Army of Empire: The Untold Story of the Indian Army in World War I

516 Pages·2018·17.41 MB·English

by  George Morton-Jack

Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by George Morton-Jack Cover design by Rebecca Lown
Cover image Indian cavalry in France, April 1917 © IWM (Q 2062) ©
Nisha_Images / Shutterstock.com Cover © 2018 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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Basic Books
Hachette Book Group
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Originally published in Great Britain in hardcover and ebook by Little, Brown in
September 2018
First US Edition: December 2018
Published by Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of
Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Basic Books name and logo is a trademark of the
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Typeset in Sabon by M Rules
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018960411
ISBNs: 978-0-465-09404-2 (hardcover), 978-0-465-09407-3 (ebook) E3-
20181025-JV-PC
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Maps
Introduction
Part One: The Road to World War
1 ‘The peasant’s university’
2 ‘Inferiors in the scale of humanity’
3 ‘He merely obeys orders’
Part Two: 1914
4 ‘Vivent les Hindous!’
5 ‘In the nick of time’
6 ‘The riff-raff’
7 ‘That God-forsaken ground’
8 ‘Enterprises and surprises’
Part Three: 1915
9 ‘An anti-British crusade’
10 ‘I could not bear the news’
11 ‘Just like the photos’
12 ‘Keskersay’
13 ‘As when the leaves fall off a tree’
Part Four: 1916
14 ‘The Pasha of Baghdad’
15 ‘A tin full of kerosene’
16 ‘Looking for Germans’
Part Five: 1917
17 ‘A cemetery of reputations’
18 ‘An ambulating refrigerator’
19 ‘No longer a Cinderella’
20 ‘Why did I leave my little trench in France?’
21 ‘Bonjour petite fille Louise’
Part Six: 1918
22 ‘The political self-development of the people’
23 ‘We alone have got to keep Southern Asia’
24 ‘Each one of us must fight on to the end’
Part Seven: Veterans
25 ‘Which side their bread is buttered’
Epilogue
Photos
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Note on names and places
Glossary
Dramatis Personae
Endnotes
Index
MAPS
1 The Indian Army in the First World War
2 The Indian Empire, 1914
3 The Indian Army beyond British India, 1890s–1913
4 The Indian Army on the Western Front
5 The Indian Army in East Africa
6 The Indian Army in Iraq, Iran and Central Asia
7 The Indian Army in the Mediterranean and Middle East