THE INDIAN ARMY--BEGINNING OF WAR.
The Empire of India, with its population of more than three hundred
millions, is held by an army which, compared with the hosts of European
nations, is a small one. Great Britain has never had in India much more
than seventy thousand British troops, not one man to four thousand of
the population--a conclusive proof, if any were needed, of the fact
that British rule in India is based rather on the goodwill of the
Indians than on force. No doubt in the last resort the white soldier
is the mainstay of the Government against sedition and revolt; but if
sedition and revolt were ever more than partial they would need a much
larger garrison to suppress them. Three hundred millions of people
would not be indefinitely “kept down” by an army of seventy thousand
foreigners, however brave and well disciplined. The truth is that
the British supremacy in India, though it has at times involved hard
fighting, was founded upon the consent and active co-operation of the
Indian races, and is maintained by the same means.
Not only is the number of British troops in India comparatively
small, but the British Government has not feared to raise and keep up
alongside of them an army of Indian regular troops twice as strong, and
to arm and make efficient for war other bodies of men drawn from the
population, notably some fine contingents of soldiery in the Feudatory
chiefships. Altogether it may perhaps be roughly computed that at the
outbreak of the War in 1914 the Crown had at its disposal in India,
counting local volunteers, perhaps a hundred thousand armed white men
and two hundred thousand Indians. This force had to maintain internal
order throughout a country as large as all Europe excluding Russia,
and to defend the frontiers against any aggression from without. It was
regarded, and organised, not as two armies sundered by the colour-line
and mutually suspicious of one another, but as one army in which the
white regiments and Indian regiments served side by side, as they had
served for many generations in many wars, mutually trusting one another
and fighting as comrades against any enemy who might threaten the
interests of the Indian Empire.
Some of these enemies had been fought at a great distance from
India--in China, in Persia, in Egypt, and in other countries across
the sea; but until now Indian troops had not been employed in the
battlefields of Europe. More than a hundred years before a great
“sepoy General,” who had learnt his trade in India, had commanded
British armies against the soldiers of Napoleon; and countless other
British officers and men had served both in India and Europe. India
had, in fact, to quote Henderson’s ‘Science of War,’ been “the great
training-ground” of the British Army. And Indian troops had at times,
in Asia and Africa, crossed swords with European enemies. Nevertheless,
the Indian Army, as such, had not fought in Europe, and the British
officers who commanded Indian soldiers had not often served, even
individually, in European wars. No Indian soldiery fought in the
Peninsular War, or at Waterloo, or in the Crimea, or even in the Boer
War, though a contingent of white troops from India did go out to South
Africa then, and saved Natal. England, in fact, had hitherto regarded
the Indian Army, and the vast reserves of Indian races on which that
Army could draw, as a source of strength only for her outlying wars,
not as a portion of the Imperial power upon which she could rely if
attacked in Europe. That may be said in spite of the fact that on one
occasion the far-sighted Beaconsfield had as a demonstration brought a
few Indian troops to the Mediterranean.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: EMBARKING AT BOMBAY. NOVEMBER 1914]
Unluckily, it may be observed here, this view, and other reasons,
prevented the Indian Army in recent times from being brought up to
the mark required for scientific warfare in Europe. While the Home
Army was being modernised and improved in every way after the Sudan
campaigns and the Boer War, the Indian Army was left without similar
attention. It was quite fit for Asiatic warfare, but in training, arms,
and equipment, its splendid officers and men found themselves at a
great disadvantage when employed against European troops of the latest
model.
This, however, was not understood by Great Britain.
Now that she found herself involved in a conflict with the greatest
military power the world has ever seen, and woefully short of British
troops in England to support the comparatively small force she could
send to the help of France, her eyes turned to her great dependency;
and fully assured of the loyalty of India, in spite of the seditious
movements of the past few years, she decided to make use of the reserve
of trained strength she had hitherto set aside, and to let the Army
in India, British and Indian, have its share in fighting the common
enemy on European soil. It was a bold decision, full of important
consequences for India and for the Empire; but it was taken, and the
call was sent out.
