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.