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Commander-in-Chief, India: Administrator (1893–1898)

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George White and the Victorian Army in India and Africa

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Abstract

Chapter 6, “Commander-in-Chief, India: Administrator (1893–1898),” examines White’s five-year tenure at Snowdon and his working relationship with Lord Lansdowne and then Lord Elgin, who served as Viceroys during this period. It reviews the Great Game, the political intrigue between Great Britain and Russia in Afghanistan and along the vast Central and Southern Asian frontier, and White’s policies to oversee British security in the region. White was busy with issues ranging from the introduction of new weaponry to the reform of the Presidency Armies and from handling the promotion of Indian high caste officers to the recruitment of Anglo-Indians.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    White was made Knight Grand Commander of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, 6 March 1893. The appointment of Commander-in-Chief, India, officially began on 8 April 1893. Roberts had been made Baron Roberts of Kandahar on 1 January 1892.

  2. 2.

    Edward John Buck, Simla, Past and Present (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co., 1904), 62.

  3. 3.

    White’s staff included the Military Secretary (Colonel Ian Hamilton 1893–1894, Lieutenant-Colonel Beauchamp Duff 1895–1897), the Adjutant-General (Colonel William Galbraith 1893–1894, Colonel Gerald de Courcy Morton 1895–1897), and the Quartermaster-General (Colonel Edward Stedman 1893–1894, Colonel Alexander Badcock 1895–1897).

  4. 4.

    White to John White, 25 April 1893, White’s letters to his brother, John White, Mss Eur F108/98(a)-(c)(1857–1920), GWP.

  5. 5.

    White to John White, 10 May 1893, Mss Eur F108/98, GWP.

  6. 6.

    Anonymous [James Grierson], The British Army by a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co, 1899), 18.

  7. 7.

    Lovat Fraser, India Under Curzon & After (London: Heinemann, 1911), 416–8; H.H. Kitchener, Administration of the Army in India, unpublished secret document, 1 January 1905, in Letter from General Sir Beauchamp Duff (Adjutant-General in India 1903–1905) to White, dated 25 May 1905, enclosing copies (printed and typescript) of the main documents in the Curzon-Kitchener dispute, Mss Eur F108/88 (1905), GWP; White to John White, 5 May 1897, Mss Eur F108/98, GWP.

  8. 8.

    White, Confidential Report, 10 June 1893, Printed Minutes by White, Mss Eur F108/24 (1893–1896), GWP.

  9. 9.

    White to John White, 25 April 1893, Mss Eur F108/98, GWP.

  10. 10.

    For more on Brackenbury, see Henry Brackenbury, Some Memories in My Spare Time (London and Edinburgh: Wm. Blackwood and Sons, 1909).

  11. 11.

    Ian F.W. Beckett, “Soldiers, the Frontier and the Politics of Command in British India,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 16 3(2005): 288.

  12. 12.

    White to John White, 15 May 1893, Mss Eur F108/98, GWP.

  13. 13.

    White, Confidential Report, 10 June 1893, Mss Eur F108/24, GWP.

  14. 14.

    Minute on Council Note, Retention of Chilas, 12 May 1893, Letter-book entitled “Book No. 1, Council Notes & important subjects from Adjutant General, Quarter Master General etc,” Mss Eur F108/16 (1893–1895), GWP.

  15. 15.

    Ibid.

  16. 16.

    White to Roberts, 16 July 1893, Letter-book entitled “Book No. 2, Miscellaneous Letters,” Mss Eur F108/17 (1893–1895), GWP; White to Cambridge, 13 June 1893, Letter-book entitled “Book No. 3, Letters to H.E. the Viceroy, General Brackenbury & H.R.H. the Commander in Chief,” Mss Eur F108/18 (1893–1895), GWP.

  17. 17.

    S. Gopal, British Policy in India 1858–1905 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 216–7.

  18. 18.

    J.P. Misra, The Administration of India Under Lord Lansdowne (1888–1984) (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1975), 59–62.

  19. 19.

    Bijan Omrani, “The Durand Line: History and Problems of the Afghan-Pakistan Border,” Asian Affairs 40 2(2009): 184–5.

  20. 20.

    White to Cambridge, 3 May 1893, Mss Eur F108/18, GWP.

  21. 21.

