The Punjab princely states maintained their own forces, and from 1888 the larger ones contributed Imperial Service Troops, trained and equipped to Indian Army standards and available to the government of India.
The Patiala Imperial Service Troops fought in China in 1900, in East Africa and Mesopotamia and Gallipoli in the First World War, and in the Second World War in Malaya, Italy and Burma.
Jind, Nabha, Kapurthala and Faridkot maintained smaller contingents with similar records.
The Patiala state also had an air wing, an armoured element and its own arsenal.
In 1947 and 1948 the Patiala forces were sent to Kashmir, where a Patiala battalion was among the earliest units in the valley.
In 1948 the state forces were merged into the Indian Army. The 15th Punjab and other units carry the lineage.
A state of about half the size of a modern district ran an army that fought in China, Africa, Europe, Asia and Kashmir.
The states recruited from their own subjects, and service was a route to land grants and pensions inside the state, which made it competitive in a way ordinary enlistment was not.
The cost fell on the state's own revenue. Keeping troops to Indian Army standard took a substantial share of the budget of even the largest of them, and the smaller states asked repeatedly to reduce their contribution.
The forces were merged into the Indian Army after accession. Their records, their colours and their histories went into the union's institutions and were never separately preserved.