Abstract
The ordnance establishment of British India was rightly regarded as the fourth arm of defence by the British. Especially after the 1857 mutiny, they understood that fire-power generated by the artillery and advanced small arms actually led to victory against numerically superior ‘rebels’. Instead of depending on imports from Britain, which were not only time-consuming, but costly and also intermittent, the colonial state decided to lay the foundation of an industrial base for manufacturing military stores. This was in anticipation of future military threats.
Neverthless, several factors hampered the expansion and modernization of the arms and munitions factories. This article, based on some hitherto unused sources, is the first attempt to chart the evolution of the ordnance factories until the Great War.
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