'HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR BASED ON OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS. THE CAMPAIGN IN MESOPOTAMIA 1914-1918. VOLUME I.' [‎40r] (84/454)

ARMY IN INDIA : PRE-WAR MILITARY POLICY 59
The Secretary of State accepted generally the recommenda
tions of the Majority Report, asked for a general assurance
from the Government of India that the limits within which
military expenditure in the immediate future would be confined
would be on similar lines to the recommendations of the
Majority Report, and stated that until they were in a position
to give such an assurance he would find it difficult to deal
with any separate proposals, involving expense, on measures
recommended by the Committee. The whole question was
still under discussion when war broke out.
The outstanding point to be noted in connection with the
above is that, with the annual expenditure so limited, the
field army recommended could not be equipped on a scale
which would render it fit to meet a European army on equal
terms ; for at that period all European Powers had increased,
or were increasing, their military expenditure, in order to
equip their armies with the latest scientific and mechanical
inventions. The result was to be seen in Mesopotamia.
Economy had become a tradition, and the inherent military
risks attaching to such a policy had also become a tradition ;
risks, moreover, which were generally undertaken successfully
and which, amid general plaudits, had built up the British
Empire ; and consequently British officers have always been
found ready to take the risks, wffiose dangers as professional
soldiers they thoroughly understood, in the firm belief that it
was a necessary part of their British birthright.
The total strength of the army in India had varied from
74.000 British and 139,000 Indian ranks in 1890 to about
76.000 British and 159,000 Indian ranks in 1914. The strength
of the field army had, however, varied considerably in the same
period, and although nominally it amounted, under Lord
Kitchener’s scheme, to nine divisions and eight cavalry brigades,
in 1913 only six divisions and six cavalry brigades were fully
equipped, plans had only been made out for the movement
of five divisions and four cavalry brigades, and it was admitted
that it would take months before the whole of the field army
could be placed on the frontier in readiness for active service.*
The Commander-in-Chief, Sir O’Moore Creagh, in his evidence
before the Mesopotamia Commission shows that he was well
aware of these deficiencies and stated that his representations
on the matter had no result. Sir Beauchamp Duff, who
succeeded him, had not been long enough in the countryf
* Army in India Committee Report.
f Although in the Indian Army, he had been employed in the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors.
at Home for about four and a half years.