Bengal Army
The Bengal Army was the army of the Bengal Presidency, one of the three presidencies of British India within the British Empire.
See also: Bengal Presidency Army UnitsBengal Army
1756–1895 (as the Bengal Army)
1895–1908 (as the Bengal Command of the Indian Army)
105,000 (1876)[1]
Nainital, Nainital district (1895–1908)[2]
The presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the East India Company (EIC) until the Government of India Act 1858, passed in the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, transferred all three presidencies to the direct authority of the British Crown.
In 1895 all three presidency armies were merged into the Indian Army.
History[edit]
Origins[edit]
The Bengal Army originated with the establishment of a European Regiment in 1756.[3] While the East India Company had previously maintained a small force of Dutch and Eurasian mercenaries in Bengal, this was destroyed when Calcutta was captured by the Nawab of Bengal on 30 June that year.[4]
Ethnic composition[edit]
The Bengal Army of the East India Company was mainly recruited from high castes living in Bihar and the Awadh.[29]
Prior to 1857, company military service was most popular in the zamindaris of North and South Bihar with the East India Company signing contracts to raise levies of troops from them.[30] Recruits from the Rajput and Bhumihar caste were common and they would use service in the Bengal Army as an opportunity to raise their wealth and status and for this reason, the Bhumihar zamindaris of Bihar became "prime recruiting grounds" for the Army.[30]
In the 1780s, the Company maintained a major recruiting station in Buxar with six companies under a Captain Eaton. These recruiting stations in Bihar were kept as "nurseries" which supplied battalions when drafts were made. Other recruiting centres were located in Bhagalpur, Shahabad, Monghyr, Saran and Hajipur.[30]
Brigadier Troup, who served as the commander of Bareilly, stated of recruitment that the ‘Bengal native Infantry came chiefly from the province of Awadh, Buxar, Bhojpur and Arrah.’[30]
In 1810, Francis Buchanan-Hamilton noted in his account of the districts of Bihar, that the number of men absent from Shahabad to serve in the Army was 4680. The Ujjainiya zamindar of Bhojpur also informed him that 12000 recruits from his district had joined the Bengal Army.[30]
Writing in The Indian Army (1834), Sir John Malcolm, who had a lifetime's experience of Indian soldiering, wrote: "They consist largely of Rajpoots (Rajput), who are a distinguished race. We may judge the size of these men when we are told that the height below which no recruit is taken is five feet six inches. The great proportion of the Grenadiers are six feet and upwards."[19]
Both prior to and following 1857, the Bengal Army included what were to become some of the most famous units in India: Skinner's Horse, the Gurkhas from the Himalayas and the Corps of Guides on the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.[31]
Because the Bengal Army was the largest of the three Presidency Armies, its Commander-in-Chief was, from 1853 to 1895, also Commander-in-Chief, India.[37]
Commander-in-Chief, Bengal Command