Untold lives blog

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the award of the Victoria Cross to the first soldier of the Indian Army.  Born in 1888, in the village of Dab in the Chakwal District of the Punjab, Sepoy Khudadad Khan was a machine gunner in the 129th Duke of Connaught’s Own Baluchis. 

 
Sepoy Khudadad Khan from  The Indian Corps in France ... With portraits, illustrations and maps, etc. John Walter Beresford Merewether and Frederick Edwin Smith (London, 1917).  Images Online

The action in which Khudadad was to be awarded the VC took place during the First Battle of Ypres, in which the Allied forces attempted to prevent a German advance to the coast to seize possession of the Channel ports and cut the British supply lines. The 129th Baluchis were part of the Lahore Division, which reached Marseille at the end of September 1914, and were immediately put into the front line near the strategically important town of Ypres. In this opening stage of the First World War, the very static trench warfare which was to characterise the conflict on the Western Front had not yet developed, and the front line was very fluid. Communications were difficult, the terrain was water-logged and offered little natural protection, and small units could easily find themselves surrounded by enemy positions.

 
IOR/L/MIL/17/5/2415

On 31 October 1914, the 129th Baluchis were engaged in heavy fighting around the Belgian village of Hollebeke, in the course of which two machine gun crews of the Regiment were cut off. One of the machine guns was destroyed by a shell, and its crew killed or wounded. A short time later, the British officer Captain Dill was severely wounded. Despite being wounded himself, Khudadad kept working his gun with the other men of his gun detachment until they were rushed by the enemy in overpowering numbers. All were killed except Khudadad, who was left for dead. Amazingly Khudadad survived this attack, and under the cover of darkness was able to crawl back to the safety of the Regiment.

Example of Victoria Cross - Foster 4280  Images Online 

The other members of Khudadad’s machine gun crew were posthumously honoured. Havildar Ghulam Mahomed was awarded the Indian Order of Merit, while Sepoys Lal Sher, Said Ahmed, Kassib and Lafar Khan were awarded the Indian Distinguished Service Medals. Captain Dill was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Order. The 129th Baluchis fought in several battles during the First World War, including at Neuve Chapelle, suffering a devastating 3585 casualties out of the 4447 men who served in the Regiment during the war.

Khudadad was treated for his injuries at one of the Indian hospitals in Brighton. He survived the War, and returned to India. He died in Pakistan in 1971.

John O’Brien
Curator, India Office Records

Further Reading:

The V.C. and D.S.O. A complete record of all those officers, non-commissioned officers and men of His Majesty’s Naval, Military and Air Forces who have been awarded these decorations from the time of their institution, with descriptions of the deeds and services which won the distinctions and with many biographical and other details, edited by the late Sir O'Moore Creagh and E. M. Humphris (London: Standard Art Book Co., 1924)

A Matter of Honour. An account of the Indian Army, its officers and men., by Philip Mason (London: Jonathan Cape, 1974)

The Fourth Battalion, Duke of Connaught's Own, Tenth Baluch Regiment in the Great War, (129th D.C.O. Baluchis), by W S Thatcher (Cambridge: Univ Press, 1932) [Reference: IOR/L/MIL/17/5/4301]

Alphabetical list of recipients of the Victoria Cross during the campaign from August 1914 to 30th April 1920 (War Office, 1920): IOR/L/MIL/17/5/2415

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Lives of the First World War 

World War One had an impact on some surprising people.  The Government of India reacted to the events in Europe by interning and repatriating Austrian and German citizens including missionaries and madams, who were the subject of an earlier story on Untold Lives. 

The expulsion of missionaries had a major impact on organisations like the Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Mission. Removal of the German Jesuits from British India was reported in Ireland and William F. Dennehy, the outraged editor of The Irish Catholic,  even wrote to the India Office defending the priests.

