In the 19th century Britain moved from the empire where the sun did not set to one which had lost all its power and a number of factors have been cited for this. A book by Anirudh Deshpande examines the British Military strategy during its age of decline.
Besides inadequate capital investment, the armed forces also suffered from a shortage of officers. In the inter-war period, young Britons were not willing to join the army. And racism and insecurity prevented the British government from allowing a large number of Indians into the commissioned ranks.
The Indian army remained a regiment-centric and frontier-oriented force during World War II. Deshpande asserts that the raj had to recruit the urban
