Military Division and Brigades of the United Provinces, India: 1907

In one of the older posts, the military districts of India were discussed on this blog. This particular post shall talk about the military divisions of the former United Provinces (today's Uttar Pradesh) circa 1907 and highlighting the various cantonments it still possesses. 

United Provinces was divided into a total of eight brigades. 

1. Dehra Dun
2. Garhwal
3. Meerut
4. Divisional
5. Bareilly
6. Lucknow
7. Fyzabad
8. Allahabad

These brigades were further grouped under two broad Divisions: 

1. Dehra Dun, Garhwal, Bareilly, Divisional and Meerut
2. Fyzabad, Allahabad and Lucknow (together with the Presidency and Assam brigades, this was a different Division)

The Meerut brigade also consisted of Delhi and parts of former undivided Punjab. There was another brigade, Jhansi, but that was a part of the central India group. The Bareilly brigade had the most number of cantonments in the province (5) while Fyzabad had just one. Listing down here the various cantonments under the respective brigades. 

1. Dehra Dun - Chakrata, Landour, Dehra
2. Garhwal - Roorkee, Lansdowne
3. Bareilly - Bareilly, Naini Tal, Ranikhet, Chaubatia, Almora
4. Meerut - Delhi, Meerut
5. Divisional - Muttra, Agra, Fatehgarh
6. Lucknow - Lucknow, Sitapur
7. Allahabad - Allahabad, Benares, Cawnpore
8.  Fyzabad - Fyzabad

The military divisions of the United Provinces belonged to the Eastern Command of the British Indian Army. Some of the most English-styled cantonments such as Landour, Landsdowne and Dehra (or Dehra Dun) were raised in the 19th century by the British. Historically, the three brigades of Dehra Dun, Garhwal and Bareilly were spread throughout the Kumaon and Rohilkhand regions of northern India. This was the home to the Kumaon and Garhwal Rifles regiments of the pre-independent Indian Army. 

The Doab region was what the Divisional section consisted of, which stretched from Aligarh and Muttra (Mathura) in the west to Etawah and Kannauj in the east. The district of Agra separated the entire Eastern Command from the neighbouring Southern Command, of which the Nasirabad and Jhansi brigades were the immediate neighbours. The Fatehgarh (in Farrukhabad district) cantonment raised the Sikh Light Infantry unit in the pre-independent British Indian Army. 

The Meerut brigade had its boundaries stretched from Rohtak to Meerut in the north and Palwal to Bulandshahr in the east. The Indian capital Delhi was also made part of this brigade that was also a cantonment and headquarters of the pre-independent Rajputana Rifles regiment. 

The Allahabad brigade marked the southernmost boundary of the United Provinces and had three cantonments - Allahabad, Cawnpore (Kanpur) and Benares (Varanasi). The district of Jhansi was cut off from this brigade and added to the Central India Agency, which stretched from Kotah (Kota) in the west to Hoshangabad in the south and Bundelkhand in the east. The immediate neighbour to the easternmost town of Ballia was the Chapra (Chhapra) city of Bihar, part of the Presidency brigade. Close to Chapra is the cantonment of Dinapore (Danapur, in Patna) which was the only cantonment in the entire undivided Bihar of that period. Interestingly, in the entire Presidency division, apart from Dinapore, there were just seven more cantonments - Alipore, Ballygunge, Calcutta (Kolkata), Barasat, Barrackpore (Barrackpur, the oldest cantonment of India), Gangtok and Darjeeling. 

The Lucknow brigade, comprising two cantonments - Lucknow and Sitapur - stretched from the Indo-Nepalese border around the Chauka River in the north to Rae Bareli in the south along with the River Ganges (Ganga). 

The last brigade was the Fyzabad (Faizabad, in Ayodhya district) that extended from Bahraich and Nawabganj (Bara Banki) in the west to Shahjahanpur and Chauri Chaura (near Gorakhpur) in the east. Balrampur formed its northern border touching the Terai region of the Lower Himalayas, while Partabgarh  (Pratapgarh) and Sultanpur marking the southern ends. 

The United Provinces wasn't the only province with a large number of cantonments. The Nasirabad brigade that comprised of Rajputana and the Banaskantha region of Gujarat itself had ten cantonments, being one of the highest in that list. The Baluchistan brigade in today's Pakistan had a total of 12 cantonments while the entire southern zone, comprising of the entire Deccan region had a total of 16 cantonments. But the case of the United Provinces is interesting as it was one of the few British provinces that were divided into multiple divisions and brigades. 

Below here is a recreation of a 1907 dated map of the United Provinces, divided into its various Divisions and Brigades. The Roman numeral marking is based on the original Survey of India Office Map.