Nathan Adderblom, Archbishop of Uppsala, wrote to the Royal British Minister at Stockholm to suggest sending Swedish ladies to help run eleven stations, 194 outstations, 57 schools with 3,405 pupils, and a medical mission. He recommended Ellen Hakansson, Malin (Amalia) Ribbing and Ingrid Söderberg, but these applications were initially refused on the grounds of a policy of exclusion while the war lasted. The agitation of the Indian National Party in Stockholm and its suspected links to the Germans was another obstacle. It must have been especially difficult for Ingrid Söderberg, who was engaged to Reverend Paul Sandegren, who was already working in Tranquebar.

After numerous interventions by the Swedish authorities and the involvement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, permission was granted to four missionaries to travel to India. By that time the war was over, the danger of German spies and of submarines torpedoing passenger liners was gone, and the Swedes could finally go. Detailed applications with photographs are in the India Office Records.

 Ellen Josephina Hokannson  

Ellen Josephina Hokannson came from Helsingborg, but was born in Malmo in 1881. She had worked in India before, serving at Pudukotah from 1907 to 1914. She wanted to go back there for another seven or eight years. She had good relations with the London Missionary Society, whose members Reverend  Parker and his wife were willing to recommend her.     

   Ingrid Maria Söderberg 

Ingrid Maria Söderberg was born in Uppsala in 1887. She wanted to work for the Mission of the Church of Sweden at Madura and hoped to marry Paul Sandegren after five years of waiting. Her dream came true when they took their vows at Virudupati on 6 April 1920. In 1955 Ingrid sailed to Bombay on the Chusan travelling with an Indian passport. It was her home.  

        Bertil Gustav Israel Sjöstrand 

Bertil Gustav Israel Sjöstrand and his wife Rut Hedvig Sjöstrand both came from clergy families. They were a young and eager couple wanting to join Ellen Hokannson at Pudukotah. He was born in Tofteryd and her origins were in Oppeby. 

   Rut Hevig Sjöstrand  
 

Bertil was educated in England at Cliff College Training Home and Mission in 1919. Both he and Rut had difficulties obtaining  visas but eventually, after intervention from the Conference of Missionary Societies and the Wesleyan Home Mission, they got permission to travel to India. They lived at a mission of the Church of Sweden at Kodaikand with their children.

Dorota Walker
Reference Specialist, Asian and African Studies

Furrther reading:

IOR/L/PJ/6/1441 File 2012 Case of seven Swedish missionaries requesting permits to enable them to proceed to Madras, Dec 1915-Jan 1920.

British in India Collection for baptisms, marriages and burials from the India Office Records

The contribution of women during the First World War, whether as munitions workers, members of the Women’s Land Army, determined knitters or sustaining correspondents, is commemorated in our current exhibition Enduring war: grief, grit and humour. One of the individual women featured is Albinia Wherry (1857-1929) whose collection of posters and postcards, donated to the Library, includes material relating to the Women’s Emergency Canteen in Paris which you can see in the exhibition.  (Now extended until 26 October!)

During the First World War she worked at the Women’s Emergency Canteen beneath the Gare du Nord in Paris. Opened in April 1915, initially as an initiative of the Women’s Emergency Corps (a suffrage organisation), with a staff of mostly British women, it was also known as the Cantine Anglaise.

These women are doing their bit: learn to make munitions. Poster [London, 1916]  

Over the course of the war, it provided meals, drinks, cigarettes, magazines, washing facilities and sleeping accommodation for Allied troops. An illustrated account of the canteens in France compiled by Josephine Davies (Work of the Women’s Emergency Canteens in France) gives a flavour of what life was like and the hectic nature of the work especially in the period when the ambulance trains were routed through the Gare du Nord. The chapter on the Paris canteen includes a description of the wonderment of a soldier when he descends the gloomy stairs to find a huge hall, hung with flags and bunting, the inviting smell of sausages and a ready welcome. This sense of the warmth of the welcome is also reflected in the comments quoted by Davies from the Visitors’ Book which include the following accolade: “the most homely place I’ve been in since leaving my home in 1914”.

