Army of Empire

Army of Empire
Author: George Morton-Jack
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 586
Release: 2018-12-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0465094074

Drawing on untapped new sources, the first global history of the Indian Expeditionary Forces in World War I While their story is almost always overlooked, the 1.5 million Indian soldiers who served the British Empire in World War I played a crucial role in the eventual Allied victory. Despite their sacrifices, Indian troops received mixed reactions from their allies and their enemies alike-some were treated as liberating heroes, some as mercenaries and conquerors themselves, and all as racial inferiors and a threat to white supremacy. Yet even as they fought as imperial troops under the British flag, their broadened horizons fired in them new hopes of racial equality and freedom on the path to Indian independence. Drawing on freshly uncovered interviews with members of the Indian Army in Iraq and elsewhere, historian George Morton-Jack paints a deeply human story of courage, colonization, and racism, and finally gives these men their rightful place in history.

Soldiers of Empire

Soldiers of Empire
Author: Tarak Barkawi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2017-06-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107169585

Barkawi re-imagines the study of war with imperial and multinational armies that fought in Asia in the Second World War.

Approach to Battle

Approach to Battle
Author: Alan Jeffreys
Publisher: Helion and Company
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2017-01-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1913336913

The Indian Army was the largest volunteer army during the Second World War. Indian Army divisions fought in the Middle East, North Africa and Italy - and went to make up the overwhelming majority of the troops in South East Asia. Over two million personnel served in the Indian Army - and India provided the base for supplies for the Middle Eastern and South East Asian theatres. This monograph is a modern historical interpretation of the Indian Army as a holistic organisation during the Second World War. It will look at training in India - charting how the Indian Army developed a more comprehensive training structure than any other Commonwealth country. This was achieved through both the dissemination of doctrine and the professionalism of a small coterie of Indian Army officers who brought about a military culture within the Indian Army - starting in the 1930s - that came to fruition during the Second World War, which informed the formal learning process. Finally, it will show that the Indian Army was reorganised after experiences of the First World War. During the interwar period, the army developed training and belief for both fighting on the North West Frontier, and as an aid to civil power. With the outbreak of the Second World War, in addition to these roles, the army had to expand and adapt to fighting modern professional armies in the difficult terrains of desert, jungle and mountain warfare. A clear development of doctrine and training can be seen, with many pamphlets being produced by GHQ India that were, in turn, used to formulate training within formations and then used in divisional, brigade and unit training instructions - thus a clear line of process can be seen not only from GHQ India down to brigade and battalion level, but also upwards from battalion and brigade level based on experience in battle that was absorbed into new training instructions. Together with the added impetus for education in the army, by 1945 the Indian Army had become a modern, professional and national army.

The Late Colonial Indian Army

The Late Colonial Indian Army
Author: Pradeep Barua
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2021-11-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1498552218

The Indian Army was one of the most important colonial institutions that the British created. From its humble origins as a mercantile police force to a modern contemporary army in the Second World War, this institution underwent many transitions. This book examines the Indian Army during the later colonial era from the First Afghan War in 1839 to Indian independence in 1947. During this period, the Indian Army developed from an internal policing force, to a frontier army, and then to a conventional western style fighting force capable of deployment to overseas’ theaters. These transitions resulted in significant structural and doctrinal changes in the army. The doctrines, and tactics honed during this period would have a dramatic impact upon the post-colonial armies of India and Pakistan. From civil-military relations to fighting and structural doctrines, the Indian and Pakistani armies closely reflect the deep-seated impact of decades of evolution during the late colonial era.

The Indian Army in World War I, 1914-1918

The Indian Army in World War I, 1914-1918
Author: Ian Cardozo
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2019-06-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000458679

This volume recounts India’s contribution to World War I. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

The Indian Army and the End of the Raj

The Indian Army and the End of the Raj
Author: Daniel Marston
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2014-04-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521899753

A unique examination of the role of the Indian army in post-World War II India in the run-up to Partition. Daniel Marston draws upon extensive archival research and interviews with veterans of the events of 1947 to provide fresh insight into the final days of the British Raj.

The Indian Army on the Western Front South Asia Edition

The Indian Army on the Western Front South Asia Edition
Author: George Morton-Jack
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2015-02-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107117658

Recasts the role of the Indian Army on the Western Front, questioning why its performance was traditionally deemed a failure.

India's War

India's War
Author: Srinath Raghavan
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 591
Release: 2016-05-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 0465098622

Between 1939 and 1945 India underwent extraordinary and irreversible change. Hundreds of thousands of Indians suddenly found themselves in uniform, fighting in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Europe and-something simply never imagined-against a Japanese army poised to invade eastern India. With the threat of the Axis powers looming, the entire country was pulled into the vortex of wartime mobilization. By the war's end, the Indian Army had become the largest volunteer force in the conflict, consisting of 2.5 million men, while many millions more had offered their industrial, agricultural, and military labor. It was clear that India would never be same-the only question was: would the war effort push the country toward or away from independence? In India's War, historian Srinath Raghavan paints a compelling picture of battles abroad and of life on the home front, arguing that the war is crucial to explaining how and why colonial rule ended in South Asia. World War II forever altered the country's social landscape, overturning many Indians' settled assumptions and opening up new opportunities for the nation's most disadvantaged people. When the dust of war settled, India had emerged as a major Asian power with her feet set firmly on the path toward Independence. From Gandhi's early urging in support of Britain's war efforts, to the crucial Burma Campaign, where Indian forces broke the siege of Imphal and stemmed the western advance of Imperial Japan, Raghavan brings this underexplored theater of WWII to vivid life. The first major account of India during World War II, India's War chronicles how the war forever transformed India, its economy, its politics, and its people, laying the groundwork for the emergence of modern South Asia and the rise of India as a major power.

The Forgotten Army

The Forgotten Army
Author: Peter Ward Fay
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 596
Release: 1995
Genre: India
ISBN: 9780472083428

The first complete history of the Indian National Army and its fight for independence against the British in World War II.

Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War

Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War
Author: Raghu Karnad
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2015-08-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0393248100

“I have not lately read a finer book than this—on any subject at all. . . . A masterpiece.” —Simon Winchester, New Statesman The photographs of three young men had stood in his grandmother’s house for as long as he could remember, beheld but never fully noticed. They had all fought in the Second World War, a fact that surprised him. Indians had never figured in his idea of the war, nor the war in his idea of India. One of them, Bobby, even looked a bit like him, but Raghu Karnad had not noticed until he was the same age as they were in their photo frames. Then he learned about the Parsi boy from the sleepy south Indian coast, so eager to follow his brothers-in-law into the colonial forces and onto the front line. Manek, dashing and confident, was a pilot with India’s fledgling air force; gentle Ganny became an army doctor in the arid North-West Frontier. Bobby’s pursuit would carry him as far as the deserts of Iraq and the green hell of the Burma battlefront. The years 1939–45 might be the most revered, deplored, and replayed in modern history. Yet India’s extraordinary role has been concealed, from itself and from the world. In riveting prose, Karnad retrieves the story of a single family—a story of love, rebellion, loyalty, and uncertainty—and with it, the greater revelation that is India’s Second World War. Farthest Field narrates the lost epic of India’s war, in which the largest volunteer army in history fought for the British Empire, even as its countrymen fought to be free of it. It carries us from Madras to Peshawar, Egypt to Burma—unfolding the saga of a young family amazed by their swiftly changing world and swept up in its violence.