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Indian Army During British Occupation: Was it Indian Army or British India Army?

April 5, 2023

Introduction:

This article was written to establish the fact that There never was a BRITISH INDIAN ARMY. This I was started to get independent recognition of India contribution to both European wars, as opposed to it being clubbed with British contribution, which is a false Narrative. For that recognition, I ran a campaign on Facebook in from 2006 to 2018, not much interest was raised even though I wrote to Indian Ministers military leaders. No one even acknowledged.  

The British used the term as it fitted their narrative, and discriminated as Indian Army when it did not suite their objectives, and narratives, to the extent that the native British officers not commissioned in British Army were discriminated in assignments, promotions. Glaring example is the case of General (Later Field Marshall) Claude Auchinleck, who was commissioned in the “Indian Army” way back in 1903.Pay attention to highlighted parts of the write up.

I could not get much verifiable information from current Indian Army website, and used a lot of information and sources from Wikipedia, also used their references to obtain and read further on the topic to validate what I learned. 

To further establish the fact, that there never was a “British” Indian Army, it is best to read rise and career of Gen. Auchinleck’s life, who practically started and ended his military career with formation of Indian Army.

So, in conclusion, before and during the wars the army was designated, and treated as Indian Army. The British Prefix was only added for a brief period post WW-II and India becoming Independent and Republic.

After attending the Royal Military Collage, Sandhurst, Claude Auchinleck was commissioned as an unattached second lieutenant in the Indian Army on 21 January 1903, and joined the 62nd Punjabis in April 1904. He soon became Indianized in British sense of Indianness.

On 21 April 1095 Claude Auchinleck was promoted to lieutenant, and then spent the next two years in Tibet and Sikkim before moving to Benares in 1907 where he caught diphtheria. After briefly serving with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers at Aldershot he returned to Benares in 1909 and became adjutant of the 62nd Punjabis with promotion to the rank of Captain on 21 January 1912.

Officers of the 62nd Punjabis in Ismailia, Egypt, 1914. Captain Claude Auchinleck is standing on the far right. Note the dress especially the turbans, they (Indian Army) did not use British hats, and caps. It was Indian attire.

Indian Army During First World War

Auchinleck saw active service in the First World War and was deployed with his regiment to defend the Suez Canal: in February 1915 he was in action against the Turks at Ismailia. His regiment moved into Aden to counter the Turkish threat there in July 1915. The 6th Indian Division, of which the 62nd Punjabis were a part, was landed at Basra on 31st December 1915 for the Mesopotamian campaign. In July 1916 Auchinleck was promoted acting rank of Major and made second in command of his battalion. He took part in a series of fruitless attacks on the Turks at the Battle of Hanna in January 1916 and was one of the few British officers in his regiment to survive these actions.

He became acting commanding officer of his battalion in February 1917 and led his regiment at the Second Battle of Kut, in February 1917 and took part in the Fall of Baghdad  in March 1917. Having been Mentioned in Dispatches and having received the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1917 for his service in Mesopotamia, he was promoted to the substantive rank of major on 21st January 1918, and next promotion followed in just 16 months,  to the temporary lieutenant-colonel on 23rd May 1919 and to brevet Lieutenant-Colonel on 15th November 1919 for his “distinguished service in Southern and Central Kurdistan” on the recommendation of the Commander-in-Chief of the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force.

Between the world wars

Claude Auchinleck attended the Staff Collage Queta,  (not yet at famed British establishment at Sandhurst) between 1920 and 1921.

Auchinleck became temporary Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General at AHQ in February of 1923 and then second-in-command of his regiment, which in the 1923 reorganization (Heavy reduction of Indian Army) of the Indian Army had become the 1st Punjab Regiment, in September 1925. He attended the Imperial Collage in 1927 and, having been promoted to lieutenant-colonel on 21 January 1929 he was appointed to command his regiment. Promoted to full Colonel on 1st February 1930 with seniority from 15th November 1923, he became an instructor at the Staff College, Quetta in February of 1930 where he remained until April 1933.

He was promoted to temporary the rank of Brigadier on 1st July 1933, and given command of the Peshawar Brigade, which was active in the pacification of the adjacent tribal areas during the Mohmand and Bajaur Operations between July and October 1933: during his period of command, he was Mentioned in Dispatches. He led a second punitive expedition during the Second Mohamad Campaign in August 1935 for which he was again mentioned in dispatches, on 30 November 1935 he received another promotion to the rank of Major General.