Albinia Wherry worked at the Paris Canteen from 1915 to 1918 and is recorded in Davies as one of the Paris workers who had been awarded a badge for her service there. Postcards from her collection relating to that period feature both in Enduring war and in the related display Postcards, stamps and covers from the First World War (in the Philatelic Exhibition space on the Upper Ground Floor) and colleagues have posted in our European Studies blog about some of the French posters and Russian postcards from her collection.

Albinia was the daughter of Robert Needham Cust the orientalist (whose diaries are held by the Library: Add MS 45390-45406) and Maria Adelaide Hobart. In 1881, she married George Edward Wherry, a surgeon at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge and a member of the Alpine Club. Her own wide range of interests is reflected in her pre-war publications, including several about art which were aimed squarely at both school children and the lifelong learner. Some biographical material, including a photograph and a family tree, can be found in The Albinia book (about women named Albinia descended from Albinia Cecil), a work she compiled with her cousin Albinia Stewart but which was published posthumously, with the assistance of her brother Robert Henry Hobart Cust, following her death in a car accident in 1929.

See our blog about Sophia Duleep Singh to learn about another remarkable woman who worked for the welfare of soldiers during the First World War.

Alison Bailey
Co-Curator, Enduring war    

Further reading:

The Albinia book…Compiled by Albinia Lucy Cust (Mrs. Wherry). Illustrations and genealogies collected by Albinia Frances Stewart. London: Mitchell Hughes and Clarke, 1929. British Library shelfmark: 10824.b.7.

The Work of the Women’s Emergency Canteens in France 1915-1919. Compiled by Josephine Davies. [London]: [Women's Printing Society], [1919] B.L. shelfmark: YA.1989.a.3456.

Explore over 500 historical sources from across Europe, together with new insights by World War One experts in our World War I online resource

Finding information in the India Office Records about the native soldiers serving in the Indian Army is very difficult. With a growing interest in genealogy in India and Pakistan and the Asian community here in Britain, we receive more and more enquiries relating to Asians. In most cases we are unable to help as the biographical records relating to native Indians were not generally sent to London, but there are exceptions.

At a time when many people are looking for their ancestors fighting during the First World War, the Casualty Appendices to the War Diaries are a great source of information for Indian soldiers who were killed or injured.

There are dozens of volumes covering various fronts:  France, East Africa, Egypt, Aden and Persia. Strangely there are not any casualty appendices for the Force D station in Mesopotamia. The War Diaries exist for the force, but it is quite difficult to extract the names of the killed and wounded. The volumes are not indexed, so it might take days to find a soldier.  The fact that some deaths are reported much later adds yet one more obstacle.

 
 IOR/L/MIL/17/5/4194 

 The entries are brief, but give the most important details: name, rank, regiment, whether killed or wounded, cause of death and the date. All ranks are included: the death of Sepoy Bharat Singh of the 16th Rajputs was recorded on 12 September 1917. Even followers are listed, for example Naik Moonsamy of the 23rd Field Veterinary Section, who died of acute lobar pneumonia at Ronen on 3 July 1916.

There are weekly summaries of casualties and losses from particular actions,such as Nanyati on 5 August 1917.

There are reports of deaths that occurred years earlier.  In telegram No. 244-A, which was sent on 7 October 1917, Subadar Ramji Savant witnessed that Private Ismail Khan died at Karagoro in January 1915 and Private Suleman Khan died in November 1915 at Tabora. They were prisoners of war in German East Africa.

There are also accounts of casualties by regiments:

Not all news was bad news. For example Sepoys Firoz Khan of the 51st Sikhs and Indar Khan of the 53rd Sikhs were removed from the dangerously ill list on 25 August 1915 and Havildar Mohammed Ali of the 17th Infantry was invalided to India in August 1917 because of  problems with his ankle.

Dorota Walker
Reference Specialist, Asian and African Studies

Further reading:

Volumes used in the article: IOR/L/MIL/17/5/3134, 3135, 3212, 3258, 3938 and 4010.

