Vikram Doctor
7 Sep, 2014
By providing rotis, fresh meat and ghee, the British army made sure that the Indian soldiers did not rebel.
On December 14, 1914 The Times of India (ToI) carried a report from the northern French town of Boulogne. The writer was there to follow the war that had started a few months earlier and here was an unexpected side of it: "A flock of sheep and blunt-faced herd goats driven through a French boulevard by Punjabi Musulmans." In true village style one of them shouted at a startled old French lady who was in the way: "Budhi Budhi nikal jao!"
The Punjabis were soldiers, just a few of the thousands of Indians who would serve in World War 1 and their presence, and that of the goats, was a sign of how different this war would be. Before 1914 Europe had enjoyed a long era of relative peace, which meant that when war finally came their armies weren't prepared for the profound changes that had taken place.
Battle for Food
As the Crimean, Boer and American civil wars had shown, new technologies like railways and machine guns had reset all rules of war and the great tragedy of WW I was that it took the leaders so long, and so many lives lost, before they realized this. But the grim truth was they also had more lives to lose — 19th century industrialization had driven people from villages to towns where they could be signed up faster, and Britain and France now had large colonies from where they could call up reserves, like those Punjabis in Boulogne.
Deployment on this scale meant huge logistical challenges especially in feeding the men. Armies in history had generally combined some advance provisioning with looting the countryside for food, but the latter was not allowed by the French, who were effectively hosting the war (the Germans did it) and in any case would not have been effective given the scale of supplies needed. A lot of army activity in the early stages of the war went into solving this problem.
Andrew Robertshaw, in his book Feeding Tommy (British soldiers were called Tommies), writes that the British army did better than it has been given credit for. Soldiers wrote home complaining about the food, and it was alleged that more fodder for horses was sent than food for men. But as Robertshaw points out, motorized transport was still not total and horses pulled everything from wagons to guns; this was perhaps the last war where oats were like petrol!
Soldiers did complain, but Robertshaw suggests that this was more about the boredom of the food. The core of British military rations was canned meat, called bully beef (from the French for boeuf bouilli or boiled beef ) and hard baked biscuits and in the early stages that was what they got. In time rations improved. An army cooking school in Aldershot was reopened and new recruits persuaded to sign up. Few wanted to be cooks, since it was seen as unheroic, yet risky — smoke from the kitchens made them an easy target for enemy gunners.
One Man's Meat...
Despite these problems, medical records show that most conscripts did better in the army than at home. War forced the government to acknowledge what it ignored in peacetime — the bad health of the poor in crowded industrial cities. Robertshaw writes that during the Second Boer war (1899-1902) "it was found that almost half the men who attempted to enlist for the army were physically unfit for military service". One result was a campaign to tackle malnourishment by feeding children — our midday meal schemes may have originated from such war-related fears.
Indian troops posed a particular problem. The British saw colonial troops as a crucial support, but also had fears about them. The Rising of 1857 had left a permanent fear of mutiny and European conditions would be hard for Indian troops. Hindus would have fears of losing caste by travelling overseas while Muslims might be unwilling to fight their fellow Muslims in the Turkish army. Some Muslim soldiers did refuse to fight, while others went over to the Turkish side after the disastrous British surrender at Kut-al-Amara in 1916 during the Mesopotamia campaign.
That more Indian troops did not mutiny is probably due to the extra care the British took to keep them happy, and food played a key role. Vegetarians were given dal, gur and milk instead of meat. In fact, the real problem involved meat. The British knew how the Rising was partly triggered by beef and pork grease on cartridges and the last thing they wanted was to make such a mistake again. So not only was bully beef kept far from the Indians, they arranged for mutton and, as far as possible, killed on the spot — hence those sheep and goats in Boulogne.
ToI reported that the army tried frozen meat, but when they asked the subedars if it would be acceptable to the soldiers they responded with all seriousness, "Sahib, they will have no objection whatever, provided one of them may be permitted each day to see the animal frozen alive." A major concern was that the slaughter be done the right way — halal for Muslims, jhatka for Sikhs and Hindus. Separate slaughtering spots were set up, though at least once even this caused problems when one group angrily alleged that flies from the other side were contaminating their meat.
Chapati Chapter
The British were pleased when some soldiers became more relaxed about caste concerns, but it could never be admitted openly for fear of problems back home. In 1915 when some newspapers ran stories on how the Gurkhas were much liked by the British because they were willing to consume beef and beer, Sir O'Moore Creagh, retired commander-in-chief of the Indian Army, wrote a letter admonishing them for unthinkingly causing problems: "All who know anything of the importance attached by the Indian soldier to his caste and religious customs will at once recognize how vitally necessary it is, not only to his content and discipline, but also to his valour in the field, that the Government of India should, as it does, provide for strict adherence to their customs."
