ABSTRACT
In 1940-41 Winston Churchill drove through decisions and made choices that shaped the war effort of Britain and its Commonwealth/Empire for the next five years. Since no part of that vast imperial structure was more important than India, Churchill's choices in 1940-41 therefore shaped the war India's army fought. Churchill's experience of India was slight. He went there in 1896, a subaltern in a British cavalry regiment. On the eve of the Second World War then Churchill's knowledge of India and of the Indian Army in particular was in fact very weak, and none of his many military acquaintances were Indian Army officers. Churchill's weak grasp of the realities of the Raj and its army in 1940 is not, perhaps, so very surprising but unfortunately he believed he knew a great deal. This was a problem with which his Secretary of State for India and Burma, Leo Amery, had to cope with indifferent success throughout the war.
