I am pleased to say that a peer-reviewed article I wrote for the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth Studies has just been published online. The print version should come out in a few months. Until then, here is the publisher's online link at Taylor & Francis. 

Here is the abstract:

"This article argues for the importance of the Royal Indian Navy mutiny of 1946 in two key aspects of the transition towards Indian independence: civilian control over the Indian military, and a competition for power between Congress and communists that undermined Indian workers and their student allies.

​"The article begins with an investigation of the mutiny drawing on three sources: a first-person account from a lead mutineer, a communist history of the mutiny, and the papers published in the Towards Freedom collection.

​"In 1946 a handful of low-ranking sailors sparked a naval mutiny that ultimately involved upwards of 20,000 sailors, and then crashed into the streets of Bombay with revolutionary fervour. The Communist Party in Bombay seized upon the mutiny as an opportunity to rally the working class against the British raj, with the hope of ending British rule through revolution rather than negotiation.

​"Yet the mutiny proved less of a harbinger of what was ending and more of a bellwether for what was to come. Congress, sensing the danger of the moment, snuffed out support for the mutiny, and insisted on a negotiated transfer of power. Congress’s action thereby set a precedent for civilian dominance over the military in postindependence India. At the same time, however, Congress betrayed the effectiveness of some of organised labour’s strongest advocates, namely the Communist Party, Bombay students and Bombay labour, thereby undermining their costly mass protest, and hobbling them in future conflicts against Indian capitalists."

​While my author's agreement does not allow me to place the polished, published version of the article on this website just yet, I am able to provide readers with the rough draft of the article I submitted to the editors. Here is the link to the rough draft:         
http://jmmeyer.weebly.com/royal_indian_navy_mutiny_1946.html

​If you would like to read the published version, simply contact me and I can e-mail it directly to you.

Wavell, Archibald. Allenby: A Study in Greatness, George G. Harrap & Co. (Vol. 1 1940; Vol. II 1943.)

 The life of Edmund Allenby, a soldier and a statesman, in many ways anticipated the trials of his first biographer, Archibald Wavell. Born of "old-rooted English stock," Allenby grew into a tall, barrel-chested young cavalry officer. He served among the first generation of officers in which attendance at Staff College, rather than purchase, ensured promotion. He loved literature, the outdoors, and hunting; his letters to his wife rarely depict warfare, but often mention nature. Allenby's first  experience in a contest of arms occurred during the Boer War of 1899-1902. He served ably, but more importantly he developed connections with the soldiers who later became the key officers of the First World War. Such connections helped ensure his promotion through the ranks. When the Great War began he immediately assumed command of a division of cavalry as a major-general. But the weight of command transformed his personality, so that an "easy-going young officer and a good-humoured squadron leader [became] a strict colonel, an irascible brigadier, and an explosive general." Out of fear and resentment, his men coined him "The Bull." The early years of the First World War cemented his reputation, as thousands of men died under Allenby's command as he bluntly executed orders from above. The year 1917 proved particularly fateful. Allenby began the year with serious losses at the Battle of Arrass, removal from the Western front, and the loss of his only son to German artillery shells; Allenby ended the year in the Middle East with the conquest of Jerusalem. The next year, he conquered Damascus. Given fresh resources and a weakened enemy, Allenby commanded one of the most decisive and efficient campaigns in the history of modern warfare as he swept up the Mediterranean coast and destroyed the Ottoman Empire. His relentless energy provided the Egyptian Expeditionary Force with the necessary momentum to decisively defeat the enemy.

 T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom gives a far more heroic portrait of Allenby than Wavell does here; in fact, Wavell goes to great lengths to temper Lawrence's praise with a sober assessment of Allenby's flaws: his zeal for rules, loyalty, and unquestioned service. Wavell writes with praise, and yet a subtle sense of irony creeps into the biography, as though Wavell no longer believes in greatness. While it lacks the humor of some of Wavell's other works, the book sustains interest as a surprisingly impersonal reflection on Wavell's views of military and civilian leadership.

