Reflecting on the factors that guided the British decision to relinquish their rule in India, Clement Attlee, then the British Prime Minister, cited as the most important reason the realisation that the Indian armed forces might not prop up the Raj. Although the British government had promised to grant dominion status to India at the end of the war, the views held by British officials after the war show that although militarily a failure the Indians who fought for the Axis likely accelerated Indian independence.