Known to God
By R K Jaitly (Captain, Assam Regiment, 119 Inf Bn(TA), Indian Army)
Indians on the battlefields of France
It all began as an ordinary tourist visit idea to northern France. A visit to the French Tourist Office in London produced several brochures for the region. One of the brochures was entitled “The Somme – Remembrance Tour of the Great War”. That struck a chord, Remembrance Day in Britain was a week away, – and we decided on a theme tour of the battle fields in the area ranging from Agincourt and Crecy up to World War 1, and to include Belgium.
What a moving experience it has been.
Anyone who went to school in India during the days of the Raj was required to read British History. I like so many others, had also read about World War 1 (1914-1918), and how it was a war to end all wars. I vaguely remembered the statistics, over a million British and British Empire soldiers killed in battle, over a million and a quarter French killed, so many Belgians killed and so on. However impressive, just cold statistics.
Yet when you actually visit the battlefields, and see the memorials and the cemeteries with row upon orderly row of headstones, as if just awaiting the clarion call of Resurrection to march into battle once again, honouring the dead, you cannot escape emotion.
I should have been prepared for it. Earlier visits to Normandy had shown that every town, every sizeable village, had its own war memorial commemorating the day that that particular habitation had been liberated, and by troops belonging to which country and regiment. Not memorials that had been unveiled with great pomp and ceremony and then left to rot and decay as so often happens in our own country, but memorials looked after, and maintained, every day with loving care.
Ypres
Nor was I prepared for Ypres.
Going around the town today it appears on the face of it another well preserved medieval town. It is not. This city suffered continuous shelling during the whole of that war from 1914 to 1918. It is said that the intensive concentration of explosive was greater than that at Hiroshima. The town was almost raised to the ground. Much of the original town, particularly its main “historic” buildings have been painstakingly rebuilt and restored over a period of 40 years after the Armistice. The Cloth Hall, St. Martins Cathedral, the Town Hall, and the Merghelynet Museum for instance are all replicas of the originals.
In and around Ypres some 500,000 people died during the war. 170 military cemeteries within a few kilometres of the town bear eloquent witness to the terrible carnage. Most of the soldiers who died were between 15 and 30 years of age.
The Flanders Museum at Ypres is no ordinary museum. It is not a celebration of war, nor of victory, but a telling indictment of war, depicting its horror, its effect not only on soldiers but on ordinary citizens, women, children, the aged and all those who endured the trauma of war. The brochure for the museum states “the generation who lived through 1914-18 is dying out. Flanders Fields wants to keep the stories alive for the young people of today as a lasting protest against the war and a cry for peace”. It is an extraordinary experience.
John McRae’s poem ‘Flanders Fields’ suddenly had a new and poignant meaning. Here also is displayed a line attributed to, of all persons, Winston Churchill, not his famous ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’, but to the effect that if all the soldiers went collectively on strike would not the two parties be compelled to find another solution?
The Menin Gate
It is however at the Menin Gate in Ypres that my story really begins.
The Menin Gate is the British Memorial to the 54,896 officers and men who died between the start of the war and the 15th August 1918, and 34,984 officers and men who have no known grave. All their names are carved on the gate (India Gate in New Delhi is a similar memorial). On the face of the gate as you enter from the city side is inscribed:-
“Ad majoram dei Glorium
Here are recorded the names of the Officers and men who fell in the Ypres salient, but to whom the mis-fortunes of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.”
To show their gratitude to, and remember those that gave their lives in defence of their liberty the people of Ypres halt all traffic at the gate at 8:00 PM for two minutes whilst the last post is sounded by the buglers of the Ypres Fire Brigade. This ceremony (apart from the period of occupation in the Second World War) has carried on without interruption hail, rain, shine or storm every day without fail ever since the memorial was unveiled in 1928.
Whilst looking around I suddenly find Indian names, and the names of Indian Regiments. Names of officers and men, amongst others of the 9th Bhopal Infantry, the 35th Sikhs, the 25th and the 31st Punjabis and the 4th Gurkhas. There were hundreds of names. I later on found out that there were 421 names of Indian officers and men engraved on the gate.