Casualty Appendix to War Diary:

Indian Expeditionary Force ‘A’ France 1914-1919 IOR/L/MIL/17/5/3112-3149

Indian Expeditionary Force ‘B’ East Africa 1914-1919 IOR/L/MIL/17/5/3182-3218

Indian Expeditionary Force ‘E’ Egypt 1918-1919 IOR/L/MIL/17/5/3938-3949

Aden Force 1915-1919 IOR/L/MIL/17/5/4009-4055

Persia 1916-1919 IOR/L/MIL/17/5/4182-4216

Amid the more famous items in Enduring war such as Rupert Brooke’s ‘The Soldier’ and Siegfried Sassoon’s Statement nestles a letter from Mabel Dearmer dated March 1915 (Society of Authors Collection, Add MS 56690, f.151) which refers to the fact that both she and her husband were imminently going to Serbia to work for the field hospitals there. How did this children’s writer and artist come to serve as a linen orderly in Serbia for a unit of women doctors and nurses led by another Mabel - Mrs Stobart? 

   From: Round-about Rhymes. Written and pictured by Mrs. Percy Dearmer. London: Blackie & Son, [1898]. (B.L. shelfmark: 12809.u.27.). Dedicated to Geoffrey and Christopher. 

Mabel Dearmer, born in 1872, was primarily known as a dramatist, writer and artist. She was opposed to the war on the basis of her Christian faith but threw herself into work with the Women’s Emergency Corps, as Chairman of the Publicity Department, and into fundraising for Belgian refugees. Her younger son Christopher enlisted soon after the outbreak of war followed by his elder brother Geoffrey (subsequently renowned for his war poetry). In March 1915, busy organising the production of one of her own plays, she attended a farewell service for the Third Serbian Relief Unit to support a friend. There she heard her husband, Percy, then vicar of St. Mary’s Primrose Hill, announce that he had just been appointed Chaplain to the British units in Serbia and would soon be departing there. 

Mabel made the sudden and dramatic decision to volunteer to join the Third Serbian Relief Unit and approached Mrs Stobart at the end of the service. Although Mabel’s own account, quoted in Letters from a field hospital and Mrs Stobart’s in The Flaming sword in Serbia differ in a few details, both agree that Mrs Stobart was not gripped with instant enthusiasm for the idea and made a few brisk observations about Mabel’s suitability. However, she agreed to take her as a hospital orderly.

Mabel left for Serbia in early April, appointed orderly in charge of linen. She proved an efficient and effective member of Mrs Stobart’s team in Serbia and describes her happiness there (slightly guiltily) in a letter of 16 May. However, by June 1915 she had fallen ill with enteric fever (typhoid). Although she subsequently appeared to rally, another letter in the Society of Authors Collection, dated 23 July, tells of the sad conclusion to this story, namely that Mabel died in Serbia on 11 July 1915 (Add MS 56690, f.153). Poignantly her son Christopher died at Suvla Bay (Gallipoli) only a few months later in October 1915.

Alison Bailey
Co-Curator, Enduring war

Further reading:
Mabel Dearmer, Letters from a field hospital. With a memoir of the author by Stephen Gwynn. London: Macmillan and Co., 1915. British Library shelfmark: 9082.gg.34.
Mabel Annie Saint Clair Stobart, The Flaming Sword in Serbia and elsewhere. London; New York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1916. B.L. shelfmark: 09082.cc.12.

Enduring war: Grief, grit and humour until 12 October 2014
The Folio Society Gallery - admission free

Tonight BBC2 broadcasts the first episode of a new series presented by David Olusoga, 'The World’s War', which explores the contribution of the millions of Indian, African and Asian troops who fought during the First World War.

The Indian contribution to the First World War is documented in the India Office Records, the vast archive of the British administration of India, which is kept at the British Library in London.

Tonight’s programme features an exceptional collection of reports of the Censor of Indian Mails in France held at the Library, filled with extracts from letters of Indian soldiers writing home to their families during the War.  The chief purpose of the Censor’s Office was not to suppress letters, but to gather information about the morale of the soldiers. The British Government feared that uncensored letters detailing Indian soldiers suffering in France could distress their families at home, and so lead to political instability in India, and also might provide military information to the enemy.

