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The very absence of large-scale mutinies in the Indian armed forces between 1939 and 1945 indicates that Indian soldiery was quite content with British military service. Moreover, there were no overt hostile communal feelings among different religious communities within the Indian Army despite the rise of Hindu–Muslim animosity in the ‘greater’ society. How, in the absence of a nationalist ideology, the Indian soldiers were motivated to fight and die in the age of total war is a puzzle which this chapter attempts to resolve. The British could separate the soldiery from the host society by providing tangible and non-tangible incentives to the jawans. Military discipline further converted the agricultural labourers in the ranks into automatons of sorts, while racial/ethnic pride partly enabled the Indian soldiery to encounter the brutal ‘face of battle’.

This chapter grapples with the question whether the defeat of the British Indian Army at Kut was inevitable or not? And India’s responsibility for the disaster at Kut is also considered. This chapter is divided into four sections. The first two sections show that certain innovations occurred as regards tactics and operation in Major General Charles Townshend’s force. While the first section details the initial advance from Basra, the second section shows how the lure of Baghdad gradually pulled IEFD towards its nemesis at Kut. The third section portrays the Siege of Kut. The fourth section shows that the relief column failed to relieve Townshend’s besieged force at Kut, because of logistical cum tactical failure. The failure at Kut was caused due to a mix of organizational–logistical–personal failures and also due to certain shortcomings in the field of tactics–operation.

British colonialism in India was prolonged and deep. By contrast, British rule in Africa, including in Nigeria, was relatively short and superficial. This chapter analyzes the motives, mechanisms, and impact of British colonialism by comparing these two experiences. The economic importance of India to Britain was far greater than that of Nigeria. Crown rule over India was established with brutal force and sustained via despotic institutions of rule. The Scramble for Africa was sparked by growing competition among European powers, but the economic context was also important. The British left behind moderately well-functioning state institutions in India but an impoverished economy, in which the life expectancy of an average Indian was thirty-two years. In Nigeria both the state and the economy that the British left behind were seriously underdeveloped.