Archibald Wavell (Field Marshal, Viscount, and Viceroy of India) published his two volume biography of Field Marshall Edmund Allenby in the midst of his own challenges. Wavell served under Allenby in the First World War as a liaison and a staff officer with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. As Wavell finished the first volume of the biography, he served as Commander in Chief in the Middle East, a status similar to the command Allenby once held. As Wavell finished the second volume, he held the Viceroyalty of India, a status somewhat greater than Allenby's eventual post of High Commissioner of Egypt and the Sudan.

Latimer, J. (2004). Burma: The forgotten war. London: John Murray. 610 pages.

The longest land campaign of the Second World War took place from 1942 to 1945 in the villages, cities, plains, jungles, wetlands, rice paddies, and mountains of Burma, a British colonial holding crushed in its turn after the Japanese ripped Singapore from Britain's tired imperial hands. Jon Latimer recounts the story of that campaign in Burma: The forgotten war. The British soldiers fighting in the campaign rightly felt overshadowed by the exploits of the Allies in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. History gives little attention to the campaign. The Allies won the war against Japan in the Pacific. And they won the war against Germany and Italy in Europe. Perhaps more accurately, they dominated the Axis powers with superior industrial capacity and manpower. In Burma, resources remained limited for all involved, though the Americans sent a relative fortune over 'the hump' of mountains between Burma and China to reinforce the static army of Chang Kai-Shek; but all that wealth never encouraged his active participation in the war against Japan; instead, he harbored his resources for the slow-burning fight against domestic communist forces. Meanwhile, the British and Japanese scrapped together whatever forces they could muster and uselessly grappled for control over a country that wanted nothing to do with them. Though the Japanese conquered Burma, they never gained a significant foothold along the east Indian frontier.

Yet Latimer's reuse of the phrase 'forgotten war' seems a misnomer. His book makes use of characters that captured the popular imagination for years. Mountbatten, Aulincheck, Wavell, and Slim were the last great generals of the British Empire. American general 'Vinegar' Joe Stilwell spat at the 'limeys' and hacked at the 'Japs' in a largely fruitless attempt to stir the Chinese forces into action. Orde Wingate made enemies with nearly every other British officer in the Indian Army, but while fighting deep behind the Japanese lines with his 'Chindit' guerrilla forces; after his death, Stilwell gained command of the Chindits and threw them against some of the strongest Japanese defenses. And the Japanese Lieutenant General Mutaguchi drove his 65,000 strong force so incessantly against the Indian frontier that 50,000 of his soldiers died, mostly of starvation and disease. The remnants of the Japanese forces dug in throughout Burma but put up little effective resistance. These characters do not speak softly. Nor are they easily forgotten. Yet the horror and meaninglessness of the campaign speaks to a nihilism so aware and so sharp that it must be human, and so incessant that it trivializes the heroics of its participants.

In the opening pages, Latimer explicitly ties himself to the theme of budding Burmese nationalism, but the subsequent chapters only lightly pursue that topic. In the main, the book examines the four year land and air campaign waged across the Burmese landscape, principally by British and Japanese forces. Without a doubt, Latimer shows that the multi-ethnic citizens of Burma suffered tremendously during the course of the war, but Latimer's gaze usually focuses on colorfully rendered wartime experiences of soldiers, usually at their most dramatic moments of their lives. Thus, Latimer fills page after page with farewells to dying friends and rapid-fire character sketches gleaned from diaries, reports, and published memoirs of the war. He also conveys the multi-ethnic nature of the British forces, and the hardships faced by the poorly equipped Chinese forces that Stilwell dragged into Burma. Yet contrary to the author's stated theme, the Burmese people make almost no appearance.

The book contains no maps. The absence of maps proves a boon for spurring the reader to imagine the terrain from the ground, rather than like a god. But maps helpfully express the relationship between martial forces, as well as political, social, and geographic variations. When properly prepared, maps can also dispel any notion of a linear battlefield narrative, which certainly did not occur in Burma. So the decision seems puzzling. [The BBC, however, has produced a useful series of animated maps about the campaign.]

