WW1 - Harold George Erby

Harold George Erby was born 1893 in Parramatta. He was a son of George Thomas and Annie E Erby of Wigram St., Parramatta. His older brother Sydney Theodore Erby was also driver with 4th Div. Train and 20th A.S.C. He was a driver in 14th Coy. A.A.S.C. His service number was 10221. He served in France and returned to Australia on 27 November 1919. He was discharged from duties on 30^th January 1920.

Indian Soldier's Letter - WW1

 

 

‘Do not think that this is war. This is not war. It is the ending of the world. This is just such a war as was related in the Mahabharata [the Indian epic] about our forefathers’, wrote a wounded Indian soldier from a hospital in England on 29 January 1915. This anonymous sepoy [from the Persian word sipahi meaning soldier] was one among over one million Indians, including over 621,224 combatants and 474,789 non-combatants, sent overseas between August 1914 and December 1919 for the Great War.

Most of the sepoys were recruited from the peasant-warrior classes of North and North-Western India, in accordance with the theory of the ‘martial races’, with Punjab (spread across present-day India and Pakistan) contributing more than half the number of combatants. They came from diverse religious backgrounds, including Punjabi Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. The Indian army was a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious force. Many of these men were semi- or non-literate and did not leave behind the abundance of diaries, poems and memoirs that form the cornerstone of the European war memory.

WW1 - Commemoration of Indian Soldiers - Honouring Muslim Soldiers

Photo: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

 

Commemoration of Indian Soldiers

Over one and a half million Indian army soldiers served alongside British troops during the World War One. Twelve thousand Indian soldiers who were wounded on the Western Front.

The fifty-three Hindu and Sikh soldiers who died in Brighton were taken to a peaceful resting place on the Sussex Downs near Patcham for cremation, after which their ashes were scattered in the sea, in accordance with their religious rites.

The Muslim brothers in arms, totalling nineteen, were buried in a purpose built burial ground near to the Shah Jehan Mosque in Woking. Built in 1889, the mosque is the oldest of its kind in north-west Europe.

 

Honouring Muslim soldiers

Muslim soldiers who died in English hospitals also received burial rites according to their religion. Some were taken to Woking - to a new cemetery near to the Shah Jahan Mosque and some were taken to Brookwood Military Cemetery. There, in a fusion of Muslim practices with British military traditions, they were interred and a bugler played 'The Last Post'

Mahomed Sarwar grew up in the Punjab and, like many young men from a rural population, sought adventure and a life outside his ancestral village by joining the 19th Lancers (Fane's Horse). His regiment went to France in October 1914 as part of the Sialkot Brigade of the 1st Indian Cavalry Division.

 

Mahomed only survived for eight short months. In Flanders, trench warfare made cavalry charges not only impractical but impossible, so the men left their horses behind the lines and served as infantry in the trenches.

By April 1915, Mahomed was in the Kitchener Hospital in Brighton. Mahomd died two months later from typhoid. He was only nineteen.

On his headstone in Brookwood Cemetery, it says:

"For God we are and to God we go” … (Qur'an)

 

 

WW1 - Commemoration of Indian Soldiers - Hindu and Sikh Soldiers

Photo: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Commemoration of Indian Soldiers

Over one and a half million Indian army soldiers served alongside British troops during the World War One. Twelve thousand Indian soldiers who were wounded on the Western Front.

The fifty-three Hindu and Sikh soldiers who died in Brighton were taken to a peaceful resting place on the Sussex Downs near Patcham for cremation, after which their ashes were scattered in the sea, in accordance with their religious rites.

The Muslim brothers in arms, totalling nineteen, were buried in a purpose built burial ground near to the Shah Jehan Mosque in Woking. Built in 1889, the mosque is the oldest of its kind in north-west Europe.

Honouring Hindu and Sikh soldiers

Photo: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

 

Fifty three Hindus and Sikhs, including Manta Singh, were cremated on a specially built funeral ghat on the gentle English hills of the South Downs, overlooking Brighton. Their ashes were scattered in the sea. A “Chattri” was built to mark the site.

Chattri means umbrella in Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu. Chattris have been used as memorials to the dead for centuries in India. The Brighton Chattri is dedicated to Indian soldiers who died in the First World War.

The Chattri bears the following inscription in Hindi and English:

To the memory of all the Indian soldiers who gave their lives for their King-Emperor in the Great War, this monument, erected on the site of the funeral pyre where the Hindus and Sikhs who died in hospital at Brighton, passed through the fire, is in grateful admiration and brotherly affection dedicated.

In September, 2010, a new screen wall, constructed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, was unveiled. It bears the name of fifty three Indian soldiers, including Gurkhas, who died in Brighton hospitals.

WW1 - Indian Soldiers - The Bombay Memorial

 

 

The Bombay Memorial (1914-1918) commemorates more than 2000 sailors who died in the First World War and have no other grave than the sea.

Sailors from Undivided India, Aden and East Africa are commemorated here, and with them, those Indian dead of the Royal Indian Marine who fell in the First World War and whose graves are in Eastern waters.

India and World War One

India was in a state of growing political unrest when war broke out in 1914. The Indian National Congress had gone from being a group that simply discussed issues to a body that was pushing for more self-government. Before the war started, the Germans had spent a great deal of time and energy trying to stir up an anti-British movement in India.

In World War I the Indian Army fought against the German Empire in German East Africa and on the Front Indian divisions were also sent to Egypt, Gallipoli and nearly 700,000 served in Mesopotamia against the Ottoman Empire. While some divisions were sent overseas others had to remain in India guarding the North West Frontier and on internal security and training duties.

The normal annual recruitment for the Indian army was 15,000 men, during the course of the war over 800,000 men volunteered for the army and more than 400,000 volunteered for non-combatant roles. In total almost 1.5 million men had volunteered for service by 1918. One million Indian troops served overseas during the war, of these 62,000 died and another 67,000 were wounded. In total, 74,187 Indian soldiers died in World War I

The Indian Corps won 13,000 medals for gallantry including 12 Victoria Crosses. Khudadad Khan won the Corps first Victoria Cross.

The cost of the war was massive and it pushed India’s economy to near bankruptcy. It costed India $601,279,000 from 1914 – 1918.