Mountbatten, Auchinleck and the End of the British Indian Army: August–November 1947

Abstract

Juxtaposing the private papers of Louis Mountbatten and Claude Auchinleck, this article seeks to shed light on the most influential factor in the reconstitution of the British Indian Army into the Indian and Pakistani armies, namely, the two men's worsening relationship between April and November 1947, in view of what each saw as the other's partisan position, and its consequences: the closure of Auchinleck's office and his departure from India. In doing so, it brings to the fore another aspect of that fraught period of transition, at the end of which the British Indian Empire was transformed into the dominions of India and Pakistan, and highlights the peculiar predicament in which the British found themselves during the transfer of power.