The Singapore Mutiny of 1915: Global Origins in a Global War

Abstract

On February 15, 1915, the right wing of the Indian Army's 5th Light Infantry mutinied on the island of Singapore. Although this mutiny did not affect most of the rest of the world, the rest of the world very definitely affected it. This book includes two chapters on the mutiny of the 5th because it encapsulates so clearly the ways World War I came to Southeast Asia. Indeed, two of its primary causes – German–Indian–Turkish anti-Allied propaganda and pro-German activists – played critical roles in the whole region for the duration of the war. Concern about pro-German, anticolonial schemes dominate the British, French, and Dutch official diplomatic and military archives from this period, and include an almost paranoid apprehension about the revolutionary potential for such schemes across Southeast and East Asia. For while activities intended to undermine colonial rule were never as successful, organized, or well-funded as colonial authorities imagined or feared, they nevertheless contributed to anticolonial unrest in many places during the war, including Malaya, the East Indies, and Indochina. Such anticolonial activity was doubly threatening because its networks of support went well beyond the orbit of colonial control, including places as close as Siam and China, and as distant as the Ottoman Empire, the United States, and Germany. And these networks did not respect colonial boundaries: Pan-Islamic, pro-German propaganda moved easily between the East Indies and Malaya, while pro-German activities originating in China were directed to Indochina, Malaya, Burma, and India. In this sense, the mutiny is also significant because it allows us to see the porousness of colonial and state territorial boundaries throughout the region, as well as the many avenues of connection between Southeast Asia and the rest of the world. As a case study, the mutiny of the 5th in Singapore also illustrates the ways global, anticolonial forces generated during the war were mediated by colonized subjects. In order to win people over, anti-Allied propaganda and pro-German activists not only had to target issues that spoke to actual grievances of colonized subjects, but they also had to convince people that acting against colonial rule was worth the risk.