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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2019
By providing the first comprehensive account of the role of the British and Indian press in war propaganda, this article makes an intervention in the global history of the First World War. The positive propaganda early in the war, intertwined with a rhetoric of loyalism, contrasted with how the conservative British press affixed blame for military defeats in Mesopotamia upon the colonial regime's failure to effectively mobilize India's resources. Using a highly emotive and enduring trope of the ‘Mesopotamia muddle’, the Northcliffe press was successful in channelling a high degree of public scrutiny onto the campaign. The effectiveness of this criticism ensured that debates about the Mesopotamian debacle became a vehicle for registering criticism of structures of colonial rule and control in India. On the one hand, this critique hastened constitutional reforms and devolution in colonial India and, on the other, it led to demands that the inadequacy of India's contribution to the war be remedied by raising war loans. Both the colonial government and its nationalist critics were briefly and paradoxically united in opposing these demands. The coercive extraction of funds for the imperial war effort as well as the British press's vituperative criticism contributed to a post-war, anti-colonial political upsurge. The procedure of creating a colonial ‘scandal’ out of a military disaster required a specific politics for assessing the regulated flows of information, which proved to be highly effective in shaping both the enquiry that followed and the politics of interwar colonial South Asia.
The authors would particularly like to thank Biswamoy Pati, Mark Harrison, Ravi Ahuja, Heike Liebau, Chris Andreas, and Sabine Lee for their encouragement and feedback on various drafts of this article.
1 Kipling's poem ‘Mesopotamia’, was published simultaneously in both the Morning Post and the New York Times. Rudyard Kipling, ‘Mesopotamia’, Morning Post, 11 Jul. 1917, p. 6.
2 Paddock, Troy, ‘Introduction: Newspapers, Public Opinion, and Propaganda’, in Paddock, T. R. E. (ed.), Call to Arms: Propaganda, Public Opinion, and Newspapers in the Great War, London, Praeger, 2004, pp. 4–13Google Scholar.
3 Haste, Cate, Keep the Home Fires Burning: Propaganda in the First World War, London, Allen Lane, 1977, p. 21Google Scholar. Also see Sanders, M. L. and Taylor, Philip M., British Propaganda during the First World War 1914–1918, London, Macmillan, 1982, pp. 2–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The distinction between ‘published opinion’ as distinct from ‘public opinion’, and the interplay between the two has been emphasized in more recent scholarship. See Adrian Gregory, ‘A Clash of Cultures: The British Press and the Opening of the Great War’, in Paddock (ed.), Call to Arms, pp. 15–49.
4 Das, Santanu, ‘Ardour and Anxiety: Politics and Literature in the Indian Homefront’, in Liebau, Heike et al. (eds), The World in World Wars: Experiences, Perceptions and Perspectives from Africa and Asia, Leiden, Brill, 2010, p. 342Google Scholar.
5 The term ‘sepoy’ was a corruption of the word ‘sipahi’ and referred to an Indian soldier in British employ.
6 For useful overviews of political developments during the war, see Sarkar, Sumit, Modern India, 1885–1947, Basingstoke, Macmillan Press, 1995, pp. 147–53Google Scholar; Bose, Sugata and Jalal, Ayesha, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 102–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chandra, Bipan et al. , India's Struggle for Independence, 1857–1947, New Delhi, Viking, 1988, pp. 159–69Google Scholar.
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8 Dewitt Ellinwood and S. D. Pradhan (eds), India and World War I, Delhi, Manohar, 1978, serves as a dated exception to this trend, but see also below.
9 Bagchi, Amiya Kumar, ‘Indian Economy and Society during World War One’, Social Scientist, vol. 42, nos. 7/8, 2014, pp. 12–16Google Scholar; Krishan Saini, ‘The Economic Aspects of India's Participation in the First World War’, in Ellinwood and Pradhan (eds), India and World War I, pp. 141–76; Bose and Jalal, Modern South Asia, pp. 127–8.
