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Summary: Well Presented Account of the Indian Corps in WW1
Review: This well researched and nicely presented book, by Gordon Corrigan, offers the reader an insightful and interesting account of the Indian Corps during the first year of the Great War. The book provides a detailed combat narrative of the period between 1914 - 1915 when the Indian Corps served on the Western Front. The author, who served in the British Army from 1962 to 1998, spent some time in command of a Gurkha unit and his love for these brave and resourceful soldiers shows in this account.The book is well written and covers a large range of material and subjects concerning the Indian units who served on the Western Front as part of the BEF until they were re-deployed to Mesopotamia in November 1915. Not only are the battles covered in detail but the make-up and performance of the Indian Corps is assessed and a number of myths and stories are clarified and laid to rest. The author takes the time to give you the background of the Indian Corps and how it was organized and recruited to function under much different circumstances than the attritional warfare of the Western Front. He then shows the problems encountered by the Indian Army on the Western Front due to it being raised, trained and equipped to fight skirmishes on the Indian frontiers and not a modern European war. At the end of the book you feel that the officers and men of the Indian Corps did an outstanding job during that first year of the Great War and that they might not have received the credit that they were due. That they had fought in every major British battle during that period and suffered horrendous casualties fighting in a country they knew little of and in a war that had nothing to do with them and still retained their loyalty and faith in the British Empire was quite amazing. The author has utilised a number of first-hand accounts throughout the narrative, which give you a small idea and feeling of the Indian troops fighting in France. A number of black & white photographs and detailed maps are provided throughout the book and are of a decent standard. Overall this is an excellent account covering a little known and sparsely written about aspect of the First World War. I am sure that any student or reader of this period of history will enjoy this book and will learn something new to take away after putting the book back on its shelf.
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Summary: Canon fodder for a rotten Empire
Review: Whereas the Indians, even today, are treated as second class citizens, Edwardian England suffered no qualms by handing out first class journeys to Wallhalla to their colonial subjects when crunch time came, no matter how untrained,under equipped or un suited they were to industrial warfare in a Continent which most had never seen, but which was destined to be their final resting place.
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