The Corps was founded by Maharaja Ganga Singh of the Indian state of Bikaner, as the Ganga Risala after the British government of India accepted his offer to raise a force of 500 soldiers. The state of Bikaner had a long tradition of using soldiers mounted on camels. For instance, in 1465 Rao Bika led a force of 300 sowar (or camel riders) to conquer neighbouring territories.[1] Ganga Singh led the Ganga Risala when it fought in the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, in Somaliland in 1902-1904 to quell the Somali Uprising and in Egypt in World War I. At the Suez Canal in 1915 the corps routed the opposing Turkish forces in a camel cavalry charge.[2] The Corps fought in the Middle East in World War II, when it was supported by the camel-mounted Bijay Battery, which became a mule team battery.