ility of our armies operating in
the Middle East based partially in India and partially at home.... India
has now been admitted into partnership with the Empire, and the Indian
Army has fought alongside of troops from other parts of the Empire in
every theatre of war. Its responsibilities have thus been greatly
widened, and it can no longer be regarded as a local force whose sphere
of activity is limited to India and the surrounding frontier
territories. It must rather be treated as a part of the Imperial Army
ready to serve in any part of the world." Indians interpreted the Report
as an attempt on the part of the British War Office to throw upon the
Indian Exchequer the cost of a larger army than would be required merely
for Indian defence whilst keeping it under its own control for
employment at the discretion of British Ministers far beyond the
frontiers of India. Official assurances were given both in India and at
home that an exaggerated construction had been placed on the meaning of
the Report, to which, moreover, neither the British Government nor the
Government of India was officially committed, and that in any case
Indian troops would not be required to serve outside India except with
the consent of the Government of India. These assurances did not prevent
the Assembly from passing two Resolutions in which it embodied its
strong protests. The second part of the Report, containing practical
recommendations for the reorganisation of the Indian Army, and alone
based on the results of the inquiry actually conducted in India, was far
less criticised.

The army estimates themselves would have been enough to cause dismay
even if the estimates of other departments, upon which the Indian public
looks with more favour, had not clearly been pruned down with more than
usual parsimony to meet the large increase in military expenditure. But
Lord Rawlinson, who had done his utmost to reduce them to the extreme
limit of safety as he conceived it in existing circumstances, wisely
decided to take the Assembly as far as possible into his confidence, and
to explain the requirements of the military situation not only from his
seat on the Government bench but in private conferences, at which
members were freely invited to meet him and his advisers. If he did not
altogether convince them, he gave them food for reflection at a time
when not only our own North-West Frontier but the whole of Central Asia
is still in a state of turmoil,