Soldiers of empire

Abstract

In late 1914, the British Empire deployed Indian soldiers (called sepoys) to Europe in a desperate bid to halt the advancing German army and thereby save the Empire. Although a variety of studies have explored the subject of Indian soldiers in Europe, few venture beyond their military contributions to the situation on the Western Front. In contrast, I devote considerable attention to the more "intimate frontiers" of the British and German Empires, especially British hospitals for wounded sepoys and German prison camps where captured sepoys were detained. Comparison of the policy and practice of British and German military authorities, vis-à -vis Indian soldiers, is therefore one contribution of this work. I argue that tactical, military considerations and imperial concerns-namely, protecting racial hierarchies and the loyalty of Indian troops-shaped the experiences of sepoys in Europe. Yet this study does more than look at top-down approaches to Indian sepoys during the war. Drawing on Indian soldier letters and previously unconsidered testimonies collected by British and German government officials, I demonstrate that the sepoys were keenly aware of the countercurrents shaping their experiences in Europe. They engaged with, reshaped, and resisted many of the policies of the British and Germans, revealing in the process that they valued a safe return home far more than winning the battles of their "King-Emperor." Finally, this dissertation demonstrates that the war and the deployment of sepoys to Europe had profound implications for people distant from the actual fighting. By comparing British, German and Indian newspaper accounts about the performance of Indian soldiers in Europe, I argue that the war led to an intensification of ideas about race for European audiences on both sides of no-man's-land, while in India accounts of the war fueled claims for racial equality within the British Empire. In all these ways, this study shows that the experiences of Indian soldiers in Europe during the First World War were embedded within an interconnected imperial framework that included Britain, India, and Germany.