A still more important work of reconstruction was effected in the army. The experience of the Mutiny had left no doubt as to the necessity of fundamental change. The European force of 45,000 men, as Lord Dalhousie had left it, had been proved to be disastrously insufficient. The numbers of the native army were in a still more striking degree excessive. It was now resolved that the proportion of native to European troops should, for the future, not exceed two to one, and that the field and other Artillery should be exclusively manned by Europeans. The numerical effect of the arrangements thus carried through was to garrison India with an European force of about 70,000 European and 135,000 native troops. The number of the Europeans was reduced in later years to 62,000: but in 1885 political considerations, arising out of the proximity of Russia to our north-west frontier, led to an increase of the European force by 11,000, of the native force by 19,000 men; and in 1887 the Indian army consisted of 230,000 men of all arms, of whom 73,000 were British.
The question of numbers was comparatively simple. Grave differences of opinion arose as to the future organisation of the force. There was an old-standing controversy, dating from the days of Pitt, as to the policy of maintaining a local European force. That force had grown speedily in the early times of the Company, and within a few years of Plassey had numbered more than 11,000 men. Pitt had appreciated the inconvenience and danger of an army independent
