With our army in Flanders

by Valentine Williams

Though the commissariat question has proved a continual source of difficulty to the military authorities, it has been satisfactorily solved, and the Indians, from the standpoint of food, have fared well. On this campaign they made the acquaintance of ration jam, which they like immensely. The Gurkhas will not touch marmalade, although they are as fond of jam as the rest of the Indians are. They are very keen on their cigarette rations. The army supplies the Indian troops with ghi, or clarified butter, which they use extensively in cooking, and with Indian corn, from which they bake their chupatties, thin wafer-like cakes cooked in the ashes of the camp-fire.

You can imagine what an epoch-making adventure it was to these thousands of Indians, living their carefully ordered lives in one of the oldest civilizations of the world, to be suddenly transplanted into the civilization of the white man. For the first time they have seen the white man served by his own race. For the first time they have seen the white man pursuing those agricultural avocations which, in agricultural India, are carried on exclusively by the native. For the first time they have seen the white man at close quarters in his home.

Agriculturist as every Indian is, it is the life of the French peasant that has primarily absorbed his interest in things outside the war. The prodigious size of the cows, in comparison with the small Indian kine, overwhelms him with admiration; so also the heavy Flemish horses. He is amazed to find himself surrounded on all sides by pukka houses—that is to say, houses with tiled roofs and timber flooring and lath-and-plaster walls and glazed windows—to see that even the lowliest French peasant can aspire to dwellings like these.

A very familiar sight in Flanders is the dog-wheel, a large open tread-wheel, affixed to the side of the house, and driven by a dog, for the pumping of water. This spectacle is of never-failing interest to the Indians. It is frequently described at length in their letters home, and it is the theme of endless conversation amongst themselves. A group of Sikh troopers one day was heard gravely discussing whether the dog worked the wheel from promptings of natural sagacity—from a canine desire, as it were, to help with the housework—or whether he was a poor slave imprisoned in the wheel and sternly ordered to do his master’s bidding.

The exceptional beauty of the Flanders spring, succeeding to the cold and damp of winter, caused many men to express their determination to return to France after the war, and settle down as agriculturalists. I believe the men seldom, if ever, write to their womenfolk. The brother of the writer is generally the recipient of the letters from the front. Often, if there is any mention of the writer’s wife, she is referred to allegorically, as a tree in a certain field, and so on. Many letters request that the writer’s sister may be told to pray at some specific shrine for the safe return of her brother. Some of these letters are fine recruiting agents, describing in glowing terms the advantages of being able to save one’s pay, of the good food, and the interesting life.

As these Indian soldiers’ letters are written and addressed in the native character, sorting and distribution has to be done by a special staff of native clerks from the Indian postal service, while Indian Army officers, conversant with the different languages and scripts, attend to the censoring. Certain vernacular journals are permitted to be sent to the troops, but the men, for the most part, eagerly read a special news-sheet, issued every two or three days from the Indian Corps Headquarters. This journal, edited by a distinguished Indian Intelligence Officer, is reproduced by a manifolding process in Hindi (which is familiar to the Gurkhas, Garhwalis, and Dogras), Gurmukhi (the language of the Sikhs), and Hindustani (for the other Indian troops). It gives a summary of the latest war news, starting with the most recent events on the British and French fronts, in plain and simple language. Here is a specimen:

“Indian Summary of News, 26th to 28th July, 1915.

“This great war has now lasted exactly a year. It is announced officially that the total British casualties up to date amount to 330,995 men, of whom 69,313 have been killed. This includes all theatres of war—France, the Dardanelles, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Africa—as well as the losses of our fleet over the whole world. It may seem a high figure, but it must be remembered that the German casualties are at least 30 lakhs by this time, of whom about 8 lakhs must have been killed. The Turks have also lost very heavily. Our total of less than 70,000 killed is, therefore, comparatively small: most of them are, of course, British, but they also include Canadians, Australians, Indians, New Zealanders and African troops.”

Thus, it will be seen that there is no attempt to hide unpleasant news from the Indian troops, but that, on the contrary, the endeavour is to explain events to them in an intelligible fashion.

These news-sheets are printed by the thousand, and are distributed not only among the troops at the front, but are also sent to the Indian troops at the bases and in the hospitals in France and in England. A special copy of each number is forwarded to the Commander-in-Chief in India.