    Rashmi Pande, The Viceroyalty of Lord Elgin II (Patna: Janaki Prakashan, 1986), 28; as cited in Mir Munshi, ed., The Life of Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan G.C.B., G.C.S.I., vol. II (London: John Murray, 1900), 158. The Durand Line is still largely ignored by locals today. See Andrew M. Roe, Waging War in Waziristan (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2010).

  22. 22.

    White to John White, 28 August 1893, Mss Eur F108/98, GWP.

  23. 23.

    Ibid.

  24. 24.

    White to Buller, 5 November 1893, Mss Eur F108/18, GWP.

  25. 25.

    White was using the Urdu word dustoor or dastoor to refer to ritual or routine practice. “Note on Military Department’s proposal to organize Native Infantry in 4 Comps. each under a British Officer,” 21 April 1893, Mss Eur F108/16, GWP.

  26. 26.

    This was the argument he made to Lieutenant-General Sir Redvers Buller, the Adjutant-General. White to Buller, 10 May 1893, Mss Eur F108/17, GWP.

  27. 27.

    Ibid.

  28. 28.

    “Military letter to the Secretary to the Government of India, Military Department, No. 2349, 10 April 1893; as cited in “Fitness of the Madras Sepoy for Service in Burma,” 21 April 1893, Mss Eur F108/16, GWP.

  29. 29.

    “Fitness of the Madras Sepoy for Service in Burma,” 21 April 1893, Mss Eur F108/16, GWP.

  30. 30.

    Ibid.

  31. 31.

    Revised version of “Fitness of the Madras Sepoy for Service in Burma,” 22 June 1893, Mss Eur F108/16, GWP.

  32. 32.

    East India (Army and Population), “Return showing the Strength of the Army in India, European and Native, and the extent of the population and area under British Rule in India at the following periods, namely, 1856, 1860, after the reductions effected by Lord Lawrence, 1886, at the present time, and also showing the recommendations as to Numbers made by different Army Commissions and the Increase in the Garrisons of Burma after the annexation of Upper Burma,” 23 July 1908, C. 208 (London: H.M.S.O., 1908), 2.

  33. 33.

    “Proportion of British to Native troops in India,” 28 July 1897, Mss Eur F108/16, GWP.

  34. 34.

    Royal Commission on Indian Army Organization, 1859, C. 2515; as cited in, East India (Army and Population), “Return showing the Strength of the Army in India,” 3.

  35. 35.

    “Proportion of British to Native troops in India,” 28 July 1897, Mss Eur F108/16, GWP.

  36. 36.

    East India (Army and Population), “Return showing the Strength of the Army in India,” 3.

  37. 37.

    For more on the importance of the railway and the Forward Policy, see Edward M. Spiers, Engines for Empire: The Victorian Army and its Use of Railways (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015).

  38. 38.

    Uncited Roberts’ quotation in “Proportion of British to Native troops in India,” 28 July 1897, Mss Eur F108/16, GWP.

  39. 39.

    “Proportion of British to Native troops in India,” 28 July 1897, Mss Eur F108/16, GWP.

  40. 40.

    Ibid.

  41. 41.

    “Minute by the Hon’ble Sir C.B. Pritchard, K.C.I.E., C.S.I.,” 29 August 1893, Mss Eur F108/16, GWP.

  42. 42.

    “Rejoinder to Hon’ble Sir Charles Pritchard’s Minute on the proportion to be maintained between British and Native troops in India,” 16 September 1893, Mss Eur F108/16, GWP.

  43. 43.

    In 1886, 35% of the army in India was British; in 1908, 34%. Both forces grew in size very slowly over this period of time. East India (Army and Population), “Return showing the Strength of the Army in India,” 3. Within the Native force itself, Hindus, including Sikhs, outnumbered Muslims 2 to 1 in each of the three Presidency Armies in 1893 (94,384 to 45,510). The Sikhs numbered 23,718. White to Sir Dennis Fitzpatrick, “Regarding the proportion of Hindus to Mahomedans in the Punjab,” 25 August 1893, Mss Eur F108/17, GWP.

  44. 44.

    By 1896, the force had grown to 18,710. The Gazette of India, 4 April 1896, p. 202.

  45. 45.

    Stuart B. Beatson, A History of the Imperial Service Troops of Native States (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent, 1903), i–iii.

  46. 46.

    Harold E. Raugh, Jr., The Victorians at War, 1815–1914: An Encyclopedia of British Military History (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004), 171.

  47. 47.

    Untitled memorandum on Imperial Service Troops, 20 October 1893, Mss Eur F108/16, GWP.

  48. 48.