So, when the Thirteenth Hussars received their orders for the front,
they were summoned not as an individual Regiment of British Cavalry,
but as part of the Meerut Cavalry Brigade, made up of one British and
two Indian Regiments, the 3rd and 18th. This Brigade in its turn formed
part of an Indian Cavalry Division, the 2nd, and the 2nd Division
formed part of an Indian Cavalry Corps.
On the 13th of November the Thirteenth left Meerut by train, in three
detachments, and went down to Bombay, where they were to embark.
What their destination was they did not know for certain, but it was
believed to be somewhere west of Suez. As a fact, their destination was
Marseilles, but during the two days they remained in Bombay waiting to
embark, they received no definite news of this.
Bombay, the great western port of India, with its magnificent harbour
and wooded hills and teeming city, was at this time a very busy scene.
It had originally come to Charles II. as a portion of the dowry of
Catherine of Braganza, and had been transferred by him to the East
India Company for an annual payment of £10, a striking exemplification
of the almost magical development of the British Empire in India. Now
it was of great value as a commercial port, and as the harbour from
which the Indian Government was to carry on the activities entailed
by the war. But a Regiment embarking for service had little time for
thinking of such matters, for there was much to be done in the two
days that elapsed before the troops went on board. On the 17th of
November everything was ready, and the embarkation began. Many of the
horses were piteously frightened at their novel experience, some of
them “screaming like children” as they were slung up into the air and
lowered into the hold; but they soon got over their terror, and the men
worked splendidly in the Indian heat, the sweat streaming down their
faces and through their coats. Before night men and horses were all
safely on board, and there had been no mishaps.
The strength of the Regiment when it embarked, under the command of
Lieut.-Colonel Symons, was 20 officers,[7] including the Medical
Officer, 499 other ranks, including the Assistant-Surgeon, 560 horses,
and 1 pony. Several officers were on leave in England, and some of
them were expected to join later; but others had already gone to the
Front, of whom 2 had been killed and 2 wounded.[8] The Regiment was
distributed in two transports--Headquarters and three squadrons, “A,”
“B,” and “D,” on board the _Dunluce Castle_, “C” Squadron and the
machine-gun detachment on board the _Risaldar_. During the 18th of
November the vessels remained at anchor, for they were to form part of
a convoy, and some of the other ships were not quite ready to sail; but
on the 19th all was in order, and then at 9 o’clock in the morning the
whole convoy, to the number of 26, weighed anchor and steamed slowly
out over the sunlit waters of the harbour. Outside, the convoy stopped
to pick up a few more ships joining from another port, and then the
whole formed up, six abreast, and, led by an escorting cruiser, sailed
away to the westward. It was a fine sight, though a sad one for the
women of the Regiment, who were left behind on shore. Many of them had
looked their last upon their men. But that is war.
[Illustration: THE DEPARTURE FROM BOMBAY. 19TH NOVEMBER 1914]
It was a striking incident that the convoy was escorted from Bombay by
the _Dupleix_, a French man-of-war. In the old days, when the French
and English were fighting out their long struggle for the mastery
of India, the English had no more dangerous enemy than Dupleix, who
tried to raise against them a confederacy of Indian powers, and as
some believe taught them the use of Indian soldiery trained after the
manner of Europe. Sea-power, which he did not understand, baffled all
his efforts and decided the struggle in favour of England. Now, if the
spirit of the great Frenchman had returned to the shores of India, he
would have seen the same sea-power again triumphantly exerted, and
would have watched his own countrymen, in a vessel which bore his name,
joining with his old enemies to convey to the shores of France, for the
help of France, thousands of Indian soldiery drilled and disciplined
after his own fashion. If he could have gone with them he might have
seen another and even more striking example of the irony of fate. He
might have seen on the shores of the Channel the figure of another and
greater Frenchman, looking down from his lofty column, not upon the
ranks of his veterans gathered together for the invasion of England,
but upon the tents of numberless British encampments full of Englishmen
assembled on French soil to fight for France. A hundred years before,
English sea-power had foiled his vast schemes of conquest. “Those
far-distant, storm-beaten ships upon which the Grand Army never
looked, stood between it and the dominion of the world.” And they had
prevailed. Now English sea-power was fighting on the side of the Army
of France, and the old enemies combined were to bring down in ruin
another scheme of universal empire.