Sideshows of the Indian Army in World War I

Through the course of the centenary of the Great War, dialogue around Indian Army’s involvement in various battlefields stretching from France to Gallipoli and Mesopotamia has intensified. The interested public is now more aware of India’s contribution to the Great War. What is not widely known is the extent of Indian Army’s involvement in other Great War and post-Great War battlefields around the world.

Sepoys and Sowars of the Indian Army were involved in military actions in Macedonia and the Egyptian Western Desert, and from West Africa to China. The enemies were varied Germans, Bulgarians, Turks, enemy African Askari and Arab irregular troops, Mesopotamian insurgents, Somali, Senussi, Baluchi and Persian tribesmen, and Russian Bolsheviks who used Austrian and Hungarian former prisoners of war in their forces. But the regiments operating in these far-flung outposts of European Empires did not falter, and every campaign that they were involved in was successfully concluded or drawn to a close for political reasons.

This book highlights the lesser known campaigns undertook by the Indian Army of undivided India. It is hoped that it will generate a strong sense of pride in the battlefield achievements of a generation of warriors who all volunteered to serve, wherever in the world that service took them.

Harry Fecitt was born in Lancashire, England, in 1942. Eighteen years later he was commissioned into the British Army as an infantry officer. Forty years later he relinquished that commission and at that time he was employed as a Reservist officer in the Intelligence Corps.
The high point of his military life was in the early 1970s when he commanded a rifle company of Baluch soldiers, also serving on contract, in the Dhofar Campaign that was being waged in the south of the Sultanate of Oman. That experience aroused a keen interest in the history of the Indian Army that served under British rule.

He writes for several military journals and has recently co-authored a book that describes the impact on and the military activities of the Naga tribe of north-eastern India during the 1944 Battle of Kohima.

Introduction
1. Military Operations in Aden during 1914 and 1915
2. Military Operations on the North-West Frontier and in Baluchistan – October 1914 – March 1917
3. The Actions at Shimber Berris, Somaliland, November 1914 to February 1915 Indian Sepoys fighting with the Somaliland Camel Corps
4. The 36th Sikhs at the fall of Tsingtao, China October to November 1914
5. The Suez Canal 1914-15
6. The Hong Kong-Singapore Mountain Battery in Egypt, Sinai and Palestine 1915 – 1918
7. The East Persia Cordon and the Sarhad Operations, 1915 – 1917
8. Indian Military Transport units in Macedonia 1916 – 1918
9. The 25th Cavalry (Frontier Force) in German and Portugese East Africa– September 1917 – February 1918
10. Operations in Transcaspia 1918 – 1919 Sowars, Sepoys and Guides fight the Bolsheviks
11. Fighting The Tangistanis Bushire, Persia, July – September 1915
12. The Gurkha Action at Tor, Sinai The 2/7th Gurkhas in action on 12th February 1915
13. Atonement: The 5th Light Infantry in German Kamerun August 1915 to February 1916
14. The 5th Light Infantry in East Africa March 1916 – January 1918
15. Lake Victoria, German East Africa, 6th December 1915
16. The 15th Ludhiana Sikhs and the Senussi The Egyptian Western Desert, November 1915 to February 1916
17. The 40th Pathans in action in East Africa January 1916 to February 1918
18. Indian Army Units in Action, March to mid-June 1916
19. Kisangire and Kisiju – Operations north of the Rufiji River Delta, German East Africa October and November 1916
20. The 22nd Derajat Mountain Battery (Frontier Force) in East Africa – December 1916 to December 1918
21. Indian Army Battalions in the Battle of Ramadi, Mesopotamia, 27-29 September 1917; Gurkhas, Garhwalis and Punjabis in action
22. The 30th Punjabis at Tandamuti Hill and Nakadi Ridge, East Africa – February – October 1917
23. The Kuki Rising 1917-1919 Insurrection in north-eastern India and Burma The Indian Labour Corps in the Great War and the Kuki tribe
24. Fighting the Marris and the Khetrans The Duki Column of the Marri Field Force, Baluchistan. February to April 1918
25. Indian Army units in Dunsterforce North-West Persia in 1918
26. Reforming and Redeploying The 120th Rajputana Infantry in southern Persia and Seistan 1918 – 1920
27. Death on a Dark Desert Night Scinde Horse sowars and Sikh Pioneers fighting to the death in the Manchester Column disaster. Hilla, Mesopotamia, July 1920

Bibliography

Maps
Chapter Location Map
East Africa Map
Middle East Map

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Sideshows of the Indian Army in World War I

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

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