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The author has chosen 1824 as the starting point for this excellent and detailed study because it was the year that saw the re-organisation of the Presidency armies of Bengal, Bombay and Madras. All three armies had begun in haphazard fashion with a handful of British officers and volunteer sepoys (Indian soldiers) who had been recruited to guard the factories (or trading posts) in areas where the East India Company had established itself. Over time these small units, at first little more than armed guards for the factories, had developed into separate forces known collectively as the Army of the English East India Company. Although nominally under one body — the Company — with its Board of Control and Directors based in London, the three Presidency armies had distinct characteristics. Madras soldiers would agree to being deployed overseas, in Java, for example, and farther east. Bengal soldiers, on the other hand, many of them Brahmin, were reluctant to cross the kala pani (literally the black sea, but in fact any waters around India). Bombay soldiers fought Arab pirates in the Indian Ocean but were not so effective inland. Any Commander-in-Chief had to be aware of these differences and to direct the three armies accordingly.
Re-structuring the Presidency armies meant raising new corps and this allowed opportunities for promotion within the regiments which had not previously been available. A major grievance had been that senior officers remained in their posts until death or retirement, thus preventing younger, and possibly more able men, newly trained, to rise further. At the same time, overall numbers in the Bengal army declined to about 78,000 in 1832, which was achieved by limiting recruitment. A decade and a half which had seen no major conflict accounted for the reduced numbers, and it also, of course, reduced expenditure. The Company’s Armies were always its most expensive item, averaging out at £10 million a year. By the 1840s, after the disastrous First Afghan War, numbers rose again and by 1849 stood at 300,000. This compared with the British Army in Britain which was numbered at just 100,000 men.
Housing for officers and men is discussed at length. It was Robert Clive’s victory at Plassey in 1757 that led to his announcement eight years later that cantonments were to be built ‘to defend the country and preserve the lives of men’. This was a radical step because there had not previously been fixed sites for officers and men, nor indeed a standing army. Mughal emperors had nobles on whom they could call to provide men and horses when battles needed to be fought. After a victory, or a defeat, the men simply returned to their homes. Berhampore, the earliest cantonment, became the pattern for similar developments across Company-administered India.
Illustrations in *John Company’s Armies* show the stark differences between the accommodation provided for British and for Indian troops. The former had extensive punkahs, large cloth fans, to cool their barracks, with wash-basins to one side and wall mirrors where the men could shave. Wooden chests holding their belongings were at the foot of the camp beds. The Indian quarters were sparse — no fans, because it was believed Indians did not feel the heat as much, and men squatting by their mattresses on the floor, with nowhere to keep their possessions. Their rifles were lined up against the walls.
But there was another divide too, almost as great, and that was between the Company’s three armies and the Royal or Crown army, the British officers and men of Her Majesty’s regiments who served in India. The Company hired these troops direct from the British Crown ‘under a complex accounting system in which Indian peasants essentially paid for the upkeep of the foreign troops who ultimately subjected them to British rule’. Up to a quarter of Britain’s own army was stationed in India at any one time, which amounted to around 22 regiments. Although there are no comparable figures, this must have been the largest concentration of British Army troops in any of the colonies during the 19th century. Service was eagerly sought in India and joining its horse artillery, with their dashing red-plumed helmets, was ‘the ambition of every young artilleryman’ in preference to the foot artillery. And the few commissions available to engineers, an essential component of any army, were considered ‘one of the greatest prizes’. All engineers working in India, in a surprisingly wide range of activities including cartography and meteorology, as well as building palaces for wealthy native rulers, had a military rank. Apart from the ‘regular’ troops, there were a large number of ‘irregular’ units, some set up in times of emergency like Hodson’s Horse, and others established by Anglo-Indians, that is, men of mixed race, with Indian mothers. They had been specifically barred from joining the Company armies, so they acted independently. Skinner’s Horse, the famous ‘Yellow Boys’, is the best known example; another was Gardner’s Horse, raised in 1802 by Major William Linnaeus Gardner, who, while not of mixed race, had a number of Indian wives.
A particular strength of Stanley’s book is the many illustrations, 250 in number, some in colour, and most unfamiliar to army historians. *The Delhi Sketch Book* in particular is a revelation with its satirical take on army behaviour, and there are also rare, contemporary photographs taken just after the Mutiny of 1857. The author is to be congratulated on presenting a complex subject in a very readable and interesting way. It will surely stand as the definitive army history of this period for quite some time.
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