This volume recounts India’s contribution to World War I. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

Accustomed to conducting low-intensity warfare before 1914, the Indian Army learnt to engage in high-intensity conventional warfare during the course of World War I, thereby exhibiting a steep learning curve. Being the bulwark of the British Empire in South Asia, the ‘brown warriors’ of the Raj functioned as an imperial fire brigade during the war. Studying the Indian Army as an institution during the war, Kaushik Roy delineates its social, cultural, and organizational aspects to understand its role in the scheme of British imperial projects. Focusing not just on ‘history from above’ but also ‘history from below’, Roy analyses the experiences of common soldiers and not just those of the high command. Moreover, since society, along with the army, was mobilized to provide military and non-military support, this volume sheds light on the repercussions of this mass mobilization on the structure of British rule in South Asia. Using rare archival materials, published autobiographies, and diaries, Roy’s work offers a holistic analysis of the military performance of the Indian Army in major theatres during the war.

Third place in the 2022 SAHR Templer Best First Book Prize More than one million Indian soldiers were deployed during World War I, serving in the Indian Army as part of Britain's imperial war effort. These men fought in France and Belgium, Egypt and East Africa, and Gallipoli, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. In Indian Soldiers in World War I Andrew T. Jarboe follows these Indian soldiers--or sepoys--across the battlefields, examining the contested representations British and Indian audiences drew from the soldiers' wartime experiences and the impacts these representations had on the British Empire's racial politics. Presenting overlooked or forgotten connections, Jarboe argues that Indian soldiers' presence on battlefields across three continents contributed decisively to the British Empire's final victory in the war. While the war and Indian soldiers' involvement led to a hardening of the British Empire's prewar racist ideologies and governing policies, the battlefield contributions of Indian soldiers fueled Indian national aspirations and calls for racial equality. When Indian soldiers participated in the brutal suppression of anti-government demonstrations in India at war's end, they set the stage for the eventual end of British rule in South Asia.

Drawing on untapped new sources, the first global history of the Indian Expeditionary Forces in World War I While their story is almost always overlooked, the 1.5 million Indian soldiers who served the British Empire in World War I played a crucial role in the eventual Allied victory. Despite their sacrifices, Indian troops received mixed reactions from their allies and their enemies alike-some were treated as liberating heroes, some as mercenaries and conquerors themselves, and all as racial inferiors and a threat to white supremacy. Yet even as they fought as imperial troops under the British flag, their broadened horizons fired in them new hopes of racial equality and freedom on the path to Indian independence. Drawing on freshly uncovered interviews with members of the Indian Army in Iraq and elsewhere, historian George Morton-Jack paints a deeply human story of courage, colonization, and racism, and finally gives these men their rightful place in history.

This is the first scholarly study of the subject for twenty years, and the only one based on extensive archival research. The Indian Army conquered India for the British, and protected the Raj against its enemies within and without. In this evocative and compassionate work, David Omissi examines the origins, motives and protests of the several million Indian peasant- soldiers who served the colonial power.

A study of excellence of military elements including strategy, troop morale, topography and leadership. It is thorough investigation of the role of Indian Soldiers in East-Africa during the worldwar I makes fascinating reading.

When the First World War raged from 1914 to 1918, hundreds of thousands troops fought valiantly and millions of lives were lost. Much has been written about the allies (Britain, France and other European powers, Russia, the United States, Canada) battles with the opposing central powers (Germany, Austria - Hungary, Italy, Turkey) but few know that 1.38 million men from India were also sent to various theatres of war. As many as seven Indian expeditionary forces fought battles far from home. Whether it was the damp, flat fields of Flanders or the burning sands of Mesopotamia, the rocky, cold and windy hills of Gallipoli or unhealthy uplands and stifling jungles of East Africa, Indian soldiers left indelible imprints of their heroism, winning world-wide acclaim. For the first time, this book fills in the abysmal gap in the records of the war. Drawn from archives, regimental histories and other sources, this book tells the story of the tremendous contribution of the Indian corps to the victory of the allied forces.