The Pakistan Army was created on the 30th of June of the year 1947 from the division of the
British Indian Army. The then soon to be created
Dominion of Pakistan received six armoured, eight
artillery and eight
infantry
regiments compared to the twelve armoured, forty artillery and
twenty-one infantry regiments that went to India. Fearing that India
would take over the state of
Kashmir, irregulars, scouts and tribal groups entered the Muslim majority state of Kashmir to oppose the
Maharaja of Kashmir 1947. In response to this, the Maharaja acceded to India. The
Indian Armed Forces were then deployed to Kashmir. This led to the
Indo-Pakistani War of 1947.
Regular Army units joined the invasion later on but were stopped after
the refusal of the Chief of Army Staff, British officer
General Sir Frank Messervy,
to obey Pakistani leader Muhammed Ali Jinnah's orders to move the Army
into Kashmir. A ceasefire followed on UN intervention with Pakistan
occupying the northwestern part of
Kashmir
and India occupying the rest. Later, during the 1950s, the Pakistan
Army received large amounts of economic and military aid from the United
States and Great Britain after signing two mutual defence treaties, the
Baghdad Pact, which led to the formation of the
Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), and the
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in 1954. This aid greatly expanded the Pakistan Army from its modest beginnings.
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