That gave me a jolt. I had never given much thought to the soldiers of my country whose remains lie in the cold soil of Flanders thousands of miles from home. The history books in Indian schools today pay scant attention to that gallant band that crossed the “kala pani” (the Black Waters) to fight for a cause of which they would have had little knowledge, to a country they probably would never even have heard of before, a country whose people or language they did not know, nor had any previous connection with.
By the time we finished with the Menin Gate it was already dark and too late to do anything else except to drive back to France to the B&B where we were booked to stay in the Somme district.
It was a five hour drive done largely in silence as rain battered the car. I felt emotionally overwhelmed by the horrors of war, thought of the Poppy wreaths already laid at the Gate, particularly of the cards attached to them, one of which read “Grandpa your photo is still on the mantel piece and we remember you every day” but kept thinking of our boys whose remains lie in the cold inhospitable soil of Flanders. Does anyone remember them? Are there grandchildren in India who have their grandfather’s photographs on the mantel?
The War Memorials & Rommel
Our B&B near Majiz in Picardy was a mansion which Rommel had commandeered and stayed in during the early part of World War II. The broken tiles in front of the fire place where Rommel’s soldiers had split firewood to keep the room warm bear silent witness to that particular occupation.
Our hosts Mons and Madame Onder De Linden helped to plan our itinerary for the next day. The Australian War Memorial, the South African Memorial and the New Foundland Memorial to name a few. I enquired about memorials to Indian Troops and was referred to a cemetery near the Australian Memorial near Perrone. Madame De Lindens aged mother sitting nearby said she remembered Indian Troops during the war.
The next day our first stop was at the Australian Memorial. At the entrance there is an altar-like structure on which is inscribed “Their name liveth for evermore”. Hundreds of soldiers, officers and men killed whilst taking the fortified hill of Mont St Quentin during one of the bloodiest of skirmishes of the war are buried here.
In accordance with the directions of the War Graves Commission that “…. the symbols of their faith will be carved on their headstones ….”apart from the insignia and name of their regiments, their own name and rank, the date of death, and age, most of the graves had a cross on their headstones and a few the Star of David.
The cemetery is beautifully kept as are all cemeteries looked after by the Commission. As I strolled slowly through the cemetery I stopped. There was a grave with neither name, regiment or a mark of the soldier’s faith. Just a stark white headstone with the words ‘Known unto God’. The remains of an unidentified soldier. I wondered who this “Mai ka lal” was.
What however evoked another rush of emotion were the words of a speech by the Australian Prime Minister P S Keating at a Remembrance Day ceremony on 11.11.93. A copy of the speech is preserved in the memorial. I quote part of the speech referring to the soldiers buried in the cemetery known only to God.
“We do not know his rank or his battalion, we do not know where he was born or precisely how and when he died. We do not know where in Australia he had made his home or when he left it for the battlefields of Europe. We do not know his age or his circumstances, whether he was from the city or the bush. What occupation he left to become a soldier, what religion, if he had a religion, if he was married or single. We do not know who loved him or whom he loved, or if he had children. We do not know who they be, his family is lost to us as he was lost to them. We will never know who this Australian was.
Yet he will always be amongst Those we will honour. We know that he was one of the 45,000 Australians who died on the Western Front, one of the 416,000 who volunteered for service in the First World War, one of the 324,000 Australians who served overseas in that war and one of the 60,000 who died on foreign soil. One of the 100,000 who have died in wars in this country.
He is all of them and one of us……”
Who would not be moved.
A little further up the road is the cemetery of La Chapelette which we had been informed had a memorial to Indian Troops.
A small but as usual very well-maintained cemetery in stark almost treeless countryside with a mixture of graves of soldiers from all over the then Empire with the usual inscription ‘Their name liveth for evermore’ at the entrance. On the left of the cemetry there are some 308 graves of Indians. In the front there are headstones marking the graves of officers and men from Hodsons Horse, Jacobs Horse, Central India Horse, 19th Lancers etc. The Hindus had their headstones marked ‘Om Bhagvathe Nama ‘ in Devnagri script and the Sikhs and the Muslims had similar suitable inscriptions in Gurmukhi and Arabic denoting their faith. The names of their regiment, the regimental badge, their rank and names and date of death and age are also inscribed.
