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Some eight hundred thousand Indian troops fought in the war, and not just on the Western Front, but also in places like Egypt, Mesopotamia (now Iraq) and Palestine.

鈥淚nitially the British perception of Indian troops was that they were second class troops,鈥� says archivist at the Black Watch Museum in Perth, Richard McKenzie. 鈥淣ot that they were second class themselves, they were just not seen as being as effective as European soldiers. But that perception changed very quickly at the start of 1915 when the Indians were involved in some of the bloodiest fighting of the war.鈥�

鈥淭he main battle that Indian troops were involved in was the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in March 1915,鈥� Richard says. 鈥淥ver half the attacking force came from the Indian army, and they performed valiantly. As a consequence, the respect of the British officers rose dramatically.鈥� Overall, sixty thousand Indian soldiers were to die in the First World War.

The intermingling of Scottish regiments - such as the Black Watch - and Indian troops led to many cultural crossovers: Indian regiments became enamoured of the bagpipes. And for their part, British troops adopted Indian words such as 鈥榖lighty鈥� and 鈥榗ushy鈥� into their everyday speech.

For all that, Richard McKenzie believes we don鈥檛 recognise sufficiently the contribution played by not just Indian troops but all of those soldiers who came from across the British Empire to aid the Allied effort:

鈥淲e concentrate too much on the British troops and the British commanders. Sixty thousand Indian troops died and yet their memorial at Neuve Chapelle is the least visited of all the memorials on the Western Front. Why is that? I don鈥檛 know. As archivists, we have to make people understand it wasn鈥檛 just the French and British armies fighting on the Western Front. Many other peoples were fighting with us, and their sacrifices and the challenges they overcome need to be understood and remembered.鈥�

Image Black Watch & Indians Hold The Line: Copyright: Getty/George Eastman House

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