You can see a sneak preview of Santanu Das examining the letters in the British Library in the first episode of 'The World’s War', which airs tonight:

The hundreds of letters testify movingly to the trauma the soldiers experienced fighting in France.

One soldier named Bachetar Singh, recovering from an injury to his foot in the Indian Hospital in Brighton in March 1915, wrote to a friend in India: “How can I describe this war?  It is like a furnace in which everything becomes ashes on both sides. When will Ishwar (God) have mercy so that this furnace will be stopped?”.  Murli Dhat Chandola wrote in April 1915: “I have simply come here to die because of my sins, but this is now the last time that I am writing you”.

In the same month, Giyan Singh, stationed at the Indian Artillery Depot in England, described the terrifying weaponry which the Indian soldiers faced on the battlefields of France: “The German is very strong. His ships sail the clouds and drop shells from the sky; his mines dig up the earth, and his hidden craft strike below the sea. Bombs and blinding acid are thrown from his trenches which are only 100 or 50 yards from ours. He has countless machine guns which kill the whole firing line when in attack. When he attacks we kill his men. The dead lie in heaps”.

The Indian soldiers also wrote about the many strange sights they saw. Zabu Shah, a Lance Daffadar with the 6th Cavalry, wrote excitedly in June 1917 to tell his mother about having been in an aeroplane: “I have been up in an aeroplane and was above the clouds for a long time. I am the first native of India to go up in an aeroplane in France but after me I think two or three more have gone up. It is a first class way of travelling particularly in hot weather. Very soon there will be so many aeroplanes that in India people will travel by them instead of by train”.

IOR/L/MIL/5/827/3, f.416 

'The World’s War' starts tonight on BBC2 at 9.00pm. See more details here.

The entire collection of the Censored Indian Mails is digitised and available to view for free online.

John O’Brien
India Office Records 

Read the letter of an Indian Muslim soldier writing from Marseilles

As the formal centenary of the start of the First World War grows nearer, a casual dip into the voluminous files of the India Office’s Political & Secret Department reveals details of a small, sad episode which took place in the autumn of 1915 in exotic Zanzibar.

 
From Les Lacs de l'Afrique Équatoriale. Voyage d'exploration exécuté de 1883 à 1885 (1890)

British Library flickr photostream 

This island off the east coast of Africa had become a British Protectorate in the late 19th century, opposite the mainland colony of German East Africa. When the two countries went to war this meant that an essentially European conflict came to be fought on African soil as well.

The British authorities in Zanzibar gradually came to suspect that Jaffer Thavur, an Ismaili normally resident in Bagamoya in the nearby German territory, was involved in spying for the enemy. He had come to Zanzibar in July 1914 to see his spiritual leader the Aga Khan who was then visiting the island, and on the outbreak of hostilities in the following month he had found himself unable to return home. A thorough search of his lodgings brought to light three concealed unsigned documents written in Swahili (the local lingua franca) and Arabic, both languages which he could not understand. He was put on trial on 23 September 1915 before a military tribunal, found guilty, and sentenced to death. His public execution was set for the morning of 4 October.

On the evening of 3 October, hours before the sentence was due to be carried out, his defence lawyer Mr. Boyce  – the only individual to emerge with much credit from the whole sorry tale – sent a number of communications to the India Office, the Colonial Office, the War Office and to the Aga Khan himself (c/o the Ritz Hotel in Paris) about his client’s case. The file contains a letter to the War Office  which states

   " … the Aga Khan occupies a very important position among Indian Muhammadans [sic] & has done valuable service since the outbreak of war with Turkey in bringing influence to bear on his     co-religionists to remain loyal to the British Govt".

Major General Tighe, the British military governor of Zanzibar, made his feelings plain on 5 October:

     "… I very strongly desire to represent that the interference of civil authorities in proceedings under martial law creates a most undesirable precedent, especially in view of  the doubtful attitude of a certain section of the native population … "

The impasse was broken when the news came back that Jaffer Thavur was a follower of whom the Aga Khan had no personal knowledge, and this was enough for the authorities to abandon any lingering qualms and to proceed with the carrying out of the capital sentence. He was accordingly shot by firing squad at 08.00 in public on 20 October. 