10 An exceptional look at Punjab as a home front throughout two world wars can be found in Tan Tai Yong, The Garrison State: The Military, Government and Society in Colonial Punjab 1849–1941, New Delhi, Manohar, 2005. Other works which consider the impact of manpower mobilization for these wars are Mazumder, Rajit, The Indian Army and the Making of Punjab, Delhi, Permanent Black, 2003Google Scholar; Omissi, David (ed.), Indian Voices of the Great War, 1914–1918, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1999Google Scholar. For an argument regarding the recruitment of Indian soldiers as cannon fodder for an imperial cause, see Susan VanKoski, ‘The Indian Ex-Soldier from the Eve of the First World War to Independence and Partition’, PhD thesis, Columbia University, 1996.
11 Sarkar, Modern India, pp. 168–77; Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar, From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, New Delhi, Orient Longman, 2004, pp. 286–8Google Scholar.
12 Sarkar, Modern India, p. 169.
13 See especially Liebau et al. (eds), The World in World Wars; Roy, Franziska, Liebau, Heike and Ahuja, Ravi (eds), When the War Began we Heard of Several Kings: South Asian Prisoners in World War I Germany, Delhi, Social Science Press, 2011Google Scholar; Bley, Helmut and Kremers, Anorthe (eds), The World during the First World War: Perceptions, Experiences and Consequences, Essen, Klartext, 2014Google Scholar; Das, Santanu (ed.), Race, Empire and First World War Writing, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013Google Scholar. Among important older contributions are Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain, London, Pluto Press, 2002Google Scholar; Greenhut, Jeffery, ‘The Imperial Reserve: The Indian Corps on the Western Front, 1914–1915’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 12, no. 1, 1983, pp. 54–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some of the growing literature on Indians in the First World War tends to reproduce the imperial or ethnocentric biases of military authorities and other official sources. See, for instance, Jarboe, Andrew and Fogarty, Richard S. (eds), Empires in World War I: Shifting Frontiers and Imperial Dynamics in a Global Conflict, London, I. B. Tauris, 2014CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Corrigan, Gordon, Sepoys in the Trenches: The Indian Corps on the Western Front 1914–1915, Staplehurst, Spellmount, 1999Google Scholar; Jack, G. M., ‘The Indian Army on the Western Front, 1914–1915: A Portrait of Collaboration’, War in History, vol. 13, no. 3, 2006, pp. 329–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There are numerous military histories of Indian participation in the First World War, which ignore the larger political context and social impact of the war in India and will not be discussed here. See, for example, Roy, Kaushik (ed.), The Indian Army in the Two World Wars, Leiden, Brill, 2011Google Scholar.
14 Ravi Ahuja refers in passing to news reports and the circulation of rumours about the war in R. Ahuja, ‘The Corrosiveness of Comparison: Reverberations of Indian Wartime Experiences in German Prison Camps, 1915–19’, in Liebau et al. (eds), World in World Wars, pp. 135, 139–43. See also Yong, The Garrison State, pp. 105, 184, 233–4. Although Andrew Jarboe examines how the mobilization of Indian soldiers in the service of empire figured in First World War imperial propaganda, his study is limited to the Western Front and ignores the obvious, though unexamined, significance of such metropolitan efforts for colonial politics. Jarboe, Andrew, ‘Soldiers of Empire: “Colonial Troops” in the Imperial Metropole and Imperial Propaganda, 1914–18’, in Paddock, Troy (ed.), Propaganda in the First World War, Leiden, Brill, 2012Google Scholar. The limited scope of this analysis is undermined by the frequent reliance on uncritical blanket terms such as ‘racism’ to characterize representations of sepoys in British newspapers.
