First World War: Personnel from the Indian Subcontinent

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, for initiating the debate. We shall for the next five years be marking the centenary of the Great War and remembering the horrors that it represented. I pay tribute immediately to all those who are planning events to commemorate the war, from the Imperial War Museum, to local museum services and to the thousands of community and local groups.

In the UK, we tend to think of the war in terms of family memories, local war memorials, the volunteers who responded to Kitchener’s call to arms, the Somme, Passchendaele, the war poets, literature, plays and so on. However, the role of the Indian Army in World War I is not as widely understood in the UK as it should be. I hope that the centenary commemoration over the next five years will be an opportunity to redress the balance.

The Indian Army played a critical role in France and Belgium in the early days of the war because it plugged the line on the western front before Kitchener’s army was ready to cross to Flanders and France. As we have heard, it was the first time that troops from the Indian Army had fought in Europe. The Indian Army also played a critical role in Mesopotamia in the early months of the war. In 1914, it was the largest volunteer army in the world and, during the course of the war, over 800,000 volunteered for the army and 400,000 for non-combatant roles. Some 657,000 troops went to Mesopotamia; 144,000 to Egypt and Palestine; 138,000 to France. Troops also went to East Africa and Gallipoli, and there were of course people in the navy and merchant navy. In autumn 1914, troops were moved from India to Mesopotamia to secure the oilfields if Turkey came out in support of Germany. As I mentioned, the movement of troops to Europe at the end of September 1914 was to help hold the western front against the German invasion of Belgium and France.

How do we mark the role of those from the Indian subcontinent and all that they did? There are two ways: places and people. On places, we have to have specific events on the western front. First, the role of the Indian Army in the first battle of Ypres in October 1914 was particularly important. In the first attack, on 26 October, the Indian Army demonstrated huge bravery, with over 200 soldiers killed. Secondly, its role at Neuve Chapelle, 25 miles south of Ypres, two days later on 28 October, when the German troops had driven a gap in the British lines, was marked. Its troops were engaged for six days in house-to-house fighting in Neuve Chapelle: 500 Indian Army officers and men were killed and almost 1,500 wounded. On 23 November, when German troops broke through at Festubert, near Ypres, Indian Army troops were ordered to recover the line by dawn, which they did showing immense bravery. I suggest there should be events at all three of those places, on the relevant centenary dates, to mark their massive contribution in those early days of fighting on the western front.

More troops were committed to Mesopotamia, which was largely an Indian Army campaign. Despite eventual success, by October 1918 11,000 Indian Army troops were killed, with 4,000 more dying from wounds and 12,500 from disease. Some 51,000 were wounded, many of whom were shipped home in inadequate hospital ships because they had to use ordinary troop ships. We should also mark the disaster at Kut, in the spring of 1916, where 9,000 Indian Army soldiers were captured and marched northwards. They were not treated as prisoners of war and 2,500 died on the march. We have heard about the East Africa campaign and Gallipoli, where another 1,700 died in 1915.

Turning to people, we have heard about the award of Victoria Crosses. There were nine on the western front, eight in the first two years of the war and they were won in Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt. Is there a case for commemorating the award of those crosses in the towns and villages the recipients came from in the Indian subcontinent or, perhaps, through their descendents? Some practical demonstration of our thanks to them is particularly important.

In conclusion, we have to express our appreciation to the people of the Indian subcontinent. Last year, I stood at the India Gate in Delhi pondering the enormous contribution made by so many individuals. Let us not forget that people from the Indian sub-continent kept volunteering throughout the war. We owe them a very great deal for the sacrifice of so many so far from home.