India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947; India -- Politics and government -- 1765-1947
Causes, with which I will deal presently and for which India was not
responsible, have somewhat obscured the first eager expressions of
India’s sympathy, and have forced her thoughts largely towards her own
position in the Empire. But that does not detract from the immense aid
she has given, and is still giving. It must not be forgotten that long
before the present War she had submitted--at first, while she had no
power of remonstrance, and later, after 1885, despite the constant
protests of Congress--to an ever-rising military expenditure, due partly
to the amalgamation scheme of 1859, and partly to the cost of various
wars beyond her frontiers, and to continual recurring frontier and
trans-frontier expeditions, in which she had no real interest. They were
sent out for supposed Imperial advantages, not for her own.
Between 1859 and 1904--45 years--Indian troops were engaged in
thirty-seven wars and expeditions. There were ten wars: the two Chinese
Wars of 1860 and 1900, the Bhutan War of 1864-65, the Abyssinian War of
1868, the Afghan War of 1878-79, and, after the massacre of the Kabul
Mission, the second War of 1879-80, ending in an advance of the
frontier, in the search for an ever receding “scientific frontier”; on
this occasion the frontier was shifted, says Keene, “from the line of
the Indus to the western slope of the Suleiman range and from Peshawar
to Quetta”; the Egyptian War of 1882, in which the Indian troops
markedly distinguished themselves; the third Burmese War of 1885 ending
in the annexation of Upper Burma in 1886; the invasions of Tibet in 1890
and 1904. Of Expeditions, or minor Wars, there were 27; to Sitana in
1858 on a small scale and in 1863 on a larger (the “Sitana Campaign”);
to Nepal and Sikkim in 1859; to Sikkim in 1864; a serious struggle on
the North-west Frontier in 1868; expeditions against the Lushais in
1871-72, the Daflas in 1874-75, the Nagas in 1875, the Afridis in 1877,
the Rampa Hill tribes in 1879, the Waziris and Nagas in 1881, the Akhas
in 1884, and in the same year an expedition to the Zhob Valley, and a
second thither in 1890. In 1888 and 1889 there was another expedition
against Sikkim, against the Akozais (the Black Mountain Expedition) and
against the Hill Tribes of the North-east, and in 1890 another Black
Mountain Expedition, with a third in 1892. In 1890 came the expedition
to Manipur, and in 1891 there was another expedition against the
Lushais, and one into the Miranzal Valley. The Chitral Expedition
occupied 1894-95, and the serious Tirah Campaign, in which 40,000 men
were engaged, came in 1897 and 1898. The long list--which I have closed
with 1904--ends with the expeditions against the Mahsuds in 1901,
against the Kabalis in 1902, and the invasion of Tibet, before noted.
All these events explain the rise in military expenditure, and we must
add to them the sending of Indian troops to Malta and Cyprus in 1878--a
somewhat theatrical demonstration--and the expenditure of some
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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