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001 77003
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010 _a22019803
040 _aUtSlPG
041 7 _aen
_2iso639-1
050 4 _aD501
100 1 _aWillcocks, James, Sir,
_d1857-1926
245 1 0 _aWith the Indians in France
264 1 _aSalt Lake City, UT :
_bProject Gutenberg,
_c2025
300 _a1 online resource :
_bmultiple file formats
336 _atext
_btxt
_2rdacontent
337 _acomputer
_bc
_2rdamedia
338 _aonline resource
_bcr
_2rdacarrier
500 _aRelease date is 2025-10-07
508 _aRichard Tonsing, Brian Coe, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
520 _a"With the Indians in France" by Sir James Willcocks is a firsthand military memoir written in the early 20th century. It presents the Indian Army Corps’ experience on the Western Front, stressing their loyalty, endurance, and the realities of fighting in France and Belgium alongside British and French troops. From a commander’s viewpoint, it addresses battlefield performance, cultural and logistical challenges, and the interplay between Indian units and their British officers. It will appeal to readers of World War I history and those curious about imperial forces in modern warfare. The opening of the book moves from a ballad of a Sikh veteran, Hurnam Singh, celebrating Indian courage from Messines to Neuve Chapelle, into an introduction that defines the scope: not a grand history of the front, but an insider’s account of the Indian Corps. Willcocks explains his sources and aims, defends his men against ill‑informed criticism, and bluntly diagnoses systemic weaknesses—shortages of equipment, a flawed reserve system, too few British officers, and parsimony in India—while praising the quality of British gunners, Indian sappers, and the devotion of Indian ranks. He sketches influential figures (Roberts, Kitchener, Minto, Hardinge, Roos‑Keppel) and recounts assembling the Lahore and Meerut Divisions, the welcome in Marseilles, the logistical scramble at Orléans, and the swift move to Flanders. He highlights smooth cooperation with the French and then describes the Corps’ baptism of fire near Ypres, where battalions were split up and thrown in piecemeal. Early actions by the Connaught Rangers, the 57th (Wilde’s) Rifles, and the 129th Baluchis show confusion, heavy losses of British officers, and striking acts of bravery, culminating in the machine‑gun stand that led to Sepoy Khudadad Khan’s Victoria Cross. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534 _pOriginally published:
_cLondon: Constable & Co Ltd, 1920
653 _aWorld War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Western Front
653 _aIndia. Army
653 _aWorld War, 1914-1918 -- Regimental histories -- India
856 4 _uhttps://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t8w95bx9n&view=1up&seq=350
856 4 0 _uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77003
999 _c117727
_d117727