Baroness Flather
Main Page: Baroness Flather (Crossbench - Life peer)
Baroness Flather (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, for giving us such an interesting snapshot of the events that are likely to take place. We do not always get to hear what might be happening and now we will have a record in Hansard to see what is planned. I thank him for that. I also thank him for the opportunity he has given us to speak about what is very close to our hearts. So many noble Lords have spoken about this event—can you call it an event? I do not know whether it is an event, or what it is, but it was particularly awful. As I grow older, I find images of war more and more upsetting. I just cannot get my head round the fact that we did so much killing of each other, but that is a different point.
People have spoken about their own personal connections. The noble Lord, Lord Laming, said that we are losing that connection because our generation will probably be the last one that has a personal connection to anyone who was in the war. My father was a stretcher-bearer in Mesopotamia. He would not talk about it. Other noble Lords have said that their fathers would not talk about it. Their experiences were so appalling that they were not able to share them with their families. My brother was 12 years older than me and I asked him whether he would talk to our father to see whether he could get some information. He told me that my father would not speak about his experiences but I think that they must have been awful for him because he came from a privileged background and was a student in this country. Mahatma Gandhi said that Indian students could volunteer for the war effort but should not volunteer to kill people. That is why my father became a stretcher-bearer. We have heard how hard the war was for stretcher-bearers. In addition, given my father’s background, he must have had great difficulty with all kinds of things—for example, the food. One thing we learnt was that he had to live on bully beef. Of course, as most noble Lords know, Hindus do not eat beef, so he had to put up with some little things and some big things. Some of us therefore have a connection with the Great War through our families.
The term “Commonwealth” has been used; indeed, that term is used continually. We have to realise that the Commonwealth is a new creation; it did not exist during the Great War. If we use just the term “Commonwealth”, we subsume in it the Indian contribution, which was very substantial and more than that of most other countries, including that of some other colonies. India was a colony at that stage. The Indian contribution stands on its own and needs to be remembered as that and not be subsumed into that of the Commonwealth.
The dominions were in a different position at that time and they are still in a different position now. In fact, one of the reasons why the Indian political leaders encouraged Indians to volunteer was that they hoped that India would acquire dominion status after the war. They had reason to believe that some concessions might be given to India after the Great War. Unfortunately, things did not quite work out like that, and 1919 was a particularly awful year, but, again, that is a different story. It is important that India’s contribution is not sidelined and does not become a footnote. I do not think that is fair. India provided a huge number of men and large amounts of material—1.5 million men. The princely states sent their armies to join the military here. The Kashmir regiment was sent to east Africa and was commanded by General Smuts, who tried to get behind the Germans. Eventually, there was virtually no one left, not because of the fighting but because of dysentery and malaria. Only about 20 men were left in the end because of sickness, so things were not particularly wonderful.
While we are thinking of the Indians it is very important also to remember that the Jamaicans were at the Somme. A lot of people do not know that and do not think about it. Not many Jamaicans or people from the Caribbean were involved in the Great War because that area was not heavily populated. India was an enormous source of men and materials, whereas the Caribbean islands were not but they still sent men. It took the Jamaicans six months to get permission to join the British Army and possibly die for the mother country. These issues are extremely important for the future of this country because the people who live here now are connected to those events and should be aware of what their ancestors did. They were prepared to give their lives. What else is left when you are prepared to give your life? Then we have the Africans. They, of course, fought in Africa because the Germans were there. In the Second World War, the Africans fought in other theatres. The Indians fought in almost every theatre in Europe and other countries—France, Belgium, Aden, East Africa, Gallipoli, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Persia, Salonika, Russia, and even in China. There was no area in which the Indians had not taken part.
I could say a lot more but I see that time runs on—as it always does. However, I want to say a word about the memorial. There was no memorial to the Indians, the Africans or the West Indians. It was for me a sad realisation that they had not been remembered. In the Second World War 2.5 million Indians took part and were much more crucial than even in the First World War. Who was crucial in the First World War? People were being sent to die for yards of land. The noble Lord, Lord West, said that there were clever people in command, but you sometimes wonder. The respect for the lives of men was practically non-existent. It is said that the life expectancy of an officer in the war was six weeks. That tells us something.
I should also like mention that the father of the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, discovered the Gurkhas during the Great War and connected himself to them after that. I wish that he was speaking about his father because he was an important figure during the first and second wars.
The right reverend Prelate has been such a support to us over the memorial. He has never missed a single ceremony, which we have each year—otherwise the memorial becomes just stone. We want people to come and realise that it is something. Someone said that it is about people. Yes it is about people, and that is why we have the ceremony at the memorial. I have been having a continuous battle with David Dimbleby because he does not mention the Indians except during the wreath laying. Six or seven people lay wreaths, and he mentions all the kith and kin, the dominions, but not the Indians. Things have to change in the next four years, and the Indians should be given their proper place.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, on the first speech I have heard that seemed correctly to address what was meant to be the subject of the debate, which is the programme to commemorate the centenary of the First World War. That is the subject to which I wish to address my remarks. I congratulate the Minister on his very clear introduction setting out this programme. It is a tribute to him that there have been so few criticisms of the programme. Other noble Lords have quite understandably come up with some very interesting recollections or historical analyses but have not commented much on the programme that is proposed. I declare that I have a slight interest as a member of the advisory committee that the Prime Minister has appointed under the leadership of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Support, ably supported by Dr Andrew Murrison. Dr Murrison deserves considerable tribute. He has been through changes of Secretary of State and has kept the continuity there. I see the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, a fellow member of that committee, acknowledging that.