15 For a recent reassessment of the politics and mechanics of colonial news-gathering in nineteenth-century India, see Bonea, Amelia, The News of Empire: Telegraphy, Journalism and the Politics of Reporting in Colonial India, c. 1830–1900, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 149–321CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 Kaul, Chandrika, Reporting the Raj: The British Press and India, c. 1880–1922, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2003, pp. 119–34Google Scholar. Northcliffe's imperial vision and its reflection in the newspapers he owned is examined in C. Kaul, ‘Popular Press and Empire: Northcliffe, India and the Daily Mail, 1896–1922’, in Catterall, Peter et al. (eds), Northcliffe's Legacy: Aspects of the British Popular Press, 1896–1996, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 2000, pp. 45–69Google Scholar.
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19 Notable exceptions are Harrison, Mark, ‘The Fight against Disease in the Mesopotamian Campaign’, in Liddle, Peter and Cecil, Hugh (eds), Facing Armageddon: The First World War Experienced, Barnsley, Leo Cooper, 1996, pp. 475–89Google Scholar; Harrison, Medical War; Santanu Das, ‘Indians at Home, Mesopotamia and France, 1914–1918’, in Das (ed.), Race, Empire and First World War, pp. 70–89; Sehrawat, Colonial Medical Care; Ellinwood and Pradhan, India and World War I; Pradhan, S. D., Indian Army in East Africa, 1914–1918, New Delhi, National Book Organisation, 1991Google Scholar; Kitchen, James E., The British Imperial Army in the Middle East: Morale and Military Identity in the Sinai and Palestine Campaigns, 1916–18, London, Bloomsbury 2014Google Scholar; Robson, Brian, Crisis on the Frontier: the Third Afghan War and the Campaign in Waziristan 1919–1920, Stroud, Spellmount, 2007Google Scholar.
20 See, for instance, French, David, ‘The Dardanelles, Mecca and Kut: Prestige as a Factor in British Eastern Strategy, 1914–1916’, War and Society, vol. 5, no. 1, 1987CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rothwell, V. H., ‘Mesopotamia in British War Aims, 1914–1918’, Historical Journal, vol. 13, no. 2, 1970, pp. 273–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cohen, S., ‘The Genesis of the British Campaign in Mesopotamia, 1914’, Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, 1976, pp. 119–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Indian sub-imperialism, see Blyth, Robert, The Empire of the Raj: India, Eastern Africa and the Middle East, 1858–1947, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
21 See, for instance, Barker, A. J., The Neglected War: Mesopotamia 1914–1918, London, Faber and Faber, 1967Google Scholar; Davis, Paul K., Ends and Means: The British Mesopotamian Campaign and Commission, Madison, Associated University Presses, 1994Google Scholar; Knight, Paul, The British Army in Mesopotamia, 1914–1918, Jefferson, McFarland, 2013Google Scholar.
22 See, for example, Goold, Douglas, ‘Lord Hardinge and the Mesopotamia Expedition and Inquiry, 1914–1917’, Historical Journal, vol. 19, no. 4, 1976, pp. 919–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Barker argues that the Mesopotamia Commission Report was politically motivated. See Barker, The Neglected War; Davis, End and Means, and the discussion below. A more recent instalment to this approach is Ulrichsen, Kristian, The Logistics and Politics of the British Campaigns in the Middle East, 1914–22, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, esp. pp. 22–3Google Scholar.
23 Hopkin, Deian, ‘Domestic Censorship in the First World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 5, no. 4, 1970, pp. 151–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McEwen, J. M., ‘The Press and the Fall of Asquith’, Historical Journal, vol. 21, no. 4, 1978CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thompson, J. Lee, ‘Fleet Street Colossus: The Rise and Fall of Northcliffe, 1896– 1922’, Parliamentary History, vol. 25, no. 1, 2006, pp. 115–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 Monger, David, Patriotism and Propaganda in First World War Britain: The National War Aims Committee and Civilian Morale, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2013Google Scholar; Sanders, M. L. and Taylor, Philip M., British Propaganda during the First World War 1914–1918, London, Macmillan, 1982CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Messinger, Gary, British Propaganda and the State in the First World War, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1992Google Scholar; Haste, Keep the Home Fires; Buitenhuis, Peter, The Great War of Words: Literature as Propaganda, 1914–18 and After, Vancouver, UCB Press, 1987Google Scholar.
