Unlikely - the Indian armies were relatively loosely organised until 1903 and remained small (c. 150,000 men) until WW1.
As was found in WW1 the limit on deployment was the availability of British senior officers to liaise with other units of the Empire. In WW2 this broke down to a large extent but the threat closer to home meant that Indian expeditionary forces remained modest outside of S and SE Asia
Easily the case.
Not so easily the case, for the reason given above.
I like this thread if for no other reason than it spans pre-1900s with post-1900s, something we probably should do more often.
It wasn't quite as official as all that so I understand. I think various Maori leaders, usually Iwi (traditional leadership rather than say the MPs) offered soldiers directly to the Crown (maybe the governor general/London?), not the Settler government. The Crown refused as per your point Then when the Settler government organised the NZ contingent, they allowed about 20 Maori to sign up.
The thing is, if the British authorities in South Africa were "eager" to raise "colonial" units to fight the Boers/South Africans in either conflict (1880-81 or 1898-1902) it wasn't like they wouldn't have had plenty of recruits in southern Africa, already...
So if the policy changes, there's no need to ship Gurkhas, Sikhs, Baluch, etc. in from India (or Maori from New Zealand) when there are lots of Zulus, Mashonas, "Cape Coloured" etc already in the theater - many of whom had fairly recent military experience under British command, at least before the 1st South African War...
So it's pretty clear it was policy.
Equally clear is the lack of "coloured" troops participating in the Russian War in 1854-56, despite the (relative) proximity of the Pacific and Crimean theaters to India.
As a fairly perceptive observer of the Empire once said: "how long can we keep kidding these people?"
Best,
The Portuguese had it down pat- they used Angolans to fight in Mozambique, the Mozambiquens to fight in Equatorial Guinea and the Guinese to fight in Angola. No wonder they were the last to leave Africa
The Italians used Eritreans in their ill fated war with Menelik.
There's also a large use of colonials in WWI by both the French and the British particularly in rear duty.
It was pretty much standard practice and accounts for the cheapness and political popularity of many colonial adventures
The were limiting factors- the need to officer the colonials with Europeans and the need to keep the heavy weapons safely in European hands. Technical troops would also almost always be European.
It wasn't so much a question of it not been right for colored people to shoot white people. The issue was more that they didn't believe Indians, africans, etc... Had very good discipline.
Which... Is an argument that has some merit to it. If you're coming from a rural tribal society as opposed to industrial Britain the you will have grown up with very different ideas about authority. Even without saying one is better than the other it is hard to coordinate such very disparate groups
My understanding is that most of the colonial forces were paramilitary constabulary forces designed to keep the peace and deal with native populations whose military organization and equipment were relatively more primitive. The exception were elite forces like the Gurkhas comprised of "martial peoples" and whose units were generally of battalion size or smaller.
Such troops are not meant to be engaged in real wars, especially not outside their homelands. Instead, they are meant to make occupation of their own lands cheap with minimum amount of imperial troops/officers to act as leaders and force multipliers.
Large scale formation of colonial troops with same equipment and organization as the imperial powers only happened in the World Wars to my knowledge. In order to get more use of colonial troops, you'd probably need there to be larger wars.
I should have been more clear that I was referring strictly to Maori participation
@Derek Pullem you refer to the Kitchener reforms of 1903. Yes?
@Cook Hmm... I wonder what could escalate the Boxer Rebellion... *puts on reserching hat
As for officers, yes a shortage of Officers from Britain, or even Europe for that matter, would be a limiting factor for the expansion of any colonial troops.
@GeographyDude I cannot possibly stress how much i agree with you.
@Julius Vogel Interesting... I would like to learn more about the History of Maoris in the British/New Zealand armed forces and in New Zealand in general. I believe a person teaching us about a subject, close to his/her heart, is better than reading about in all the textbooks in the world.. So? Care to enlighten us, please?
@TFSmith121 Very true.. Is it possible the British didn't use Indian forces in the Crimean war and in Russia possibly because the sub-continent was 'officially' under the BEIC (British East India Company) and as such the forces in India raised from the locals were 'company' forces.
@LordKalvert Yes the Portuguese certainly got the formula right. And yes as i said to Cook, Officers will certainly be a limiting factor. I wonder what could convince the British to at least hire a few native born officers to lead the troops. They could use Officers from one part or 'martial race' to lead the troops from another part/'martial race' of the sub-continent, reducing probability of mutinies, etc. And yes the technical MoS were almost always European troops, but then considering pre-World War 1 tactics i don't see the need for massive expansion of technical troops contingents in the army as a whole.
@Tyr true.. Discipline was an issue. But not for the reasons you might think. Racism did count for some, but not all of the factors leading up to a reduction in colonial troop numbers. Aside from that while people from the 'Hill tribes' were not very good at taking orders but with sufficient training they could become more accepting, even become blindly trusting in the command structure.
@Blackfox Yes organization was lacking and they were mostly used as 'policing' forces in the colonies, to fight the little unimportant brush fire wars. The two world wars did much to change that mindset as the Europeans realised that colonial troops are still a very valuable source of additional manpower that if sufficiently trained and motivated can be on par with the regular forces of their European armies. This was repeatedly evidenced in both wars (battle of Somme in the First, and battle of El Ala-mien and Monte Cassino to name a few in the Second).
Back to the matter of my next post. My question was why did the British or others for that matter not use their colonial troops more extensively, that is, in Europe. I guess the simplest explanation is I believe that they really did not have to.
I mean there were no major wars in the period from 1871-72 to 1914 in the European, which required the sort of mass mobilization of all national resources as the Great War and the one after the did. All wars were either regional affairs or distant 'police actions' in some God forsaken corner of the world where the Europeans could not be bothered to send a regular army force, and just send some unorganized, under-trained and under-equipped 'native' troops to deal with the situation. After all it makes no economic sense to turn cheap disposable meat bags into a financially expensive, but politically expedient, regular army, unless you really need a big, effective army unless you are invading a large or powerful country {In which case you are screwed anyways}
The Racism bit might factor in a bit. I mean the heathen 'natives' were 'obviously inferior' to the good civilized christian lads from back home. [*] And you can't really trust those 'uncivilized brutes' over whom it is the 'White Man's Burden' to rule. Don't even think about training them in how to fight lest they rebel like the 'ungrateful wretches' they are. { In case you don't get the obvious sarcasm in these lines, please consult a doctor
}
SO! Coming to the second part of our discussion. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to figure out what possible PoD could be there which could result in the British, specifically, or another European power for that matter, ending up relying increasingly on the colonial troops than OTL. Bonus points if you can get them to be more trained and possibly better equipped than OTL. Perhaps you can also try your hand at creating a small but professional 'native' officer's corp, who are thoroughly loyal to King and Country.
Best of Luck!
Hope yo guys are enjoying this discussion because i am sure as hell loving all the things i am learning from you. Thanks!
[*] Another factor that might lead to the mistrust placed in the 'natives' by the Europeans, specifically the British might stem directly from the 'Sepoy Mutiny' of 1857. Upwards of a 100,000 Indians died.
Estimates vary for British however. Anywhere from 1000-1500 British officials in the sub-continent died. This does not include the hundreds of the dependents of the British official, including their wives and children who where slain. We can argue all they whether Indians were justified in their actions during the 'revolt' and same goes for the British. But that does not negate the fact that hundreds of women and children were murdered by people who till virtually the day before were, literally, their loyal household servants... I doubt a people can let go of that easily.