While not quite a comprehensive study of the Burma campaign, Latimer's volume proves both able and useful for any scholar interested in the 'feel' of the fighting. He strongly depicts the horrors of close combat, as well as the wild emotional swings between defeat and victory that each side faced in turn. He deserves credit for his depictions of Japanese soldiers; he never shies away from their brutality, but also reveals their humanity. His explicit theme--the Burmese struggle for independence--hides too much in the corners of the book, but the hefty remainder proves worthwhile.

In the critique above, I did not integrate some of the most engaging ideas I found in Latimer's volume. I will list a few of them here in the form of quotations. 

"While what is presented here is fundamentally a military history, the war in Burma does not lend itself well to a single treatment. Nevertheless, a single theme runs through it: the struggle of the Burmese people for independence after sixty years of occupation" (1).

"Some time after the war a memorial was unveiled near Rangoon dedicated to the '27,000 men of the Commonwealth forces who died in Assam and Burma in the defence of freedom ...'. Given the terrible regime in Burma for most of the time since, one might question whether the war fought between 1941 and 1945 was for 'freedom.'" (1-2).

"By 1941, with 1 1/4 million men in China and 1 million in Formosa, Korea and the home islands, Japan lacked large manpower reserves and to provide five armies (corps) to strike south meant scraping the sides of the barrel, with age limits widened in both directions and student deferments cancelled. Brutality in training became yet more harsh and standards of discipline diluted, resulting in an attitude that crime against superiors was far more serious than crimes against natives. Despite its modernity, much Japanese equipment compared unfavourably with Western models ... funnelling of manpower into the infantry and their ability to live off the land meant the Japanese appeared far more numerous than Allied forces ... Plainly the Imperial Japanese Army was not on a par with that of 1905, or even 1937" (39). 

"Although overshadowed by the fall of Singapore, the battle of the Sittang on 22/23 February ranks as a defining moment in the decline and fall of the British Empire" (58).
[While it's true that Slim called the defeat at Sittang bridge the 'decisive battle of the first campaign,' Latimer's rhetoric overstates the case. The importance of Sittang bridge cannot measure up to Singapore, the largest capitulation in British military history.]

*This isn't a quote, but it seems like an important point of emphasis in Latimer's book. Churchill swapped Auchinleck and Wavell in 1941. Auchinleck won a fresh round of North African victories shortly thereafter. Back in Burma, the Japanese declaration of war forced Wavell into a fighting retreat while at the head of soldiers he barely knew. Wavell insisted that his forces maintain an aggressive posture, and that they counter-attack at every opportunity. Latimer finds Wavell out of touch with the situation on the ground, as offensive action was virtually impossible for the poorly prepared British Indian Army; to some extent, Latimer sneers at what he considers Wavell's foolish refusal to organize a more effective retreat. But the British Indian Army was a totally different force that that on the shores up North Africa, whatever the similarities on paper. Both commands featured imperial forces of mixed ethnicity. Both were motorized. The language barriers might be the same, and pose similar problems of command, but the appropriateness of the training, equipment, and logistics for the particular environment differed completely. AJP Taylor suggested in Warlords that Churchill's sacking of commanders helped spur action and relieve exhaustion. True. But Churchill's action also inspired massive confusion. 

A quote from Wavell: "It is lack of this knowledge of the principles and practice of military movement and administration--the 'logistics' of war, some people call it--which puts what we call amateur strategists wrong, not the principles of strategy themselves, which can be apprehended in a very short time by any reasonable intelligence." (121 in Latimer; also in Wavell's 'The Good Soldier).

"The Japanese did not penetrate as far as Tamu, even with patrols ... In reality no more than a village, it was strewn with hundreds of abandoned vehicles ... filled with grisly emaciated figures who had reached the village after the monsoon had broken" (121).

"Japanese victory was devastatingly complete: British prestige had suffered another hammer blow, discrediting their concept of protecting, civilizing and supervising in Asia" (121).