Indian troops may have eaten better than Europeans. David Omissi's fascinating book Indian Voices of the Great War, a collection of letters sent home by the troops, has a picture of goats being separately slaughtered by Hindus and Muslims. Curious British troops are looking on, and some of them must have compared their bully beef tins with the fresh meat the Indians were about to get. But in one area Indian obduracy over rations may have helped the Tommies and that was over the hard salted biscuits issued when bread from army base ovens could not be provided.
No one liked the biscuits, and cooks had to find ingenious ways to soak or crumble them into some more edible form. But Indians simply asked for atta to make fresh rotis themselves. In Omissi's book a letter from Bir Singh, a Sikh soldier of the 55th Rifles, tells of their modest triumph: "People told us there was no atta in this country, and we should have to eat biscuits; but, where there are inhabitants, there atta must be obtainable. Besides, there are plenty of mills." Soon, Indian troops were getting an atta ration, and a ToI report from January 4, 1915 of a visit of King George V to the front writes of "his Majesty tasting a chapatti which had just been cooked".
Perhaps this royal endorsement helped some quartermaster realize that this Indian solution was more widely applicable.
Robertshaw's book gives several recipes taken from the notes of army cooks including one from Private AE Purssell for chapatis. It is among recipes meant to be cooked in the mess tins that every soldier ate from, and also cooked in when they didn't have access to field kitchens.
Other Than Food
This was often the reality as the war bogged down in trench warfare, each side dug into pits from which they could fire at each other, but barely move. In such a situation dough could be mixed from just flour, water and salt and chapatis made in mess tins suspended over a small fire. Robertshaw suggests that 'rooty', from roti, became familiar enough for troops to talk of a Rooty Medal for those who had eaten army rations for a long time!
With all the troops basic rations were supplemented by gifts from well-wishers. Indians in the UK organized appropriate supplies. A Mr Mitra wrote to ToI that Field Marshall Roberts, the famous general who had been born in Cawnpore and seen action in 1857, had asked him, just before he died in December 1914, to help put together Christmas boxes for the Indian troops. He had duly arranged for supari and hookah tobacco to be sent from India, while ghee could be locally procured: "A London firm is selling good ghee prepared from British butter." He appealed for funds to help send more such boxes to the Indian troops.
Some comforts were less easily supplied. Omissi's book includes several letters, caught by the military censors, where troops tried to get the opium and charas that many were used to taking in India. "When you send opium you should not mention it, but should say you are sending a preparation for the beard," wrote Kartan Singh of the 6th Cavalry to Sirdar Ram Raksha Singh of Jullunder. Ram Prasad, a Brahmin, wrote to Manik Chand giving useful instructions on how to send charas: "First fill a round tin box full of pickles and then in the middle of that put a smaller round box carefully closed, so that no trace of pickles can enter."
Stories and letters from the western front suggest that, in terms of food at least, Indians didn't do badly. But it was a very different picture in other places like Mesopotamia (Iraq). Then as now it was a punishing place to campaign in, and Indian troops made up nearly the whole force since it was felt the climate would suit them better than France. The Turks, led by German generals, were aiming for the oil fields, and the British resistance crumbled at Ctesiphon in 1915, with the troops ending up besieged at Kut-al-Amara.
War and After
After it was over some of the injured British troops were exchanged for Turkish prisoners and were brought to Bombay to recover where one of them vividly described to ToI the difficulties as food ran out and they had to eat their horses and mules: "Donkey was an occasional addition to our menu, and once a cat was shot by a fellow belonging to my patrol and it was every bit as good as wild rabbit." But the Indians refused to eat any such meat and the British agreed to give up their rice rations for the troops.
Mesopotamia was an area where air power first tried to make a difference: "Atta was one of the chief commodities dropped from aeroplanes during the final phases of the siege", one of the survivors said. But in the end it made no difference and in April 1916 the British surrendered in what has been described as the worst capitulation ever made by the British Army. Pictures taken then show Indian soldiers horribly emaciated from the siege. In all in Mesopotamia over 27,000 Indian soldiers died, over 13,000 went missing and over 51,000 were wounded.
It is the best reminder of how, whatever occasional benefits war might bring, its ultimate end is only tragedy.
(With inputs from Times Archives) Page 1 of 3 Next
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