A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details 1. ‘A Hazardous Experiment’: The First World War and Changing British Civilian and Military Attitudes to the People of India Karen Leenders PhD University of Sussex June 2018 2. I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or part to another University for the award of any other degree Karen Leenders ‘A Hazardous Experiment’: The First World War and Changing British Civilian and Military Attitudes to the People of India Karen Leenders This thesis extends the current scholarship of the social impact of the First World War by analysing the influence of the contribution of the Indian soldiers on the Western Front on civilian and military perceptions of Indian people and how this varied between those who encountered Indian soldiers in person and those who did not. The work sits on the historiographical boundary of the First World War, Empire and the social history of Britain in the post war years and makes use of newspapers, first person accounts and manuscript sources. The impact upon the civilian population is analysed by examining the manner in which Indian people were represented in the media in the years before the war and comparing this with later representations in the years during and after the war. The work of Porter and Mackenzie and the ongoing debate about the significance of the Empire to the British people is used to ground the argument. The thesis fids that, despite an increased awareness and interest in India and its people during the war, the public soon settled into a pre-war apathy towards its Empire. The military chapters briefly examine the history of the Indian Army and its time in France and the changes made by the British Army to facilitate the service of the Indian soldiers in Europe. It discusses the negative view of the Indian Corps which has been perpetuated by historians during the twentieth century and provides contradictory arguments against a number of these assertions. The thesis concludes that, while the Indian Corps’ time in France positively impacted on British civilian and military opinion of Indian people, those who directly encountered them formed the most favourable views. 3. ‘A Hazardous Experiment’: The First World War and Changing British Civilian and Military Attitudes to the People of India INTRODUCTION 6 The Significance of Empire to the British public 11 Historiography 13 Methodology 19 Chapter Structure 24 PART ONE: THE CIVILIAN EXPERIENCE Chapter One – ‘The Dusky Son of Hindostan/Will by our banner stand’: Representations of Indian people in Britain 27 Representations of Indian People in the Years before the First World War 28 The Impact of the First World War on Representations of Indian Soldiers 32 Rudyard Kipling, the Indian Army and the First World War 47 Conclusion 52 Chapter Two - ‘Crowds and Cheers and Bunting’: Changing Attitudes of the British Public 54 Indian People in Britain before the First World War 55 The Impact of the First World War on Attitudes to Indian People in Britain 61 Indian Soldiers in Brighton 61 The Indian Soldiers’ Fund 73 Conclusion 77 PART TWO: THE MILITARY EXPERIENCE Chapter Three - ‘Tenacity, Courage and Endurance’: British Military attitudes to the Indian Corps during the First World War 81 The Indian Army before the First World War 82 The Martial Race Theory 86 4. Motivation to join the Indian Army 88 British Military Attitudes to the Indian Corps 89 Welfare Provision For the Indian Corps during the First World War 97 Conclusion 104 Chapter Four - ‘Those who take up the pen to criticise’: British Military assumptions about tactical problems in the Indian Corps 108 The Importance of British Officers to the Indian Soldiers 111 The French climate 118 Disciplinary Problems among the Indian Corps 120 Sedition and Censorship 127 The Indian Perspective 130 Conclusion 131 Chapter Five – The Immediate Post-War Period: British Society and Indian Soldiers 136 The British Civilian Population 136 Race Riots in 1919 136 Indians in Post War Britain 139 The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre 139 The Political Stage 142 The British Empire Exhibition & the Empire Marketing Board 143 The Domestic Political Stage 146 The Imperial War Graves Commission 148 Empire & Dominion Troops during and after the First Word War 152 The Military Perspective 157 The Indianisation of the Indian Army 157 Conclusion 161 CONCLUSION 163 BIBLIOGRAPHY 170 5. Illustrations ‘Are we Afraid?’ British Library – 1915 Propaganda Postcard, https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/are-we-afraid-no 11 ‘India for the King’, Punch, 9 September 1914 36 ‘Living Statues in place of shattered effigy’ War Illustrated, Volume 3, 1915 39 ‘Cuffy, the Colonial, and Sinjin, the Sikh, pinch the Kaiser’s Christmas Pudding’, 40 Picture Fun Weekly, No 307, 26 December 1914 ‘Indian Women as spectators’ Daily Mirror, 4 August 1919 79 ‘Statesmen of World War One’ Sir James Guthrie, 147 National Portrait Gallery, NPG2463 6. Introduction Introduction At the start of the First World War there were grave concerns in the British military establishment about involving troops from Undivided India in a European war, particularly in the European theatre. Lieutenant-Colonel J.W.B. Merewether, The Chief Record Officer of the Indian Corps, recorded in his memoir that their participation in France was considered to be ‘a hazardous experiment.’1 This thesis will examine how British military opinion shifted from this standpoint to a position of high regard as the war progressed. Alongside this, the civilian population developed its understanding of and formed a new sympathy towards the people of India. This thesis extends the current scholarship of the social impact of the First World War by analysing the influence of the contribution of the Indian soldiers on the Western Front on British civilian and military perceptions of Indian people and how this varied between those who encountered Indian soldiers in person and those who did not. The work sits on the historiographical boundary of the First World War and the social history of Britain in the post war years and makes use of newspapers, first person accounts and manuscript sources. The impact upon the civilian population is analysed by examining the manner in which Indian people were represented in the media in the years before the war and comparing this with later representations during and after the war. Those who encountered the Indian soldiers in Britain dwelt principally in those towns on the south coast which hosted wounded men in hospitals. A case study of the public reaction in the town of Brighton will illustrate the positive reception given to the soldiers and demonstrate that British people who encountered the Indian soldiers formed more positive opinions of them than those who did not. The military chapters examine the history of the Indian Army and its time in France and the formal military changes which were wrought in the aftermath of the war, at least in part as a result of the changed perceptions of the Indian Corps following its success in 1 Lieutenant-Colonel J. W. B. Merewether, The Indian Corps in France (London: Murray, 1918), 469 7. Introduction France. It discusses the negative view of the Indian Corps which has been perpetuated by historians during the twentieth century and contrasts this with the highly positive view of contemporary military men of all ranks who held them in high regard. It will be shown that those who encountered the Indian soldiers, whether from the civilian or military worlds developed far more positive views than those who depended on stereotypical representations, even though the nature of these stereotypical representations also changed over the course of the war. It is these subtleties which this thesis will explore and analyse. The thesis concludes that the Indian Corps’ service in France positively impacted on British public opinion, both within civilian and military circles, and that it was those who directly encountered and interacted with the soldiers who formed the most favourable views. This therefore be used to draw out the changing opinions of the general public and military establishment. The choice to focus on the civilian and military perspective, rather than the political implications, will serve to fill a gap in the narrative of empire, as the juxtaposition of India’s First World War service and its effect on British perceptions of empire has not been as well served by historians as the imperial dimension, which historians such as Bernard Porter, Cain and Hopkins and Christopher Bayley cover, alongside the more traditional Oxford History of the British Empire and its later companion volumes.2 As well as illustrating how perceptions changed in the years before, during and after the war, this thesis will seek to explain how the changes in perception came about. While their service in Europe between October 1914 and December 1915 will be the focus of the study,