"[Wavell] was experiencing difficulties with Stilwell, who planned operations without reference to Wavell, 'and I think, without much reference to his staff here who seem to know little ... His senior staff officers here gives me the impression of being overawed by Stilwell and afraid of representing the true administrative picture.' Wavell felt he was effectively communicating with Stilwell through Washington. Certainly Stilwell never showed any interest in administration or logistics, realities that constantly exercised Wavell's mind ..." (131).

"... Orde Charles Wingate's character was a blend of mysticism, passion and complete self-confidence tinged with darkest depression; he was obsessive rude and overbearing. But as things stood, the scheme proposed by this 'broad-shouldered, uncouth, almost simian officer', as Major Bernard Fergusson noted, offered the only prospect of action. In 1946 Fergusson wrote: 'Wingate would do any evil that good might come. He saw his object very clearly in front of him, and to achieve it he would spare no friend or enemy; he would lie; he would intrigue; he would bully, cajole and deceive. He was a hell of a great man and few people liked him.'" (Latimer 155-156; Fergusson, Beyond the Chindwin, pp.20-21). 

"It was Burma's misfortune to have been used as a base for the Japanese 'March on Delhi' and to have suffered from concentrated Allied air attacks against railways and other transportation facilities from 1943 onwards. All the cities along the main north-south axis suffered partial demolition, and the countryside was strewn with ordnance left by both sides ... the Burmese who sought to lead their country to the sunny uplands of Independence found they had to take over a ruined country" (431).

Sometimes Latimer's historical opinion lacks a clear perspective. When writing about allied victories at Mandalay and Meiktila, for example, he notes that the Japanese defenders "had orders to resist to the last--orders that were largely futile since, as Kimura admitted later, 'the only reason it was held at all was for its prestige value'" (392). In what sense is prestige ever futile? He seems to imply 'prestige' lacks strategic value. But it seems to me that prestige is a fundamental spur to war-like action. His writing seems strange, or possibly meaningless in the wider context of the Burma campaign. 

Dutt, B.C. Mutiny of the Innocents. (1971). Bombay: Sindhu Publications.

B.C. Dutt's Mutiny of the Innocents offers a razor sharp first-person account of a forgotten episode in the history of India's long struggle against foreign rule. In the early months of 1946, low-ranking sailors in the Royal Indian Navy began supporting Indian independence, but only after years of loyal service to the wider empire. Their sudden change of heart bewildered both British military leaders like General Claude Auchinleck and Indian politicians like Mahatma Gandhi.

Dutt's story, however, begins with his entrance into the Royal Indian Navy as a teenager. A radio and signal operator, Dutt and his fellow Indian sailors served loyally throughout the war, but lost enthusiasm for their task as profligate racism sets a clear divide between themselves and white service members. Despite the racism, Dutt worked hard, and took pride in his work. He was a cog in a wheel, but thrived in his own way. At the end of the war, Dutt found himself stationed at the HMIS Talwar, the shore establishment where he first learned his trade as a signalman. For Dutt, and his fellow veterans, the future looked bleak. The post-war navy offered few opportunities for advancement; outside the military, jobs were scarce. And many Indians viewed the sailors and soldiers of the Indian military as mercenaries more interested in lining their pockets with British coin than serving their homeland. Dutt's experiences with racism, and his own questions about his role in the British empire, eventually led him to take action in support of Indian independence. Gathering in the canteen of the Talwar, Dutt and a few like-minded conspirators engaged in well-timed acts of minor sabotage. For the most part, they merely distracted sentries and pasted revolutionary slogans on barrack walls. They timed their subversive activities to maximize the embarrassment of their officers.

