By the time World War I began in 1914, the revolutionary movement had revived in Punjab and Bengal. Though the movement came under intense pressure for some time, Rash Behari successfully evaded capture for nearly three years. In the aftermath of this event, the British Indian police made concentrated efforts to destroy the Bengali and Punjabi revolutionary underground. Matters came to a head when the 1912 Delhi–Lahore Conspiracy, led by erstwhile Jugantar member Rash Behari Bose, attempted to assassinate the then- Viceroy of India, Charles Hardinge. Significant events took place, including assassinations and attempted assassinations of civil servants, prominent public figures and Indian informants, including an attempt in 1907 to kill Bengal Lieutenant-Governor Sir Andrew Fraser. Revolutionary organizations like Jugantar and Anushilan Samiti emerged in the 20th century. Acting as a stimulus for radical nationalist opinion in India and abroad, it became a focal issue for Indian revolutionaries. The controversial 1905 partition of Bengal had a widespread political impact. Rash Behari Bose, key leader of the Delhi–Lahore Conspiracy and, later, of the February plot Parts of the conspiracy also included efforts to subvert the British Indian Army in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I.
This series of events was pivotal for the Indian independence movement, and became a major factor in reforming the Raj's Indian policy.
The conspiracy resulted in the Lahore conspiracy case trials in India as well as the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial - at the time the longest and most expensive trial ever held in the United States. American intelligence agencies arrested key figures in the aftermath of the Annie Larsen affair in 1917. The Indo-German alliance and conspiracy were the target of a worldwide British intelligence effort, which successfully prevented further attempts. Mutinies in smaller units and garrisons within India were also crushed.
The February mutiny was ultimately thwarted when British intelligence infiltrated the Ghadarite movement and arrested key figures. It was to be executed in February 1915, and overthrow British rule in the Indian subcontinent. The most prominent plan attempted to foment unrest and trigger a Pan-Indian mutiny in the British Indian Army from Punjab to Singapore. The conspiracy began at the start of the war, with extensive support from the German Foreign Office, the German consulate in San Francisco, and some support from Ottoman Turkey and the Irish republican movement. It also involved the Ghadar Party, and in Germany the Indian independence committee in the decade preceding the Great War. This rebellion was formulated between the Indian revolutionary underground and exiled or self-exiled nationalists in the United States. The Hindu–German Conspiracy (Note on the name) was a series of attempts between 19 by Indian nationalist groups to create a Pan-Indian rebellion against the British Empire during World War I.