    House of Commons Debates (23 March 1885) Third Series, vol. 296, cc.366–371.

  49. 49.

    House of Commons Debates (16 April 1894) Fourth Series, vol. 23, cc.554–585.

  50. 50.

    Ibid.

  51. 51.

    The Indian Articles of War were amended in 1894. The Gazette of India, 4 April 1896, p. 202.

  52. 52.

    McMullen Memo. to Adjutant-General, 19 March 1895, Notes by Major W.H.F. McMullen (Judge Advocate-General), Major-General W. Galbraith (Adjutant-General) and White, on the “Abolition of Flogging in the Native Army,” Mss Eur F108/29, GWP.

  53. 53.

    Galbraith Memo. to Commander-in-Chief, 19 March 1895, Notes by Major W.H.F. McMullen (Judge Advocate-General), Major-General W. Galbraith (Adjutant-General) and White, on the “Abolition of Flogging in the Native Army,” Mss Eur F108/29, GWP.

  54. 54.

    White Memo. to Military Member of Council, undated, Notes by Major W.H.F. McMullen (Judge Advocate-General), Major-General W. Galbraith (Adjutant-General) and White, on the “Abolition of Flogging in the Native Army,” Mss Eur F108/29, GWP.

  55. 55.

    White to Brackenbury, 31 May 1894, Mss Eur F108/18, GWP.

  56. 56.

    What prompted the second consideration of the Indian Army Act and the practice of flogging in 1895 seems to have been the result of Hanbury’s renewed attempts in February in the House of Commons to reform the Army Act and abolish flogging in colonial forces. This prompted Fowler to communicate directly with the Viceroy on the matter. See Radhika Singha, “The ‘Rare Infliction’: the Abolition of Flogging in the Indian Army, circa 1835–1920,” Law and History Review 34 3(2016): 804.

  57. 57.

    Large numbers of Eurasians served in important non-combatant roles including in the Indian Subordinate Medical Department. See Valerie E.R. Anderson, “The Eurasian problem in nineteenth century India,” PhD diss., School of Oriental and African Studies, 2011, Chapter 9.

  58. 58.

    Minute of Military Department Proposal to form an Indo-Eurasian Regiment, undated (ca. April 1893), Mss Eur F108/16, GWP.

  59. 59.

    Hira Lal Singh, Problems and Policies of the British in India 1885–1898 (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1963), 189.

  60. 60.

    By the late 1890s, there were 29,000 Eurasians and Europeans in the Volunteer forces in India. Joseph Whittaker, An Almanack for the Year of Our Lord 1897 (London: Warwick Lane, 1897), 462; as cited in, Anderson, “The Eurasian problem,” 224.

  61. 61.

    Minute of Military Department Proposal to form an Indo-Eurasian Regiment, undated (ca. April 1893), Mss Eur F108/16, GWP.

  62. 62.

    Ibid.

  63. 63.

    White continued to focus on the issue of short-service and how, he argued, it did not suit Eurasians. See White to Alfred Lyall, 5 February 1894, Mss Eur F108/17, GWP.

  64. 64.

    There had been recommendations in 1879, 1881, and 1888 to alter the existing system. The members of the Governor-General’s Council which produced the 1893 report advocating reform included Lansdowne, Roberts, Miller, Brackenbury, P.P. Hutchins, D. Barbour, and Charles Crosthwaite, White’s friends and Burma associate.

  65. 65.

    Brian Robson, “The Eden Commission and the Reform of the Indian Army – 1879–1895,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 60 241 (Spring 1982): 4.

  66. 66.

    Kimberley despatch of 26 July 1886, quoted by Sir J. Gorst, Under-Secretary of State for India and MP (Chatham), House of Commons Debates (17 February 1891) Third Series, vol. 350, cc. 884. Singh, Problems and Policies of the British in India 1885–1898, 143–150.

  67. 67.

    Governor-General’s Council despatch of 5 July 1889, quoted by Henry Campbell-Bannerman, former (and future) Secretary of State for War, MP (Stirling), House of Commons Debates (17 February 1891) Third Series, vol. 350, cc. 888–891.

  68. 68.

    Kimberley, Secretary of State for India, rejected his earlier position and now supported the reform, but Cambridge remained opposed to it.

  69. 69.

    India (Army System), Further papers Respecting Proposed Changes in the Indian Army System, 1893, C. 6987, 7009, 7115.

  70. 70.