25 Paddock, ‘Introduction: Newspapers, Public Opinion, and Propaganda’, pp. 4–13.
26 Potter, News and the British World; Kaul, Reporting the Raj, pp. 130–2.
27 Asquith was the British prime minister from 1908 and was forced to resign in December 1916 amid allegations of poor management of the war. See McEwen, ‘Fall of Asquith’; McEwen, J. M., ‘Northcliffe and Lloyd George at War, 1914–1918’, Historical Journal, vol. 24, no. 3, 1981CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pugh, Martin, Lloyd George, London, Longman, 1988Google Scholar.
28 Sarkar, Modern India, p. 169.
29 Much was made of the pageantry associated with the arrival of the Expeditionary Force at Marseilles. See ‘Indian Troops in France’, The Times, 2 Oct. 1914, p. 9; the editorial described ‘the little Gurkhas playing the “Marseillaise”… on the little bagpipes which their good comrades in the Highland regiments taught them … the great French tune sounding from the Highland pipes played by the Indian Highlanders … the Indian warriors are India's answer to the great German miscalculation about Indian fidelity’; ‘What we Think: Our Indian Army’, Star, 2 Oct. 1914, p. 2; ‘Soldiers of India’, The Times, 3 Oct. 1914, p. 7.
30 Kaul, Reporting the Raj, pp. 123–5. For censorship on the Western Front, see Visram, Rozina, Ayahs, Lascars and Princes. Indians in Britain, 1700–1947, London, Pluto Press, 1986, p. 123Google Scholar.
31 Kaul, Reporting the Raj, pp. 125–6, 130.
32 Kaul, Chandrika, ‘India, the Imperial Press Conferences and the Empire Press Union: The Diplomacy of News in the Politics of Empire, 1909–46’, in Kaul, C. (ed.), Media and the British Empire, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, esp. pp. 135–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barrier, N. G., Banned: Controversial Literature and Political Control in British India, 1907–47, Columbia, University of Missouri Press, 1974, esp. pp. 66–107Google Scholar. Potter argues that the widening of state censorship during and after the war in India was in sharp contrast to the wider trend of the flow of information with limited government intervention across the British empire, especially in the Dominion colonies: Potter, News and the British World, p. 206.
33 ‘News for India: Sir F. Younghusband's Daily Telegrams’, The Times, 8 Feb. 1915, p. 6. Younghusband had established a reputation in the pre-war period for his knowledge about foreign policy and his travels in central Asia, especially Tibet, during the era of the ‘Great Game’.
34 Kaul, Reporting the Raj, pp. 126, 132.
35 ‘The Swords of India’, Daily Chronicle, 2 Sep. 1914, p. 4; ‘India's 70,000: Troops “Already Dispatched,” says Viceroy’, Star, 9 Sep. 1914, p. 1; ‘Our Indian Army in France’, Daily Mail, 2 Oct. 1914, p. 4.
36 Haste, Keep the Home Fires; Sanders and Taylor, British Propaganda.
37 Kaul, Reporting the Raj, pp. 125–6. For the India Office's war propaganda, also see Visram, Ayahs, Lascars, pp. 125–9.
38 Kaul, Reporting the Raj, p. 125. Created Baron Birkenhead in 1919, Smith was appointed as a ‘recording officer’ while serving as a staff officer with the Indian corps. He was later to co-author an official history: Smith, F. E. and Merewether, J. W. B., The Indian Corps in France, London, John Murray, 1917Google Scholar.