Imaginary drawing of the execution of Edith Louisa Cavell (1865 -1915) on 12 October 1915. Inset, Edith Cavell at home with her dogs Images Online © UIG/The British Library Board 

A factor which may have tipped the balance against him – albeit nowhere mentioned explicitly in the file – was the execution in faraway Brussels on 12 October of the British nurse Edith Cavell, condemned for her role in assisting the escape of Allied soldiers from occupied Belgium. It is at least possible that this shocking and widely-reported case had repercussions very soon afterwards in east Africa.

Hedley Sutton
Asian & African Studies Reference Team Leader

Further reading:  IOR/L/PS/11/98, file P 4718

This year we are commemorating the heroes of World War One – millions from across the globe fallen and wounded . Thinking of the conflict, we have a vision of trenches, gas poisoning, and air strikes. But documents in the India Office Records show how officers and NCOs of the Indian Army met their fate in many different ways.

Most were killed in action. The actual resting place is often unrecorded: against many names there is simply Belgium, France, or East Africa. A total of 1,214 British officers serving in the Indian Army died between 1914 and 1921. Of these, 631 were killed in action and 163 died of wounds before the Armistice.  A further 84 died between November 1918 and September 1921. 

Photo 24/(162) 1/1st Ghurkhas charging and consolidating a trench in France 1915  

Major Gerald Alister Jamieson of the 9th Bhopal Infantry made it back to India after the campaign in Mesopotamia, but succumbed to his wounds a few months later in February 1916.  His fellow officers fighting in the Middle East faced heat stroke (Sub Conductor Reginald F. Goodhand), explosions (Lieutenant Arthur R. Waddams), and burns (Warrant Officer Alfred G. Hawken).  Nearly 80 officers went missing, mostly at sea. One major incident for the Indian Army was the sinking of the S. S. Persia.

Before the peace was signed, 111 officers died of natural causes, with 43 more in the next three years.  Pneumonia and enteric fever were the most common with 21 and 17 casualties respectively.

Captain Patrick Hunter Begg was murdered by his bearer and Major Andrew G. Cowan and 2nd Lieutenant Thomas N. L. Turner died at the hands of sepoys.  Captain Perceval Boyce, Lieutenant Harold S. Elliott, Major Cecil Jarvis and 2nd Lieutenant William R.M. Johnstone died during mutinies and riots.

During the four years of the conflict, 32 died as a result of accidents.  Lieutenants John W. A. Merk, Arthur N. Peckham and Frederick R. Wilkinson fell from horses.  Major General Sir Henry Macandrew died as a result of accidental burns. Lieutenant Frank H. Robertson died in a plane and eight others were accidently shot. Captain Louis P. Gagliardi, Major John O’Leary, Lieutenant Reginald F. D. Plunkett all drowned. Lieutenant Brunton of the Sappers and Miners died in a motorbike accident.

A total of 20 deaths were the result of suicide, alcohol, or poisoning.  All four suicides after the Armistice were committed in Egypt.  Captain Wilfred C. R. Savage died of melancholia in London and Major Arthur S. Noake was lost overboard because of 'delusional insanity'. Captain Eric Cummings and 2nd Lieutenant Edward J. Brown were poisoned. Captain Arthur H. M. Wilson was killed when he fell through a weak roof.

The first officer of the Indian Army who lost his life on the Western Front was Lieutenant Thomas de Burgh, who fell on or about 17 September 1914. The last was 2nd Lieutenant Thomas J. Mander, who killed himself just two days before the Armistice. The youngest casualty was just 18 and there were 12 officers who died under the age of 20. The oldest to die was 60 year old Colonel Gervase F. N. Tinley, the Base Commandant of Marseilles.

Dorota Walker
Reference Specialist, Asian and African Studies 

Further reading:

IOR/L/MIL/14/142 Alphabetical lists of casualties by death among British officers of the Indian Services in the Great War, giving rank, age, unit, date, place, and cause, 1914-1921.