    General Order of the Government of India in the Army Department, No. 981, 26 October 1894; as cited in, E.H.H. Collen, The Indian Army: A Sketch of Its History and Organization (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907), 35.

  71. 71.

    The Army in India and Its Evolution (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1924), 24.

  72. 72.

    White to Cambridge, 3 May 1893, Mss Eur F108/18, GWP.

  73. 73.

    Memorandum on the Abolition of Presidency Armies, 7 March 1893, Mss Eur F108/24, GWP.

  74. 74.

    White to Duke of Connaught, 7 July 1896, Letter-book entitled “Book No. 2, Miscellaneous Letters,” continuing No. 17, Also letters to the Viceroy, dated 28 Dec 1897 to 5 Mar 1898 in continuation of No. 20, Mss Eur F108/19 (1895–1898), GWP.

  75. 75.

    Elgin to Hamilton, 24 February 1897, No. 149; as cited in, Pande, The Viceroyalty of Lord Elgin II, 3.

  76. 76.

    T.A. Heathcote, The Military in British India: The Development of British Land Forces in South Asia 1600–1947 (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1995), 152–6. Robson, “The Eden Commission,” 4–13.

  77. 77.

    White to Wolseley, 8 January 1898, Letter-book entitled “Book No. 3 Letters to (1) H.E. the Viceroy, (2) Lt. Genl. Sir H. Brackenbury (3) H.R.H. the Commander in Chief (4) Sir Reginald Gipps (5) Adjt. General Horse Guards & other Horse Guard officials,” continuing No. 18, Mss Eur F108/20 (1895–1897), GWP.

  78. 78.

    White to Roberts, 27 September 1893, Mss Eur F108/17, GWP.

  79. 79.

    White to R. Gipps, 18 October 1893, Mss Eur F108/17, GWP.

  80. 80.

    White to J.H. Dunne, 18 October 1893, Mss Eur F108/17, GWP.

  81. 81.

    See, for example, White to John White, 2 July 1895, 1 September 1897, and 4 November 1897, Mss Eur F108/98, GWP.

  82. 82.

    Men’s Help Society, Misc. Private Letters to White, Mss Eur F108/23 (1898), GWP.

  83. 83.

    White to Cambridge, 1 August 1893 and 17 July 1894, Mss Eur F108/18, GWP.

  84. 84.

    Philippa Levine, Prostitution, Race & Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire (New York: Routledge, 2003), 5.

  85. 85.

    Philippa Levine, “Rereading the 1890s: Venereal Disease as ‘Constitutional Crisis’ in Britain and British India,” The Journal of Asian Studies 55 3 (August 1996): 592–3.

  86. 86.

    David J. Pivar, “The Military, Prostitution, and Colonial Peoples: India and the Philippines, 1885–1917,” The Journal of Sex Research 17 3 (August 1981): 259–60.

  87. 87.

    Ibid., 260.

  88. 88.

    White to A. Bradshaw, 9 August 1893, Mss Eur F108/17, GWP.

  89. 89.

    Committee appointed by Secretary of State for India to inquire into Rules, Regulations and Practice in Indian Cantonments with regard to Prostitution and Treatment of Venereal Disease, Report, Minutes of Evidence, Appendices, (1893–4) C. 7148.

  90. 90.

    White to Brackenbury, 17 May 1893 and 18 May 1893, Mss Eur F108/18, GWP.

  91. 91.

    For a discussion of the Ibbetson Commission, see Levine, “Rereading the 1890s,” 593–4.

  92. 92.

    Minute by His Excellency General Sir George S. White, K.C.B., G.C.I.E., Commander-in-Chief, India, Mss Eur F108/24, GWP.

  93. 93.

    Ibid.

  94. 94.

    Ibid.

  95. 95.

    White to Wolseley, 28 April 1897, Mss Eur F108/20, GWP.

  96. 96.

    Ibid.

  97. 97.

    White to Cambridge, 13 June 1893, Mss Eur F108/18, GWP.

  98. 98.

    Ibid.

  99. 99.

    White to Buller, 23 July 1895, Mss Eur F108/20, GWP.

  100. 100.

    White to Wolseley, 28 April 1897, Mss Eur F108/20, GWP.

  101. 101.

    Extract from the “Report of the Bombay Press Censor, 2 July 1894;” as cited in, Draft of a minute by White on the Indian Press, Printed in No. 24, where it is headed “Control over the Press in India,” Mss Eur F108/28 (1894), GWP.

  102. 102.