39 ‘The Empire's Devotion’, Manchester Guardian, 14 Aug. 1914; ‘Enthusiastic Evidences of Patriotism’ and ‘Loyalty of Native Opinion’, Morning Post, 9 Sep. 1914, p. 8; ‘India's Princely Aid: The Gorgeous East in Fee’, The Times, 10 Aug. 1914, p. 9; ‘India and her Army: Eagerness to Serve in Europe’, The Times, 31 Aug. 1914, p. 7; ‘India's Martial Spirit’, The Times, 13 Nov. 1914, p. 7; ‘Rajput Fighting Princes’, The Times, 8 Jan. 1915, p. 3. See also Das, ‘Ardour and Anxiety’.
40 ‘The Empire's Devotion’, Manchester Guardian, 14 Aug. 1914; ‘India's 70,000: Troops “Already Dispatched,” Says Viceroy’, Star, 9 Sep. 1914, p. 1; ‘India's Enthusiasm: Proposal to Share War Cost with United Kingdom’, Star, 10 Sep. 1914, p. 1.
41 ‘India: 1784–1914’, Punch, or the London Charivari, vol. 147, 7 Oct. 1914.
42 That Britain was fighting in defence of the principle of ‘Right against Might’ in defence of small nations was a cornerstone of British propaganda on the home front and in neutral countries. Haste, Keep the Home Fires, pp. 52, 57, 63; Monger, Patriotism and Propaganda, pp. 159–62. ‘Britain's Just Cause’, The Times, 7 Aug. 1914, p. 7; R. E. Vernede reminded the sepoys that ‘all that they [the German enemy] had of izzat [sense of chivalrous honour] is trodden under heel … Into their hearts, my brothers, drive home, drive home the steel!’: ‘The Indian Army’, The Times, 11 Aug. 1914, p. 9.
43 Although Haste's study acknowledges the importance of the empire, she does not discuss how empire figured in the propaganda: Haste, Keep the Home Fires. Monger, Patriotism and Propaganda, pp. 89–90, 151, pays attention to this when discussing supranational patriotism, but only in passing.
44 ‘Our Indian Army: The Question of Colour in War Time’, Daily Chronicle, 1 Sep. 1914, p. 3; ‘The King's Messages to the Empire: Gratitude and Pride; Unity in a Just Cause … Magnificent Loyalty: India's Offers of Lives and Resources’, Morning Post, 10 Sep. 1914, p. 6; Valentine Chirol, ‘India and the War: the Depth of National Feeling’, The Times, 12 Sep. 1914, p. 9; ‘The Response of India: Lord Curzon on Imperial Unity’, The Times, 7 Oct. 1914, p. 10.
45 ‘India's Splendid Rally: Offers of Service from Princes and People, “Message to the Whole” World’, Manchester Guardian, 10 Sep. 1914; ‘India's Enthusiasm: Proposal to Share War Cost with United Kingdom’, Star, 10 Sep. 1914, p. 1.
46 Historiographically, this will involve a re-engagement with earlier interventions such as Bayly, Christopher, ‘Returning the British to South Asian History: The Limits of Colonial Hegemony’, in his The Origins of Nationality in India, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 77–8, 93, 122–3, 125, 285–6, 295, 309Google Scholar.
47 Although lip service was paid to this and some concessions were made to this wartime propaganda, unequal treatment of Indian soldiers continued throughout the war. That Hardinge's strategy worked is evident from the overwhelming support he received in the Indian press when he was criticized by the Mesopotamia Commission and heavily censured in the British press in July 1917 for his role in causing the breakdown of the Mesopotamia campaign.
48 Thus Dadabhai Naoroji, the most prominent moderate nationalist leader, confidently claimed, ‘We are above all British citizens of the great British Empire, and that is at present our greatest pride’: ‘India and the War: Mr Naoroji's Confidence’, The Times, 5 Sep. 1914, p. 9. Naoroji's qualified support can be contrasted with the rather effusive composition of Nawab Nizamut Jung, a retired High Court judge, ‘Thine equal justice, mercy, grace, Have made a distant alien race, A part of thee!’: ‘India to England’, The Times, 2 Sep. 1914, p. 9.