On leaving his brigade command in April 1936, Auchinleck was on the unemployed list (on half pay) until September 1936 when he was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Director of Staff Duties in Delhi. He was then appointed to command the Meerut District in India in July 1938. In 1938 Auchinleck was appointed to chair a committee to consider the modernization, composition and re-equipment of the British Indian Army (This the first time the term British is added to the Indian army): the committee’s recommendations formed the basis of the 1939 Chatfield Report which outlined the transformation of the Indian Army – it grew from 183,000 in 1939 to over 2,250,000 men by the end of the war.

Second World War

Claude Auchinleck in Norway (1940)

On the outbreak of war, Auchinleck was appointed to command the Indian 3rd Infantry Division, (Note the word Indian in this highlighted portion)  but in January 1940 was summoned to the United Kingdom to command IV-Corps, this is the only time in the war that a wholly British corps was commanded by an Indian Army officer. 

One more promotion, he becomes an acting Lieutenant-General on 1st February 1940, and the rank becomes substantive in a month. In May 1940 Auchinleck took over command of the Anglo-French ground forces during the Norwegian Campaign, a military operation that was doomed to fail.

Entry of another fox – Bernard Montgomery

After the fall of Norway, in June 1940 he briefly commanded V-Corps before becoming General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Command, in July 1940, where he had an uneasy relationship with his subordinate Bernard Montgomery, the new V-Corps commander. Montgomery later wrote: “In the 5th Corps I first served under Auchinleck… I cannot recall that we ever agreed on anything.”

Return to India and Iraq January–May 1941

Promoted to full General on 26th December 1940, Auchinleck was recalled to India in January 1941 to become Commander-in-Chief, Indian Army, in which position he also was appointed to the Executive Council of the Viceroy of India and appointed ADC General to the King, which was a ceremonial position that he held until after the end of the War.

In April 1941,RAF Habbaniya (Iraq) was threatened by the new pro-Axis regime of Rashid Ali. This large Royal Air Force station was west of Baghdad, and General Archibald Wavell, (He later become Indian Army chief ) Commander-in-Chief Middle East Command, was reluctant to intervene, despite the urgings of Winston Churchill, because of his pressing commitments in the Western Desert and Greece. Auchinleck, however, acted decisively, sending a battalion of the King’s Own Royal Regiment by air to Habbaniya and shipping the Indian 10th Infantry Division by sea to Basara. Wavell was prevailed upon by London to send Habforce, a relief column, from the British Mandate of Palestine but by the time it arrived in Habbaniya on 18 May the Anglo-Iraqi War was virtually over.

North Africa July 1941 – August 1942

Sir Claude Auchinleck as Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in the Middle East.

Following the see-saw of Allied and Axis successes and reverses in North Africa, Auchinleck was appointed to succeed General Sir Archibald Wavell as Commander-in-Chief Middle East Command in July 1941; Wavell took up Auchinleck’s post as Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, swapping jobs with him. And later become Viceroy of India.

General Sir Archibald Wavell, Commander-in-Chief, India, and General Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief Middle East, 8th September 1941.

As Commander-in-Chief Middle East, Auchinleck was based in Cairo, he held responsibility not just for North Africa but also for Persia and the Middle East. He launched an offensive in the Western Desert, Operation Crusader, in November 1941: despite some tactical reverses during the fighting which resulted in Auchinleck replacing the Eighth Army commander Alan Cunningham with Neil Ritchie, by the end of December the besieged garrison of Tobruk had been relieved and Rommel obliged to withdraw to El Agheila. Auchinleck appears to have believed that the enemy had been defeated, writing on 12th January 1942 that the Axis forces were “beginning to feel the strain” and were “hard pressed”. In fact, the Axis forces had managed to withdraw in good order and a few days after Auchinleck’s optimistic appreciation, having reorganized and been reinforced, struck at the dispersed and weakened British forces, driving them back to the Gazala positions near Tobruk. The British Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), General Sir Alan Brooke, wrote in his diary that it was “nothing less than bad generalship on the part of Auchinleck. He has been overconfident and has believed everything his overoptimistic [DMI] Shearer has told him”. Brooke commented that Auchinleck “could have been one of the finest of commanders” but lacked the ability to select the men to serve him. Brooke sent him one of his best armored division commanders Richard McCreery, whose advice was ignored in favor of Dorman-Smith’s.

Major-General John Campbell “Jock” and General Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief Middle East, in the Western Desert.

