First World War: Empire and Commonwealth Troops

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are planning to commemorate the contribution made by Empire and Commonwealth troops during the First World War.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, 2018 is the centenary of the final year of the First World War, in western Europe at least; fighting continued for some time elsewhere. Since 2013, commemorative debates have been held in your Lordships’ House on various aspects of that terrible conflict. Subjects have included the origins of the war; the long, blood-soaked battles of the Somme and Passchendaele; and, by way of contrast, the rich cultural legacy in literature and art that the war bequeathed to posterity. I hope that later this year we will have a full debate to mark the centenary of the Armistice on the Western Front. However, before that point is reached, I thought that it might be appropriate to consider the immense contribution made by troops from the countries of the British Empire and the Commonwealth, the latter name coming into widespread use during this period. I am grateful to noble Lords across the House who will be contributing to this debate.

The deeds of conspicuous valour performed by Empire and Commonwealth troops were followed with close interest by the retired military commanders, colonial governors and administrators who were prominent in this House at that time. Looking back after the fighting was finished, David Lloyd George, whose great statesmanship emerged so clearly during the second part of the war, concluded that without these brave men from beyond our shores, victory might well have eluded us.

“Had they stayed at home”,


he wrote,

“the issue of the war would have been different and the history of the world would have taken a different course”.

None of this was foreseen. Lloyd George and his fellow Liberal Ministers in Herbert Asquith’s Cabinet would have been astonished if they had been told in August 1914 that the Empire and Commonwealth would play a central part in the conflict. No preparations were made for their involvement; no provision for them was included in the plans for warfare. Even the five self-governing dominions, which thought of themselves as Britain’s partners in a free commonwealth, were completely ignored.

At the outset, the British Government were concerned solely with the threat that German aggression had created in Europe. Not an inch of new territory was to be acquired, the Cabinet decreed. Some 440 million people, the subjects of George V, the King Emperor, found themselves at war by his decree. The 10% who lived in the United Kingdom were expected to determine its outcome.

Everything changed when it became clear that Britain and her allies stood no chance of securing the swift and decisive victory they had confidently anticipated. The moment of truth arrived quickly in the autumn of 1914. It was then that Britain became fully conscious of the immense asset that its Empire and Commonwealth represented. With the unexpected prospect of a long war before them, the British Government recognised in particular the potential benefits of two great strokes of good fortune that they enjoyed. The first was the existence of a large army on the other side of the world. India had over 150,000 men under arms and the capacity to recruit many more. A contingent was rushed to the Western Front to help stem the crisis which had arisen there. Lloyd George paid them a tribute that they deserved for the way they,

“helped us to defend the water-logged trenches of Flanders through the miserable winter of 1914-15”,

when Lord Kitchener, the war supremo who had had experience in India, had only limited success in his efforts to supply them with suitable food.

Although struggling to maintain its morale in wretched conditions, the Indian Corps contributed notably to averting disaster during battles around Ypres in 1915, which were close-run things. Thereafter, the Middle East became the principal arena for Indian arms. The huge new imperial domain, wholly unforeseen in 1914, that Britain acquired from the Ottoman Empire, Germany’s unexpected ally, owed more to the soldiers of India than to any others. The conquests of Mesopotamia and Palestine were achieved mainly by Indian units fighting alongside troops from many other places, from Belize to Fiji and Hong Kong, under British command. Their victories helped redeem the disaster of Gallipoli and the humiliating surrender of 13,000 men at Kut, in the arid, inhospitable land of what is now Iraq, in April 1916. A British soldier wrote:

“Is this the land of dear old Adam?


And beautiful Mother Eve?

If so, dear reader, small blame to them

For sinning and having to leave”.

Indian soldiers bore the brunt of these grim conditions. Altogether, nearly 1.3 million of them fought, representing a 10th of the Empire’s war effort.

Britain’s second stroke of good fortune was the remarkable, spontaneous enthusiasm exhibited at the recruiting offices of the Empire, which were deluged with volunteers. The Australian Prime Minister said:

“Our duty is quite clear: to gird up our loins and remember that we are Britons”.


Within 10 days, New Zealand dispatched an expeditionary force of 8,000 men. Within two months, 31,000 Canadians had been recruited, drilled and sent to Europe. They were the vanguards of the mighty dominion contingents, whose enormous sacrifices on the Western Front won them lasting respect and gratitude. By the summer of 1918, Canada and Australia had each established its own army corps under outstanding national commanders. Their rigorously trained men—better, said many, than the English—were at the forefront in the Battle of Amiens and other great breakthroughs in the last months of the war. They were lauded as some of the best shock troops in the allied armies.

There was a tendency at the time to give the contribution of the dominions undue prominence. Lloyd George provided a just assessment. He wrote:

“It is not too much to say that without the 1,400,000 fine men who rallied to the flag from the Dominions and the 1,300,000 who came to our aid from India the Allies would not have been able to bear the strain of this gigantic struggle”.


There were others to whom the allied cause was also deeply indebted. As well as serving in their own continent, soldiers from Africa joined men from the West Indies in the Middle East; on the Western Front they undertook back-breaking duties. Lloyd George wrote:

“We recruited numbers of labour battalions for the work of transport, supply and construction. Their toil alone enabled us to throw up with much speed new defences and fresh roads and railways”.


What he did not record is that many endured racial insult and abuse. Today, we look back on their vital role with the greatest admiration and thanks.

The Government’s impressive programme of First World War commemoration has been commended, and rightly so, for promoting a fuller recognition of the contributions made by Empire and Commonwealth troops, and for encouraging pride in their achievements among men and women of all races today. Can my noble friend provide details of how these admirable aims are being pursued in this final year of commemoration? Does he agree that there is ample scope for more work in a number of areas—for example, to secure a fuller understanding of the campaigns in the Middle East, which had such fateful consequences for the region and the world?

Traces of the First World War abide in far-flung places, large and small.

“In memory of the brave sons of Smith’s Parish”,


proclaims a plaque in the little country church of St Mark’s, Bermuda,

“who risked their lives in defence of the Empire against the unscrupulous German foe”.

Their Empire proved transient. Germans have long ceased to be foes. But the memory of bravery, and the honour that is due to it, must endure for ever.