    “Control over the Press in India,” Mss Eur F108/28, GWP.

  103. 103.

    Prasun Sonwalkar, “Indian Journalism in the Colonial Crucible: A nineteenth-century story of political protest,” Journalism Studies 16 5 (2015): 625.

  104. 104.

    Uma Das Gupta, “The Indian Press 1870–1880: A Small World of Journalism,” Modern Asian Studies 11 2 (1977): 213.

  105. 105.

    Government of Bombay, Confidential Report, Judicial, vol. 140, Compilation no. 32, 1893, pp. 1–3, Maharashtra State Archives, Bombay; as cited in, Prashant Kidambi, The Making of an Indian Metropolis: Colonial Governance and Public Culture in Bombay, 1890–1920 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007), 165.

  106. 106.

    “Control over the Press in India,” Mss Eur F108/28, GWP.

  107. 107.

    Ibid.

  108. 108.

    Kaushik Roy, The Army in British India: From Colonial Warfare to Total War 1857–1947 (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), 88.

  109. 109.

    For more on the Lee-Metford/Martini-Henry debate, see Matthew Ford, “Towards a Revolution in Firepower? Logistics, Lethality, and the Lee-Metford,” War in History 20 3 (2013): 273–299.

  110. 110.

    White to John White, 24 December 1893, Mss Eur F108/98, GWP.

  111. 111.

    White to Cambridge, 17 May 1893, Mss Eur F108/18, GWP. White also argued that cost would lead to a decline in participation in rifle clubs. Drafts of official notes and minutes, prepared by Lt.-Col. Beauchamp Duff, Military Secretary to the C-in-C, Mss Eur F108/26 (1896), GWP.

  112. 112.

    D.K. Fieldhouse, “The Metropolitan Economics of Empire,” in The Oxford History of the British Empire, Volume IV: The Twentieth Century, edited by Judith Brown and Wm. Roger Louis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 93.

  113. 113.

    Note on Proposal to Issue Cordite to British Regiments in India, 22 August 1893, Mss Eur F108/17, GWP.

  114. 114.

    White to John White, 7 April 1896, Mss Eur F108/98, GWP.

  115. 115.

    4 April, 1896, Gazette of India, p.198 in “Newspaper cutting relating to White’s Services in the Afghan War (1881), Zhob Field Force (1890), appointment as Commander-in-Chief (1892), and retirement (1898),” Mss Eur F108/48 (1881–1898), GWP.

  116. 116.

    White to Lord Elgin, 5 March 1898, Mss Eur F108/19, GWP. For a discussion of how colonial culture interacted with operational practice, including military technologies, see Gavin Rand, “From the Black Mountain to Waziristan: Culture and Combat on the North-West Frontier,” in Culture, Conflict and the Military in Colonial South Asia, edited by Kaushik Roy and Gavin Rand (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2018), 131–56.

  117. 117.

    White to Buller, 23 July 1895, Mss Eur F108/20, GWP.

  118. 118.

    Ibid.

  119. 119.

    White to John White, 12 December 1896, Mss Eur F108/98, GWP.

  120. 120.

    White to Wolseley, 28 April 1897, Mss Eur F108/20, GWP.

  121. 121.

    Roy, The Army in British India, 53. Major-General William Gatacre, who had commanded a brigade during the Chitral expedition, when posted to the Nile in 1898 during the reconquest of the Sudan, had his men file off the ends of their bullets in an attempt to get a similar effect as the dumdum and build his men’s confidence in their Lee-Metford rifles. White to Lord Elgin, 5 March 1898, Mss Eur F108/19, GWP.

  122. 122.

    Stephen M. Miller and Jessica Miller, “Moral and Legal Prohibitions Against Pillage in the Context of the 1899 Hague Convention and the South African War,” War in History 26 2 (2019): 186–7. Also see, Edward Spiers, “The Use of the Dum Dum Bullet in Colonial Warfare,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 4 (1975): 3–14.

  123. 123.

    White to Lord Elgin, 5 March 1898, Mss Eur F108/19, GWP; Laws of War: Declaration of St. Petersburg, November 29, 1868, Conventions and Declarations Between the Powers Concerning War, Arbitration and Neutrality (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1915); as cited, in “The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy,” Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library, accessed 20 February 2020, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/decpeter.asp

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Miller, S.M. (2020). Commander-in-Chief, India: Administrator (1893–1898). In: George White and the Victorian Army in India and Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50834-0_6

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