In February 1946, the authorities caught Dutt. But he refused to cooperate or name his fellow conspirators. Further, he declared himself a political prisoner, rather than an insubordinate sailor. In a political situation already fraught with tension, this caught his superior officers off guard. They tried to respond with restraint in order to keep the situation quiet. But the opposite happened. Dutt's slight success catapulted him into the spotlight. Other naval ratings used a common complaint--the poor quality of navy chow--to rally other sailors to the cause. The ensuing rebellion more resembled a student protest or worker strike rather than a violent insurrection. What began as small demonstrations of discontent expanded into a brief (but bright) flame of outright rebellion, and came to be known as the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny. It ultimately involved upwards of 12,000 ratings (low-ranking sailors). The ratings seized ships and shore establishments throughout Bombay; ratings in Calcutta, Karachi, and elsewhere also gained control of their vessels. The ratings adopted the language of the nationalist leaders, and formed a strike committee to lead the way. The ratings offered to hand over the navy to nationalist leaders in Congress and Muslim League, but received a cold response from everyone except the Communists Party.  

 Congress leaders, especially Sadar Vallabhbhai Patel, quickly organized a truce between the mutineers and the British authorities. Very few ratings lost their lives, and only a few ships were damaged. But for enthusiastic participants like B.C. Dutt, the short-lived mutiny taught them an indelible lesson on the limits of India's revolutionary politics. The nationalist leaders had struggled for decades to achieve Indian independence. Now the leaders could already see the finish line, and yearned to reach it. The British were clearly on the way out. The mutiny, rather than helping the nationalist leaders achieve their objective, threatened to disrupt the delicate balance of power of domestic politics. Besides, the nationalist leadership consisted of lawyers and industrialists and cloaked themselves in the mores of non-violence; they distrusted military personnel out of habit, and the young naval ratings now asking for their help were no exception. Thus, the complex realities of nationalist politics quickly eclipsed the RIN mutiny.

A year and a half later, India won its independence from imperial rule, but at the cost of an independent Pakistan. Jinnah, the first leader of Pakistan, kept an earlier promise and allowed Muslim mutineers to apply for positions in the Pakistan navy. In India, however, newly-minted Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (and the rest of the Congress leadership) opted to keep the mutineers out of the service. The Royal Indian Navy discharged D.C. Butt quickly and quietly; he tried to join Nehru's navy, but without success. He eventually made his way back to Bombay and became a reporter with the Free Press Journal, the newspaper that most closely covered the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny.

We do not often think of mutineers as innocents, but B.C. Dutt's book makes a convincing case that these young men truly did not know what they were getting themselves into. The book begins with a forward from S. Natarajan, the editor of the Free Press Journal at the time of the mutiny. He describes his own interest in the mutiny, and his careful decision to chronicle the efforts of the naval ratings when a few members of their party appeared on his doorstep on 18 February 1946. Though the mutiny ended in meekness, it shared dangerous echoes with rebellions that began elsewhere in the world. When the book transitions to Dutt's voice, the account assumes an uncanny charm. He records the events without malice or resentment. He articulates the views of his enemies with remarkable generosity and restraint.

In particular, Dutt chronicles the motivations of the Indian officers that remained loyal to the navy, and the actions of Commander King, a white officer whose racist language helped the mutiny spiral out of control. In other accounts (including Banerjee's The RIN Strike and Sarkar's Towards Freedom series) King stands a mysterious and foolish monster. But in Dutt's account, Commander King emerges as a complicated and surprisingly sympathetic figure that lacked the political wherewithal and leadership skills to contain the misbegotten mutiny. Like Dutt and King, the ratings and officers initially caught in the strike simply lacked the political sophistication to achieve their objectives.

B.C. Dutt published Mutiny of the Innocents in 1971. Reflecting on his actions of twenty-five years prior, Dutt comes across as an astute observer of human nature. He also has the wisdom to reassess his actions in the rearview mirror, and place them in historical perspective. At times, a sense of humor shines through the book's pages, as when after a late-night attempt at revolutionary graffiti, naval sentries catch Dutt with his hands covered in glue.

Dutt's book stands as a riveting account of political failure in waning shadows of the British raj. Dutt managed, for a short time at least, to rally sailors to take a political stand against the British empire; the rebellion's failure, as Dutt states at the close of the book, was probably inevitable. His revolution failed, but his book succeeds. 