Rommel’s attack at the Battle of Gazala of 26th May 1942 resulted in a significant defeat for the British. Auchinleck’s appreciation of the situation written to Ritchie on 20th May had suggested that the armored reserves be concentrated in a position suitable to meet both a flanking attack around the south of the front or a direct attack through the center (which was the likelihood more favored by Auchinleck). In the event, Ritchie chose a more dispersed and rearward positioning of his two armored divisions[ and when the attack in the center came, it proved to be a diversion and the main attack, by Rommel’s armored formations, came round the southern flank. Poor initial positioning and subsequent handling and coordination of Allied formations by Ritchie and his corps commanders resulted in their heavy defeat and the Eighth Army retreating into Egypt; Tobruk fell to Axis forces on 21st June 1942.

On 24 June Auchinleck stepped in to take direct command of the Eighth Army, having lost confidence in Neil Ritchie’s ability to control and direct his forces. Auchinleck discarded Ritchie’s plan to stand at Metsa Matruh, deciding to fight only a delaying action there, while withdrawing to the more easily defendable position at El Alamein. Here Auchinleck tailored a defense that took advantage of the terrain and the fresh troops at his disposal, stopping the exhausted German/Italian advance in the First Battle of El Alamein. Enjoying a considerable superiority of material and men over the weak German/Italian forces, Auchinleck organized a series of counter-attacks. Poorly conceived and badly coordinated, these attacks achieved little.

“The Auk”, as he was known, appointed several senior commanders who proved to be unsuitable for their positions, and command arrangements were often characterized by bitter personality clashes. Auchinleck was an Indian Army officer and was criticized for apparently having little direct experience or understanding of British and Dominio n troops. His controversial chief of operations, Major-General Dorman-Smith, (Possibly because he was an Irish officer) was regarded with considerable distrust by many of the senior commanders in Eighth Army. By July 1942 Auchinleck had lost the confidence of Dominion commanders and relations with his British commanders had become strained.

Like his foe Rommel (and his predecessor Wavell and successor Montgomery), Auchinleck was subjected to constant political interference, having to weather a barrage of hectoring telegrams and instructions from Prime Minister Churchill throughout late 1941 and the spring and summer of 1942. Churchill constantly sought an offensive from Auchinleck, and was downcast at the military reverses in Egypt and Cyrenaica. Churchill was desperate for some sort of British victory before the planned Allied landings in North Africa, Operation Torch, scheduled for November 1942. He badgered Auchinleck immediately after the Eighth Army had all but exhausted itself after the first battle of El Alamein. Churchill and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Alan Brooke, flew to Cairo in early August 1942 to meet Auchinleck, where it emerged that he had lost the confidence of both men. He was replaced as Commander-in-Chief Middle East Command by General Sir Harold Alexander (later Field Marshal, and the Earl of Tunis).

Joseph M. Horodyski and Maurice Remy both praise Auchinleck as an underrated military leader who contributed the most to the successful defense of El Alamein and consequently the final defeat of Rommel in Africa. The two historians also criticize Churchill for the unreasonable decision to put the blame on Auchinleck and to relieve him. Churchill’s dislike of Auchinleck was because of his India Army commission, and egged by Bernard Montgomery.

Back to his roots – India 1942–1945

Auchinleck receiving the Star of Nepal in October 1945 from the King of Nepal, Tribhubana Bir Vikram Shah

Churchill offered Auchinleck command of the newly created a Persia and Iraq Command (this having been separated from Alexander’s command), but Auchinleck declined this post, as he believed that separating the area from the Middle East Command was not good policy and the new arrangements would not be workable. He set his reasons out in his letter to Chief of the Imperial General Staff dated 14th August 1942. Instead, he returned to India, where he spent almost a year “unemployed” before in June 1943 being again appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army.  An unemployed General in the middle of the war? Unemployed normally means sidelined at Half Pay.

Naik Narayan Sinde, 5th Mahratta Light Infantry, receiving the Indian Distinguished Service Medal from General Sir Claude Auchinleck, 1945.

General Wavell meanwhile having been appointed Viceroy; on this appointment it was announced that responsibility for the prosecution of the war with Japan would move from the Commander-in-Chief India to a newly created South East Asia Command. However, the appointment of the new command’s Supreme Commander, Acting Vice Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, was not announced until August 1943 and until Mountbatten could set up his headquarters and assume control (in November), Auchinleck retained responsibility for operations in India and Burma while conducting a review and revision of Allied plans based on the decisions taken by the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Quadrant Conference, which ended in August.

Following Mountbatten’s arrival, Auchinleck’s India Command (which had equal status with South East Asia Command in the military hierarchy) was responsible for the internal security of India, the defense of the North West Frontier Provinces (NFWP) and the buildup of India as a base, including most importantly the reorganization of the Indian Army, the training of forces destined for SEAC and the lines of communication carrying men and material to the forward areas and to China. Auchinleck made the supply of Fourteenth Army, with probably the worst lines of communication of the war, his immediate priority; as Sir William Slim, commander of the Fourteenth Army, was later to write:

It was a good day for us when Auchinleck took back the command of India, our main base, recruiting area and training ground. The Fourteenth Army, from its birth to its final victory, owed much to his unselfish support and never-failing understanding. Without him and what he and the Army of India did for us we could not have existed, let alone conquered.

