The British Indian Army: Virtue and Necessity

This new edited work is a selection of the Indian army’s long history of development and modernisation, drawing out themes such as leadership, discipline, racial categorisation, mechanisation, and operational performance. It ranges from the campaigns of the eighteenth century to the agonized decisions to break up the old army between the new nations of South Asia. Chapters also cover the operations in Afghanistan, Persia and China in the nineteenth century; the gruelling conditions of Mesopotamia and Gallipoli in the First World War; auxiliaries on the North West Frontier; ambiguities over internal security in the Inter-War Years; air power and armoured warfare; the paradoxes of race; and operations in Malaya during the army's nadir in 1941–42. The collection represents renewed interest in the Indian armed forces during the British period and offers a wide range of themes for consideration.