The Indian Army on the Western Front

This talk, which was delivered 'live' to an online audience by Gordon Corrigan is about Indian Army units that went to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914.

The BEF that crossed to Europe in August 1914 was said, then and now, to be the best led, the best trained and the best equipped body of troops ever to leave these shores. That assessment is probably correct, but it was pitifully small, and while the Territorial Force and the New Armies would make their presence felt eventually, that time was not yet. Then, the only immediate source of trained regular reinforcement was the Indian Army.

In September 1914 two Indian infantry divisions and a cavalry brigade landed at Marseilles en route to the Western Front. In a war not their own, being fought in a far-away country, against an enemy about which they knew little, the soldiers of India and Nepal drew upon their skills, training and traditions in their fighting on the Western Front which encompassed of all the major battles of 1914 and 1915, before being redeployed to Mesopotamia in November 1915.