Their only weapon a spade…..
At the rear left hand corner of the cemetery were a curious group of graves. No regimental insignia, no rank, many without symbols of faith, just names, Lachman Singh, Hira, Wershom, Chattap Murmu, Chumka, Surin and so on and the number of their Labour Company. Obviously not enlisted combatants but Indian labour, the poorest of the poor, mainly tribals, indentured and thrust into war. Not for them flying pennants, regimental colours or other panoply of war. Their only weapon perhaps a spade. And in the end a grave in the soil of France. A sad sad sight.
We carried on to other memorials. The beautiful South African memorial; to 4,000 men who launched an attack on the 15th of July 1916 and of whom only 143 survived. The New Foundland Park where a battalion of volunteers from New Foundland was ordered into attack on 1st July 1916. In half an hour only 68 survivors lived to tell the tale. The Thiepval Memorial honouring 72,085 British and South Africans who have no known grave. Their names are inscribed on this imposing 45 metre high monument visible for many miles around designed by Lutyens of New Delhi fame.
As I write this, I remember many other touching moments of the tour. A tiny cross with a single poppy pinned on it with a card saying “At the break of dawn and at the return of the night we remember you”, a wreath of poppies from the officers and all ranks of a particular regiment remembering their predecessors who had laid down their lives, an old gentleman touching a name engraved on the Thiepval Gate and weeping silently.
But as we drove back to our hotel that night and on our way back to London my mind kept reverting to my fellow Indians. Does anybody in India remember them? Do any Indians place a poppy of remembrance on their memorials? Do infact the Indians have a proper memorial like the Australians and South Africans?
I decided to find out.
The Indians at war
On my return to London I visited the Commonwealth Graves Commission at Maidenhead, the British Library and the West Hill Library of the Borough of Wandsworth.
There IS a separate Indian memorial at Neuve Chappelle in Pas de Calais of which more later.
The exploits of the Indian contingent during that war are recorded in some detail amongst two books I could find. “With the Indians in France” by General Sir James Wilcox (1920) and the official history of the Indian contingent “Indian Corps in France” by Lt Col JWB Merriweather and Lt Col Sir Frederick Smith, Bart.
General Wilcox referring to the battles in which British troops were involved says “….Of these history shall furnish a brilliant account. It is not always so with Indian troops. Their raconteurs are few and far between, the chief actors in the play still living will probably be counted by tens, not thousands, the rank and file will furnish no writers to thrill the generations to come, they will just pass with the great masses of India content that they have done their duty and been faithful to their salt.
I have considered it a sacred duty and to the best of my ability I have endeavoured to place and record the loyalty courage and devotion of the Kings soldiers from Hindustan.”
These books record the honours and decoration won by Indian troops in the most difficult of circumstances, as they were neither trained nor equipped for this kind of war. They also record the incredible acts of courage that led to the award of the Victoria Cross -the Raj’s highest accolade for valour to six soldiers:- Naik Darwan Singh Negi, 1st Bn 39th Garhwal Rifles, Rifleman Gobar Singh Negi 2nd Bn 39th Garhwal Rifles, Sepoy Khudadad Khan, 129 Duke of Connaught’s Baluchis, Jemadar Mir Dost, 58 Cokes Rifles (Frontier Force), Naik Shah Ahmed Khan, 89th Punjabis and Sepoy Kulbir Thapa, 2nd Bn 3rd Queen Alexandras Own Gurkha Rifles.
Their valour is not only recorded in these books but also referred to at the unveiling on the 7th October 1927 of the Indian Memorial at Neuve Chappelle by the Secretary of State for India, Lord Birkenhead.
The unveiling took place in the presence of amongst others a contingent of officers and men from India who had served on this front in the war, the Maharaja of Kapurthala, Lord Harding an ex Viceroy, senior officials of the Army and Navy, representatives of the High Commissions of Australia, New Zealand, New Foundland and ministers and senior officials of the Government of France led by Marshall Foch.
