The enormously increased importance of artillery in this war necessitates not only an unlimited supply of ammunition, but more and more new guns of the latest and heaviest types, besides the requisite increase of transport. The enormous output of ammunition from the factories in England demands extended storage accommodation at the base, and a larger service of trains for conveying the supplies from the base to the railheads at the front. The motor-lorries which bring the shell to the gun, the bullet to the rifle, the bomb to the grenadier, must be increased in number to cope with the augmented supplies. Thus, wherever you turn, whether towards the men of the new army flocking out from England, or towards the guns that are to blast for them the path to victory, you are confronted by the same process of expansion which is developing the little Expeditionary Force of Mons and the Marne into the great army upon which—who knows?—may eventually devolve the final task of liberating Europe.
CHAPTER XIV
CHILDREN OF THE RAJ
War in its old guise, the clash of warring Kings and their levies of horse and foot, with victory on the side of the stoutest blows, and triumph reckoned by the number of slain and spoils, may have faded from the European mind, but it still lingers, a brave and picturesque adventure, in the storied imagination of the East. So it happens that, of all the forces in the field to-day, none has a more knightly conception of war, as the word was understood in the days of chivalry, than the levies which India has sent to Europe to fight for the British Raj.
How old John Froissart, who loved a brave spectacle of war, would have thrilled to see the stately Sikh horsemen, as I have seen them, high turbans and tall lances silhouetted against an evening sky, defiling along a road in Flanders, trod in bygone days by many of the old chronicler’s heroes—Edward of Wales, Sir Reginald Lord Cobham, Sir Walter Manny, Sir John Chandos, and the rest! How gladly he would have wandered into their camps and bivouacs, and heard from bearded Sikh and lean Pathan the stirring story of their military past, heard them speak again in the manner of his time of the great war between the Kings of Europe!
For to the Indian troops who have come to Europe to fight this war is an adventure, as wars were to the knights of old. The high sense of duty which makes them ready and willing to play their part in the defence of the Empire is not patriotism. It is loyalty, the honourable resolution to stand by the man whose bread they have eaten. In their rudimentary and picturesque way they understand very clearly the origin of the war. They talk among themselves, and write home to their villages of the unjust King of Austria, who sought to steal the kingdom of Serbia, and was therein helped by the arrogant King of Germany, who in his turn invaded the country of the King of Belgium. Hereupon the King-Emperor said, “This must not be,” and summoned the Kings of Germany and Austria to make good the wrong they had accomplished. When they refused, the King-Emperor called upon his friends the Kings of France and Russia to make war upon them.
Gleefully the Indians will count the number of Kings that are on the side of the Allies in the cause of right—the King-Emperor, the King of France, the King of Russia, the King of Belgium, the King of Serbia, and, more lately, the King of Italy. Triumphantly they ask: “Shall but three Kings—those of Germany, Austria, and Turkey—prevail against six?” The position of Austria-Hungary is rather a puzzle to them. Sometimes both the King of Austria and the King of Hungary appear on the side of the foe, sometimes the King of Austria is ranged in the ranks of the Allies, owing to a confused recollection that Australians are fighting for the Allies in the East.
They write elaborate and often allegorical disquisitions on the origin of the war to their friends at home in India. In one case that I heard of the writer took the names of mutual acquaintances in the village at home in which the first letter corresponded with the initial letter of the names of the belligerent powers, while a dispute about a field served to illustrate the causes of the conflict.
The strangest medley of races, castes, and religions that has ever fought on one side in Europe, the Indians took the field in the cause of the King-Emperor behind their hierarchical chiefs and military leaders. The Maharajah of Kapurtala, the Maharajah of Bikanir, the Jam of Nawanagar (whom the Empire knows better as “Ranji”), the Rajah of Ratlam, the young Maharajah of Jodhpur, Maharajah Sir Pertab Singh, the Maharaj-Kumar of Kuch Behar, were among those who came to Flanders.
Among the troops were Sikhs from the Punjab, Pathans from the North-Western Frontier of India—Afridis, Mahsuds, Yussufzais, Khattaks—Punjabi Mohammedans, Dogras from the hills, Jats from the Southern Punjab and the United Provinces, Gurkhas from the hills of Nepal, Garhwali hillmen from Garhwal, and Rajputs.
Even the great Cadogan of Wellington’s army, the Prince of Q.M.G.’s, might have well been appalled by the task which the commissariat department of this heterogeneous collection of races and religions represented. The Pathans, being Mohammedans, will drink no wine or spirits; the Sikhs, who have their own religion, may drink wine, but may not smoke; the Gurkhas may do both, but have other ceremonial practices which must be scrupulously observed. Beef is anathema to the Hindu, bacon to the Mohammedan; indeed, pork in any form is abhorrent to all save the lowest caste of Indian. Therefore, the flesh of goats, slain in a prescribed ritual form, and specially prepared, had to take the place of the bully-beef ration for the majority of the Indian contingent. There was no rum ration for the Mohammedan, no cigarette or tobacco ration for the Sikh.