"quality of Native troops of India" Topic

I know that several battles were fought in India between the Native troops and Europeans (British, French) in 18th and 19th century. But usually the opinions about the Natives are quite negative. Were they really so bad ? Not one thing was good about them ? I would like to hear especially from the English contributors to this forum. Thank you.

I think the 'problem' is that the native troops are different 'types' fighting in different styles, so direct comparisons are of little use.

Having said that, Europeans were supremely confident in their capabilities.

Native commanders were mostly political leaders while the Europeans were often career military men who just ran rings around the natives.

David F Brown

In the seventeenth and early eighteenth century European warfare was new to the sub-Continent and the combination of close order drill and musketry or close support artillery an unknown for Indian forces, hence a somewhat one sided picture. Having said that the Portuguese managed to get themselves thumped around the middle of the century – Buxar in 1763 was also a defeat and the army and tactics that Tipu fielded gave the British a good run for their money. Where things become interesting is where Indian states and nations began adopting certain elements of European warfare and retained their own specificities as well. It is unlikely that any light cavalry have ever surpassed Skinner's horse or some of the light regiments in the service of Holkar and when we move on to the Sikh Wars – even allowing for Paddy Gough and his Tipperary tactics – the only way they are not remembered in history as unmitigated disasters for the Brits is the politics and treason in the ranks of the Sikh commanders – several times the Anglo-Indian army was done for only to be saved by the Sikhs turning around and marching off the field. Admittedly there were some incomprehensible moves on the part of some of the British subordinate commanders as well (sending the Horse Artillery away at inopportune moments etc.) but if the Sikhs had not been riddled with these problems and fought under a single general such as in the earlier period Tipu it is hard to see how Britain could not have avoided defeat – certainly until it did what it usually did in a colonial context when things got dodgy and rolled up with overwhelming force.

They were pretty good by the 1840s for the Sikh Wars!

If they are native levies led as evilgong notes by political figures, and armed with blades or – at best – obsolete firearms and not very many of those, they're not going to do well against troops led and armed European-style. The raw material of native troops and sepoys was presumably much the same, with leadership, equipment and organisation being the differentiators.

In modern management-speak, it's all about People, Process and Technology. At Rorke's Drift 100 guys with rifles held 4,000 Zulus with (mostly) spears to a draw. If you look at what either side needed to turn the draw into a victory, the defenders needed a piece of Technology, eg machine-guns or something, to get beyond standing the Zulus off and move up to scything them down at a rate that would rout them.

The Zulus for their part needed a Process to break into a fortified position defended by rifles; once inside the perimeter, both sides are armed with spears, in effect. Nobody really had such a process until about 1918.

Giving either side another 100 guys armed with spears wouldn't have made any difference. Only having spears wasn't the big Zulu problem. European cavalry mostly used spears too and tactically must have manoeuvred about as fast as Zulu light infantry did.

Indian wars, same thing. Mahratta armies – lots of People but a lack of Process and Technology; European armies – not many people, compensated for by more Process and more Technology.

Of those, probably the Process is most significant. Mobs of disordered troops tend to lose to formed bodies of well-ordered troops even when the latter have the same technology and numbers.

Didn't The Duke (Wellington, not Wayne) say that Assaye was the toughest battle he ever fought?

Tippoo sultan's Mysore army is on my long list of 'must research and build one day'

The Sikhs are a useful case to study as they appear to have shaped their army to match the Europeans as best they could – and earned a reputation for toughness.

The difference seems to have been drill and technology. It was easiest for the Indians to close the gap in both for artillery, and this indeed caused the British the most problems (in the Maratha and Sikh wars), from what I understand. The Indians may have been good individual fighters but were late in developing methods of fighting en masse in close formation.