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The Indian Army, also called the British Indian Army, was involved in World War I as part of the British Empire. More than one million Indian troops served overseas, of whom more than 60,000 died during the war. [1] In World War I the Indian Army fought against the German Empire on the Western Front.
World War I would prove to be a watershed in the imperial relationship between Britain and India. 1.4 million Indian and British soldiers of the British Indian Army would take part in the war and their participation would have a wider cultural fallout: news of Indian soldiers fighting and dying with British soldiers, as well as soldiers from ...
The East India Company officers lived lavish lives, the company finances were in shambles, and the company's effectiveness in India was examined by the British crown after 1858. As a result, the East India Company lost its powers of government and British India formally came under direct Crown control, with an appointed Governor-General of ...
The European parallel to the ITF was the Auxiliary Force (India). After the First World War the British started the process of Indianisation, by which Indians were promoted into higher officer ranks. In a 1923 census, the British Indian Army consisted of 64,669 British-born soldiers and officers, with 187,432 Indian-born soldiers in comparison.
During period of the British Raj, famines in India, often attributed to El Nino droughts and failed government policies, were some of the worst ever recorded, including the Great Famine of 1876–78, in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people died and the Indian famine of 1899–1900, in which 1.25 to 10 million people died. [42]
Some 1.4 million Indian and British soldiers of the British Indian Army took part in the war, primarily in Iraq and the Middle East. Their participation had a wider cultural fallout as news spread of how bravely soldiers fought and died alongside British soldiers, as well as soldiers from dominions like Canada and Australia. [69]
A more ambitious aim was a scheme of federation contained in the Government of India Act 1935, which envisaged the princely states and British India being united under a federal government. [14] This scheme came close to success, but was abandoned in 1939 as a result of the outbreak of the Second World War. [15]
After the Indian Rebellion in 1857, the new British administration created a close partnership with certain land-holders and princes to strengthen their grip on power. This was either to create a colonial hierarchy of the various ethnic groups in India, "each arranged into appropriate social classes, whose spiritual and material improvement were entrusted to the paternal direction of ...