Lord Birkenhead spoke of them as “…they fought thousands of miles from their homes in strange and unfamiliar surroundings amongst peoples whose tongue they did not know; whose ways were not their ways and whose civilisation better or worse was not theirs…” and “….they fought in a climate to which their bodies were not inured, and for the endurance of which they lacked habituation; most of them made swift exchange for the scorching heat of India for the weeping skies of Flanders. I saw them and I can see them now shivering in those early and primitive trenches their features composed in that mask of fatalism …..their bodies were often broken by the elements but their souls were never conquered…..like the Roman Legionary they were faithful unto death. They had accepted a duty and they discharged it. More cannot be said, more need not be said.”
Marshall Foch addressed the Indian contingent “…return to your homes in the distant sun bathed lands and proclaim how your countrymen drenched with their blood the cold northern lands of France and Flanders. How they delivered it by their ardent spirit from the grip of a determined enemy. Tell all India that we shall watch over their graves with the devotion due to all our dead. We shall cherish the memory of their example. They showed us the way, they took the first steps towards final victory.”
And most certainly the Governments of France and Britain and the War Graves Commission have looked after and maintained the cemeteries and memorials and honoured the dead with solemnity and love.
The first scattering of winter snows
It will be an everlasting regret that due to a lack of knowledge and then time that I did not actually visit the Indian Memorial.
The memorial is described by the War Graves Commission as being enclosed by a circular wall the front of which is pierced and carved. The centre of the railing is solid and on it stands a monolith column in the manner of an Ashoka pillar surmounted by the imperial crown and the star of India. On either side a tiger. The inscription reads “God is one his is the victory. Om Bhagwate Nama”. On the walls on either side are inscribed the names of the missing. There is a domed ‘chattri’ at either end of the wall.
How other countries honour the valiant dead is exemplified by the Remembrance Day services in Britain on the second Sunday in November. The whole of France comes to a standstill and is silent for two minutes on the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month – November, Armistice Day. Whilst we were in France we saw tents coming up and preparations being made for Remembrance functions with a number of cars with diplomatic number plates at the memorials.
On Remembrance Day in London, I stood with the crowds at the Cenotaph to see the Queen attend the open-air service in the rain at the Cenotaph and lay the first wreath. I watched as ex-servicemen, many in wheel chairs , others blind, go marching proudly past the Cenotaph saluting their fallen comrades. Many old and fragile but proud. City types pin striped and bowler hatted holding their umbrellas like swagger sticks keeping perfect step to the music of the bands, grey haired WRENs, pensioners of the Royal Hospital, people from all walks of life, the rich and poor all of them honouring the dead.
On the 11th November 1998 at 11 AM Queen Elizabeth joined President Chirac at the Arc de Triomph to honour the dead of the World Wars. Later that day the Queen journeyed to Ypres to attend the ceremony performed every evening by the Buglers of the Ypres Fire Brigade – The playing of the Last Post.
The Indian High Commissioner in London was present at the Cenotaph along with the diplomatic representatives of all the members of the Commonwealth on Remembrance Sunday.
But what of the memorials and cemeteries in France? Are the Indian cemeteries and memorials in France ignored by the Indian Government? The Indian public are largely unaware of their existence and would scarcely be able to afford to go to France to honour the Indian dead however willing they might be.
Whatever the real answer, credit should go to the Sikhs of Belgium. I quote from the Telegraph of the 12th November wherein a large British presence at the Menin Gate ceremony was recorded as follows : “…the very British crowd was interrupted by the appearance of a large contingent of Sikhs, men in huge pink and yellow turbans, women in saris……they represented the Belgian Sikh community and had come to commemorate the part played by their co-religionists of the Frontier Force Regiment, the Frontier Force Rifles, in the first battle of Ypres in 1914 to make good the losses of the Old Contemptibles at the Marne and the Aisne.
The Sikhs, the Rajputs, the Punjabis, the Gurkhas died in hundreds in the water-logged trenches they held just beyond the city and were buried in their thin summer clothing in ground already covered by the first scattering of winter snows….”
As those biting cold winds blew around us freezing the very stones that marked the graves where they lay, I could not help thinking that however we might have failed them, they continued to serve us all – in the forlorn hope that the horrors they faced should never lead to such sacrifice being asked of anyone again.