I hope we have got the tone right in the approach we are taking, but one draws from it the lessons that I hope people in our country, particularly the young, will understand. One of the weaknesses of the First World War is that we had a Second World War, and people think that it is called the “First World War” because of the Second World War. Of course, it was the first world war. We had had the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimea, the Franco-Prussian War and the Boer War, but this was a war of a dimension quite unlike anything that the world had previously seen. One of the most graphic illustrations of that was the figure that my noble friend gave, which has been echoed by many noble Lords in their tributes, about the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and its work. I understand that there are 23,000 cemeteries around the world for British or Commonwealth war dead. That brought it home very clearly.
The commemoration has already started in various ways, and there has been most interesting analysis. The war may puzzle the young and the not so young. I do not know how many noble Lords have been to the National Portrait Gallery, but there is one picture that has stuck in my mind. It is of George V and Tsar Nicholas at the wedding of the Kaiser’s daughter. Just as a little joke, they had swapped uniforms. The Tsar was an honorary colonel or general in the British Army—I think he was in a cavalry uniform—and George V was wearing Russian uniform. The cousins are standing together. It is not surprising that people found it difficult to believe that they would get to fighting each other viciously.
There are so many stories. My noble friend Lord Lyell told of his family’s many heroic involvements. I thought of my father. He was 18 in 1919. He was in embarkation camp at Folkestone when the armistice was signed, but for the previous four years every Sunday night in the college chapel, the headmaster had stood up and read out the names of the boys who had left the year before and had been killed in the war. Many of those young men knew that they were going to be 19 and 20 and that if they succeeded in getting a commission as a young subaltern, their chances of reaching 20 or 21 were pretty minute. Psychologically, that must have had a huge impact.
I do not want to enter into the causes of or responsibility for the war which noble Lords have talked about. Undoubtedly there was a militaristic background. There was no question that Germany had built a very substantial military capability, and when you have that, there are always a few generals who are keen to see if they can try it out. We had a pretty good Navy but we did not have much of an army. Our Army was the Indian Army, which was much bigger; tributes have been paid to the Commonwealth. I went to the anniversary of the Battle of La Bassée, which took place in 1914, in November, in the rain. I saw where the Indian soldiers had come by ship to Marseille and by train into the trenches, still wearing tropical uniforms in northern France in November. The trenches were half-filled with rain; if the soldiers were wounded and fell, they drowned. We owe them a debt: we would not have survived without the support of the Commonwealth, particularly the Indian Army.
Baroness Flather
We have used this term “Commonwealth” an awful lot. In those days there was no Commonwealth. With all due respect to noble Lords, I think that they are somehow subsuming India in this new thing called the Commonwealth. India should be remembered.
Lord King of Bridgwater
I accept the noble Baroness’s point.
The background to this includes a little story which may interest the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. I was reading the memoir of my grandfather-in-law, who was wounded in the trenches and sent to Ireland to act as a resettlement officer for returning, injured Irish guardsmen and others. He was captured by Sinn Fein in the south of Ireland and found himself in a difficult situation when, suddenly, a bunch of German soldiers turned up under a German officer. That German officer looked pretty vicious, but then walked up to my grandfather-in-law and said, “You don’t recognise me, do you? I used to be a waiter at the Charing Cross Hotel. I was a German spy and was sent there from 1900 to 1914. Then I went back and joined the German army, and now they’ve sent me over here in an intelligence role”. There was a certain amount of preparation by somebody at that time. The Germans were obviously making sure that they could protect themselves as best they could.
I have a few comments on how we are going. It is absolutely right that we should recognise the role of the Commonwealth; I have great respect for the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, and Indians and others who wish to be represented. For that reason we are accommodating them by having this first service in Glasgow at the Commonwealth Games. My worry is that it is the day after the Commonwealth Games. How many Commonwealth leaders are actually going to stay beyond the games? It is important if that service is in Glasgow—when others might have thought Westminster Abbey would be the obvious location for it—that a real effort is made to ensure that a good number of Commonwealth leaders are there. The vigil in Westminster Abbey with the turning out of the lights, which is to be replicated in churches around the country, must therefore have full support.
There are lessons to be learnt about the courage of our young men of that time and the appalling dangers they faced. It has been pointed out that there was no conscription until 1916, and I do not think any tribute to all those who went and served before that time, in full knowledge of the horror that they faced, could be too great. My noble friend Lady Williams said that we have learnt the lessons of history in 70 years of working together and that there is no risk of any war again. I look at the situation in Ukraine, which we have discussed before, and the risk of Russia perhaps seeking to expand its activities. We can never be complacent. We must always be alert. We must always use every possible form of diplomatic relationship, and must always be aware of how great the price might be if we were to get involved in conflict.