It was realised from the very beginning that the loyalty and fighting spirit of the British Empire's Indian Corps in the Great War should elicit every admiration. In 1917, the first edition of 'The Indian Corps In France', by Merewether and Smith was published. The Introduction was by Lord Curzon, a former Viceroy of India. Curzon makes some points which are still valid and of interest; for example:
'I have seen it frequently stated, even by high authority, in the course of the present War, that the Indian Army is raised, trained, and equipped for service in India alone or upon its frontiers, and that the call to external warfare was therefore both novel and disconcerting. Such a claim would not only be indignantly repudiated by the Indian Army itself, but it finds no foundation in history........... The Indian Army, in fact, has always possessed, and has been proud of possessing, a triple function: the preservation of internal peace in India itself; the defence of the Indian frontiers; and preparedness to embark at a moment's notice for Imperial service in other parts of the globe. In this third aspect India has for long been one of the most important units in the scheme of British Imperial defence, providing the British Government with a striking force always ready, of admirable efficiency, and assured valour. None the less there was a vast and vital difference between the field of war for which the Indian Expeditionary Force left the shores of India in August 1914, and any previous campaign in which its predecessors had been engaged. These had for the most part been conflicts in which the Indian Forces had had to encounter an enemy of minor importance and at no high level of military organization. Only once, nearly 40 years earlier, when Lord Beaconsfield had brought 7000 Indian troops to Malta, as an evidence of Imperial unity and purpose, had an Indian Military Contingent been seen to the West of the Suez Canal. Now, however, General Willnoodles' Indian Army Corps was to be pitted against the most powerful military organization on the globe, against a European enemy who had brought to the highest pitch of sinister perfection both the science and the practice of war, and who was about to plunge not Europe alone, but the entire civilized world, into such a welter of continuous devilry and horror.....The landing of the two Indian Divisions, numbering 24,000 men, on the quays of Marseilles in September and October 1914, was a great event, not merely in the annals of the Indian Army, but in the history of mankind.......That the Indian Expeditionary Force arrived in the nick of time, that it helped to save the cause both of the Allies and of civilization, after the sanguinary tumult of the opening weeks of the War, has been openly acknowledged by the highest in the land, from the Sovereign downwards. I recall that it was emphatically stated to me by Field-Marshal French himself. The nature and value of that service can never be forgotten.......Neither should we forget the conditions under which these Indian soldiers served. They came to a country where the climate, the language, the people, the customs, were entirely different from any of which they had knowledge. They were presently faced with the sharp severity of a Northern winter. They, who had never suffered heavy shell fire, who had no experience of high explosive, who had never seen warfare in the air, who were totally ignorant of modern trench fighting, were exposed to all the latest and most scientific developments of the art of destruction. They were confronted with the most powerful and pitiless military machine that the world has ever seen. They were consoled by none of the amenities or alleviations, or even the associations, of home. They were not fighting for their own country or people. They were not even engaged in a quarrel of their own making. They were plunged in surroundings which must have been intensely depressing to the spirit of man. Almost from the start they suffered shattering losses. In the face of these trials and difficulties, the cheerfulness, the loyalty, the good discipline, the intrepid courage of these denizens of another clime, cannot be too highly praised.......This volume deals chiefly with the stormy incidents of war. But anyone who visited the Western Front during the period which it covers, and saw the Indian regiments either in the trenches or in reserve, will also carry away with him many a picture of the good fellowship prevailing between British and Indian soldiers, of the deep and characteristic devotion of the latter to their British officers, and of the happy relations between the men in pagris and the inhabitants of the country...... That this record should have been compiled seems entirely right and just.'
Merewether and Smith write in their 'Preface' to the book of the Indian Corps' role in the crisis of late 1914, that:
'At the time when the Indians landed [in October/November 1914], the resistant power of the British Army, cruelly outnumbered, and exhausted by constant fighting against superior artillery and a more numerous equipment of machineguns, was almost overcome. And except the Indian Army there were no other trained regular soldiers in the Empire available at that moment for service. The Territorial Army - the finest material in the world - had not completed its training, and was not used and could not be used, in its own unitary organization for many months. The Kitchener Armies were still a shadowy embryo in the womb of improvisation. The Empire was saved by an alternation of shifts and expedients, each of which just succeeded because of the deathless valour and devotion of the human beings who were associated with each endeavour. It was saved first by the Expeditionary Force, secondly by the Indian Corps, thirdly by the Teritorial Divisions, and fourthly by the Overseas and Kitchener Armies. All there is enough glory and enough sacrifice for all. Of the Indian Corps it may be said that as much was asked of them as has been asked of any troops at any period and in any theatre of this war. They stemmed that first German onslaught through the late autumn of 1914, which ended in the bitter fighting at Givenchy. They played a glorious part in the battle of Neuve Chapelle. The second battle of Ypres, the struggle for the Aubers ridge, and the desperate assaults of Loos - all claimed a toll of blood from this devoted Corps. They were asked to do much, and they tried to do everything they were asked.'
