Events were to justify this tribute of the Junghi Lat Sahib, as the Indians call the Commander-in-Chief, to his Indian troops. At Neuve Chapelle, in March, the Indians—and in first line the 1st and 2nd 39th Garhwalis and the 3rd Gurkhas—showed what they could do when it came to fighting in the open.
The Indian Corps was on the right of our line, the Meerut Division in front, the Lahore Division in support. The Garhwalis went away clear through the village, and the Gurkhas, outdistancing everybody, actually penetrated into the Bois de Biez, whence the Germans were eventually able to check our further progress. All the Indians engaged displayed splendid qualities of dash and steadiness, and after Neuve Chapelle it may be said that the Indians were at the height of their military efficiency.
You will remember that, during the second battle of Ypres, the Lahore Division was sent up to the Pilckem road to operate in support of the French, who were counter-attacking to win back the ground they had given before the first German gas attack. The Indians fought magnificently, and the 40th Pathans, under the leadership of the gallant Lieutenant-Colonel Rennick, who gave his life that day, showed splendid courage in face of a terrible ordeal.
The Indian Corps has rendered a great, an inestimable service to the British cause. The first contingent came into the field at a moment when every man was wanted, and as its numbers were completed, it took over its share of our line and held it efficiently. Everything in trench warfare was new to the Indians, and for months they had no opportunity of displaying those qualities of dash that won them fame in many a hard fight in their own land. But they showed themselves to be excellent marksmen, and on patrol work revealed a cool pluck and resourcefulness which brought in much valuable information.
The Indians have proved themselves to be a smart and soldierly body of men, clean and well-mannered, and, like all good troops, most punctilious about saluting. Their cavalry, which prays day and night for a chance to get at the enemy with the lance, is a dream of beauty on parade, with men and horses in the very pink of condition. Both for the Indians themselves and for the Empire, the sending of the Indian Corps to Europe was a great adventure, in many respects the most remarkable event of the world war. The future lies on the knees of the gods, but to those, like the writer, who have seen the British and Indian troops side by side in the field, one thing at least is clear, and that is, that this campaign has knit even closer than before the ties of affection and respect existing between the Indian soldier and his British leaders.
CHAPTER XV
T.F.
“The conduct and bearing of these units under fire, and the efficient manner in which they carried out the various duties assigned to them, have imbued me with the highest hope as to the value and help of Territorial troops generally.”—Field-Marshal Sir John French.
The first Territorial troops that I saw in the field was the North Midland Division. Neither they nor I will probably ever forget that meeting, not because either of us made an unforgettable impression on the other, but by reason of the circumstances in which it occurred. It was a wet and cheerless March afternoon, the hour when the greyness of weeping spring is succumbing to the shades of evening. The Division, fresh out from England, had just arrived at its first billets in the field in and about the little village of Merris, which lies a little off the beaten track between Hazebrouck and Bailleul.
A battalion—from the Midlands—was halted in the village, a dirty little jumble of white houses straggling along a single main street with a few feet of sidewalk, a cobbled roadway, a totally undistinguished church, a weather-stained and sordid-looking Mairie. The rain blew hither and thither in cold, soaking gusts, and pavements and roadways were slippery with sticky, yellow mud.
The men of the battalion had been allowed to break the ranks. They overflowed in that squalid village street. They had evidently come a long way, for most of them were soaked to the skin, and their boots and puttees were all smeared with clay. They stood about in groups in the desultory fashion of the Briton in a strange place, or pressed together outside the village shops and stared through the tiny windows at the heterogeneous jumble of articles within—loaves of bread, tins of sardines, bootlaces, pats of butter, picture-postcards, and, as a reminder that British troops had passed that way before, boxes and packets of English cigarettes.