De Lannoy in 1777 further diminished the morale of the soldiers.
Vattakottai Fort (or Circular fort) is a seaside fort, very close to Kanyakumari, the southern tip of Peninsular India.
•
Many other forts like the Vattakottai Fort facing the sea near Kanyakumari, the Savakkotta, and the Marunnu Kotta or Ammunition fort, both being hill-forts near Padmanabhapuram, were built under de Lannoy’s supervision.
Joannes de Lannoy, the only son of Eustachius De Lannoy, was killed in battle of Kalakkad on 14 September 1765 at the age of twenty.
Colachel was the location of the battle between the Travancore (Anglicised form of Thiruvithaamkoor) forces led by King Marthanda Varma (1729–1758) and the Dutch East India Company forces led by Admiral Eustachius De Lannoy on August 10, 1741.
In this battle, the admiral of the Dutch, Eustachius De Lannoy, was captured; later he joined the Travancore army and rose up to become the commander of the Tranvancore forces and modernised the Travancore army by introducing better firearms, artillery and the European style of military drills and discipline.
•
Admiral Eustachius De Lannoy, who was captured as a prisoner of war in the famous Battle of Colachel was appointed as the Senior Admiral ("Valiya kappittan") and he modernised the Travancore army by introducing firearms and artillery.
•
The six thousand strong Travancore army, trained in the European mode of warfare by Eustachius De Lannoy, held up the French trained war-hardened, fourteen thousand strong army of Tipu Sultan till April 1790, inflicting heavy casualties (local legends state that one of the Mysorean commanders, who happened to be Tipu's own cousin was killed in the fighting and that, following an ambush, Tipu himself was wounded and his personal effects captured by the Nairs of the Travancorean army).
•
He succeeded in defeating the Dutch East India Company during the Travancore-Dutch War (1739–1753), the most decisive engagement of which was the Battle of Colachel (10 August 1741) in which the Dutch Admiral Eustachius De Lannoy was captured.
Eustachius De Lannoy | Stéphane Lannoy | Lannoy, Nord | Lannoy | Philippe de Lannoy |