The Prisoner Dilemma: Britain, Germany, and the Repatriation of Indian Prisoners of War

Abstract

Between October 1914 and December 1915, nearly 135,000 Indian riflemen—known as sepoys—fought in the trenches of France and Belgium at the battles of Ypres, Festubert, Givenchy, Neuve Chapelle, Second Ypres and Loos, suffering some 34,252 casualties. At a prisoner of war camp outside Berlin, Indian revolutionaries and emissaries from the Ottoman Empire attempted to convert the allegiances of the sepoys in their custody with a combination of pan-Islamic and nationalist appeals. Although this campaign ultimately failed, it profoundly shaped British repatriation policy at the end of the war when, cautioned Secretary of State for India Austen Chamberlain, the British could not allow men who had been exposed to ‘strongly hostile influences’ to return home unmonitored. The 1918 armistice and British repatriation policy therefore presented a host of new challenges to Britain’s colonial subjects from South Asia as they navigated the post-war imperial landscape and secured what was most important to them—safe transportation home.