Typical British Drama – The Divorce

Auchinleck suffered a personal disappointment when his wife Jessie left him for his friend, Air Chief Sir Ricard Peirse. Peirse and Auchinleck had been students together at the Imperial Defense College, but that was long before. Peirse was now Allied Air Commander-in-Chief, South-East Asia, and based in India. The affair became known to Mountbatten in early 1944, and he passed the information to the Chief of the RAF, Sir Charles Portal, hoping that Peirse would be recalled. The affair was common knowledge by September 1944, and Peirse was neglecting his duties. Mountbatten sent Peirse and Lady Auchinleck back to England on 28 November 1944, where they lived together at a Brighton hotel. Peirse had his marriage dissolved, and Auchinleck obtained a divorce in 1946. Auchinleck was reportedly very badly affected. According to his sister, he was never the same after the break-up. He always carried a photograph of Jessie in his wallet even after the divorce.

There is scholarly dispute whether Auchinleck was homosexual. His biographer, Philip Warner, addressed the rumors but dismissed them; however, historian Ronald Hyam has alleged that “sexually based moral-revulsion” was the reason for Montgomery’s inability to get on with Auchinleck, and further, that Auchinleck was “let off with a high-level warning” over his relationships with Indian boys.

Partition of India and later years

Sir Claude Auchinleck as the last Commander in Chief of British India ( A new Designation)

Auchinleck continued as Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army after the end of the war helping, though much against his own convictions, to prepare the future Indian and Pakistani armies for the Partition of India: in November 1945 he was forced to commute the more serious judicial sentences awarded against officers of the Indian National Army (OF Netaji Subash Chandra Bose) in face of growing unease and unrest both within the Indian population, and the British Indian Army (This prefix British is the correct, because now by the act of British Parliament all forces were under British Sovereignty, as India had briefly transitions to a Dominion status). On 1st June 1946 he was promoted to Field Marshall, but he refused to accept a peerage, lest he be thought associated with a policy (i.e., Partition) that he thought fundamentally dishonorable.

Auchinleck (right) as Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, with the then Viceroy Wavell (center) and Montgomery (left)

Sending a report to the British Government on 28th September 1947, Field Marshal Auchinleck wrote: “I have no hesitation, whatever, in affirming that the present Indian Cabinet are implacably determined to do all in their power to prevent the establishment of the Dominion of Pakistan on firm basis.” He stated in the second, political part of his assessment, “Since 15th August, the situation has steadily deteriorated and the Indian leaders, cabinet ministers, civil officials and others have persistently tried to obstruct the work of partition of the armed forces.”

When partition was affected in August 1947, Auchinleck was appointed Supreme Commander of all British forces remaining in India and Pakistan and remained in this role until the winding up and closure of the Supreme H.Q. at the end of November 1947. This marked his effective retirement from the army (although technically field marshals in the British Army never retire, remaining on the active list on half pay). He left India on 1 December, 1947.

After a brief period in Italy in connection with an unsuccessful business project, Auchinleck retired to London, where he occupied himself with a number of charitable and business interests and became a respectably skilled watercolor painter. In 1960 he settled in Beccles in the county of Suffolk, remaining there for seven years until, at the age of eighty-four, he decided to emigrate and set up home in Marrakesh, where he died on 23 March 1981.

Referenced Sources

  • Auchinleck, Claude (8 March 1942). Operations in the Middle East 5th July 1941 to 31 October 1942. London: War Office.

(Auchinleck’s Official Middle East Dispatch published after the war in “No. 37695”. The London Gazette (Supplement). 20 August 1946. pp. 4215–4230.)

  • Auchinleck, Claude (26 January 1943). Operations in the Middle East 1st November 1941 to 15 August 1942. London: War Office.

(Auchinleck’s Official Middle East Dispatch published after the war in “No. 38177”. The London Gazette (Supplement). 13 January 1948. pp. 309–400.)

  • Auchinleck, Claude (22 November 1945). Operations in the Indo-Burma Theatre based on India from 21st June 1943 to 15 November 1943. London: War Office.

(Auchinleck’s Official Indo-Burma Dispatch published after the war in “No. 38274”. The London Gazette (Supplement). 27 April 1948. pp. 2651–2684.)

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