Indian Army before World War One

Indian Army before World War One
Originated about 1741 when British East India Company established Indian Battalions for garrison duties in Bombay. Major Stringer Lawrence was Commander in Chief of the East India Company’s Field Force which composed of European adventurers and native troops, under English Commanders. Further military influence was exercised in 1754 by an English regular regiment, the 39 Foot, (later the Dorsetshire Regiment) at Madras, which became the backbone of the British military operations in India.
In 1796 the Madras Army consisted of two European Infantry regiments, four native Cavalry regiments, two Artillery battalions, each of five artillery companies, and 15 ‘lascar’ (voluntary tribal) companies and eleven Native Infantry regiments, each of two battalions. Between 1796 and 1824 the Native Infantry was raised to 25 regiments of two battalions each. In 1806 two regiments were disbanded because of the mutiny at Vallore. In 1803 Colonel James Skinner raised a regiment of Irregular Horse from Scindia’s Army and pressed it into Company service. In 1815 three Gorkha battalions were raised as Bengal local battalions, of which only one survived. This became 1st Gorkha Rifles. The British conquest of India thus progressed, as did trade, under the joint efforts of the British Crown and East India Company.
Resistance by Native States increased as they received French support, particularly the Marathas in the south who had large armies of well-equipped French-trained soldiers.This led to the Deccan campaign of 1803 under Wellesley, in which Pune and Ahmednagar were captured by the British to support their ally, the Peshwa. Advancing further south the British defeated the Marathas in the Battle of Argaon and stormed Gwalior on 15 December to end the campaign.
In the north, during three years of warfare between 1799-1802, Maharaja Ranjit Singh united the Sikhs to control most of Punjab. Growing friction between the British and the Maharaja was settled by an agreement at Amritsar in 1809, by which Sutluj was accepted as the boundary between the Sikh territories and those the British had seized from the Marathas.
With the death of Ranjit Singh in 1839, friction between the British and Sikhs in the Punjab increased and led to the First Sikh War (1845-46). A Sikh Army of 20,000 crossed the Sutlej and attacked the British at Mudki in December 1845 but were repulsed with heavy losses. In February, having crossed the Sutluj, the British defeated the Sikhs, inflicting heavy casualties. The final coup came in the form of two winter campaigns fought against the Sikhs, with its capital at Lahore, between 1846 and 1849.
In the Bengal Army, which formed part of the Bengal Presidency in 1824, the Native infantry battalions were separated into 68 regiments and re-numbered according to their seniority. After the Sikh war, two Sikh infantry regiments were raised. In addition, a Frontier brigade consisting of a corps of guides, four regiments of Sikh infantry and the Punjab Frontier Force, comprising five regiments of irregular cavalry and five regiments of irregular infantry, were raised in 1846.
In the Madras Army, coming under the Madras Presidency, there were eight cavalry regiments. 25 regiments of the native infantry were reorganized into 50 single-battalion regiments. Two more regiments were raised in1826 and in 1830 and Madras Rifle Corps was abolished.
In the Bombay Army, now part of the Bombay Presidency, four regiment of irregular cavalry were raised between 1839and 1850; a camel corps was raised in 1843 and five infantry battalions were also raised. Bombay also had eight local corps battalions. The Hyderabad contingent, which remained a separate entity, comprised five cavalry and eight infantry battalions.
By 1850 the British had achieved a territorial definition of India. The British military power in India comprised two elements – the Native Armies of the East India Company and British Army units. The armed forces were controlled by the Governor General, an official of the company, appointed with the approval of the crown. In 1857, the three Presidency Armies of Bengal, Bombay and Madras consisted of 2, 33,000 Indian and 36,000 British troops, who were commanded by British officers.

On 1 November1858, Queen Victoria assumed the governance of India. The British Army soon expanded to about 90,000 strong, and every garrison had a third British troops. The East India Company’s European regiments were transferred to the British Army, and artillery was transferred to the Royal Artillery, except for five mountain batteries of the Punjab irregular force, and four batteries of the Hyderabad contingent.

Between 1860 and 1878, the Presidency Armies were not engaged in any major campaigns. However, there were many expeditions on the North-West Frontier; in Eastern India and the North-Eastern Frontier.

As a part of British Government’s policy, during the second half of the nineteenth century the Indian Army was assigned the responsibility and consequently was involved in a number of campaigns in the Far East, Burma and East Africa. These included the second China War (1857-60), North West Frontier (1861-1903), Second Afghan War (1878-80), Egypt (1882),Sudan (1884-85), the Third Burma War (1885-87) and soon after in British East Africa, Punjab Frontier (1897), China (1900) and Tibet (1904). The Indian Army won several battle honours in each of these campaigns.

In 1895 the Presidency Armies were abolished and the process commenced of dividing Indian Army into four commands that is Punjab, which included North-West Frontier and Punjab Frontier Force; Bengal; Madras which included Burma, and Bombay which included Sind, Quetta and Aden. Certain units and local corps, however, remained directly under the Government of India.

Government of India also comprised the Civil Police; the Volunteer Force recruited from within the British and Anglo-Indian communities; the State Forces and Imperial Services Troops from the princely States.

In November 1902, Lord Kitchener became Commander-in-Chief and immediately set to work on further reorganisation and redistribution of the Army in India. In 1903 it again became necessary for Indian battalions to be given new names like Madrassis, Punjabis, Bengal Infantry (with the term ‘native’ dispensed with much earlier), Marathas, Rajputs, Sikhs, Jats, Garhwalis, Moplahs and so on.

The four commands were reduced to two, that is Northern Army and Southern Army, and all infantry regiments after re-numbering were grouped into brigades and divisions placed under permanent commanders with staff.

There existed 39 Cavalry regiments and 129 Infantry battalions of which Bengal comprised 48, Punjab 9, Madras 33, Hyderabad 6 and Bombay 30. Later five of the original Madras battalions were disbanded and 15 were converted to Punjabis. By 1908 the Northern Army comprised five divisions and three brigades; Southern Army of four divisions in addition to the Burma Division, and the Aden Brigade. This made a field army of 1,52,000, including nine divisions, eight cavalry brigades and Internal Security troops of over 80,000.

-Extracted from the Official Website of the Indian Army