Archibald Wavell, The Viceroy's Journal, ed. by Penderel Moon. 1973, OUP. 528 pp    

The Viceroy's Journal records the first-person impressions, calculations, and musings of Archibald Wavell, a great man given the shoddy task of serving as the second-to-last viceroy of India, 1943-1947. Just prior to the book's opening moments, Wavell led the defense of British Middle East and British Asia, always with limited resources and virtually no proper support from Churchill's cabinet. Churchill thrusts Wavell, a one-eyed soldier with no active political experience, into the civilian appointment of Viceroy of India to avoid giving the popular general further military commands. Instead of riding out the war in comparative luxury (as Churchill expected), Wavell immediately sets to work with intelligence and enthusiasm, helping to end the famine in Bengal, release Gandhi from prison, and lobby His Majesty's Government (H.M.G.) to transfer Indian political power before the end of the war. Wavell records the government’s callow responses with frank and adroit perception. In the viceroy's account, Indian politicians do not fare any better. Gandhi and Jinnah appear as political demagogues, each clumsily manipulating the respective Hindu and Muslim masses. They seem more devoted to party approval than to the competent dissolution of the Raj. "They do not understand how the machinery of Government works in practice," Wavell avers, "and think entirely on the lines of all questions being decided by party votes."

Wavell addresses his readers with roughly three types of journal entries: amusing anecdotes of political machinations, annoyed dismissals of pomp and ceremonial lunches, and engaged analysis of India's economic and political problems. He writes with a calm voice and courageous enthusiasm, even when the task assumes a difficulty of quixotic proportions. Editor Penderel Moon, a former colonial administrator, provides footnotes and appendices that offer an approving assessment of Wavell's influence and understanding of Indian politics. Wavell, a career soldier, also demonstrates an apt mind for interpreting the dialectical highs and lows of British parliamentary politics. Inexpert readers might find Wavell's frequent use of acronyms and titles a little difficult to follow, and updated footnotes would help preserve the book's usefulness for future generations. That said, Wavell evinces a remarkably calm sense of duty and self-understanding, which allows the book to serve as a profound guide to the closing days of the British Raj.

Bayly, Christopher and Tim Harper. Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941-1945.  Allen Lane, 2004.       

In Forgotten Armies, Bayly and Harper embark on a five year odyssey of British Asia during the hell-fires of the Second World War. The authors encounter nearly the full spectrum of humanity: fools, cowards, leaders, and luminaries, but very few heroes; the tensions of British Asia and the Japanese conquest sharpen even the most virtuous of spirits into blades too quick to cut. Racism and class distinctions, prior to the war, make for sordid lives bent towards economic necessity. With the Japanese invasion of 1941, the economic basis for social order disintegrates, yet the terrible distinctions remain. The British imperial power fails to protect its subjects, especially the socially and economically disadvantaged minorities. British Asia collapses in a rush of blood and disillusionment. The fall of Singapore, in particular, stands as a historic embarrassment. In a failed defensive effort with little effort and less planning, a garrison of 85,000 men surrenders to a Japanese assault force of 30,000. Many thousands die in the aftermath. The Japanese conquest feeds off of anti-British sentiment throughout the region, and turns 40,000 captured Indian troops into a detachment of the Japanese army. The Japanese shock troops, rather than liberating British colonies, induce wave after wave of ethnic violence, and glory in the rape of women and the humiliation of men. The British never manage to call the bluff of the overstretched Japanese forces, but eastern monsoons accidentally collude with the Battle of Midway to halt the Japanese expansion. The British Empire crawls back, but never returns to its pre-war position of dominance.

            The book earns its title. One can read a history of the Second World War (as I did just last week) and not hear more than a paragraph about anything that Bayly and Harper uncover. The authors render the political context of the fighting with authority and candor. They maintain a neutral stance towards most agendas and parties, though they exhibit sympathy for nationalist feelings, if not nationalist leaders. The authors write beautifully, and their sense of humanity urges them to include details that others might miss, such as 1942's surreal conjunction of mass starvation in Burma, the kerosene burning of the corpses, and the unusual beauty and quantity of Assam butterflies before the monsoon rains.