49 Das, ‘Ardour and Anxiety’, p. 257.
50 Louis Fischer, Mahatma Gandhi: His Life and Times, London, Harper Collins, 1997, pp. 202–3. Gandhi's appeal to Gujarati women mirrored calls in Britain, for example, ‘Women of Britain say “Go!”’: Haste, Keep the Home Fires, p. 55. ‘The Indian Wounded’, Letter from M. K. Gandhi, The Times, 5 Nov. 1914, p. 6; ‘Young India in the War’, The Times, 24 Dec. 1914, p. 6.
51 Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1829), cited in Potter, News and the British World, p. 2.
52 Thompson acknowledges that this rhetoric of ‘loyalty’ to the empire was in tension with local colonial identities: see Thompson, Andrew, ‘The Languages of Loyalism in Southern Africa, c. 1870–1939’, English Historical Review, vol. 118, no. 477, 2003, pp. 617–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
53 Das, ‘Ardour and Anxiety’, pp. 360–7.
54 Monger, Patriotism and Propaganda, pp. 24–5, 65–9.
55 ‘India's Loyalty: Moslem League Urges Turkish Neutrality’, Morning Post, 9 Sep. 1914, p. 9. The Agha Khan's speech to an Indian Volunteers Committee, chaired by Gandhi, was quoted widely in the metropolitan press: ‘India's Loyal Aid in the War, Germany as the Enemy of Moslem Nations’, The Times, 2 Oct. 1914, p. 9; ‘India: 1784–1914’, Punch, or the London Charivari, vol. 147, 7 Oct. 1914; ‘Feeling in India: Moslem Press Warns Turkey … Loyalty to the British Raj’, Morning Post, 3 Nov. 1914, p. 8; ‘Curse from the Mountains: Old Indian Hunter on Our Enemy’, Daily Mail, 10 Nov. 1914, p. 8; ‘Indian Moslem Loyalty’, The Times, 12 Nov. 1914, p. 7; ‘Indian Troops at the Front’, The Times, 25 Nov. 1914, p. 3; ‘Germans Bested’, Daily Mail, 25 Nov. 1914, p. 6; ‘Loyal India: Baffled German Intrigues’, The Times, 22 May 1915, p. 18.
56 Heike Liebau, ‘The German Foreign Office, Indian Emigrants and Propaganda Efforts among the “Sepoys”’, in Roy et al. (eds), When the War Began, pp. 96–128. Imperial anxieties regarding security due to the use of Indian soldiers in the war have been discussed at length in Omissi, David, Sepoys and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860–1940, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1994, pp. 113–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
57 ‘Letters from the Front: German Overtures to the Indian Troops’, The Times, 11 Dec. 1914, p. 6; ‘Loyal India’, The Times, 14 Jan. 1915, p. 7.
58 Thus, the nizam of Hyderabad was quoted as exhorting his co-religionists to loyally serve the British whose cause was described as ‘just and right’: ‘Indian Moslem Loyalty: The Action of Turkey Denounced’, The Times, 4 Nov. 1914, p. 7. For references to the British cause being just and holy, see Haste, Keep the Home Fires, p. 107; Monger, Patriotism and Propaganda, pp. 95–7, 160, 176–7, 198. Also see Gregory's revisionist interpretation of British war propaganda, which argues that Christian values of sacrifice were pervasive during the First World War. Gregory, Adrian, The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 152–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
59 ‘German Dismay at Indian Fighting Qualities’, Manchester Guardian, 31 Oct. 1914, p. 9.
60 ‘Indian Riot at Singapore’, Manchester Guardian, 24 Feb. 1915, p. 7.
61 ‘German Lies about India, Editorial’, The Times, 20 Nov. 1915, p. 9.
62 ‘To Relief of Gen. Townshend: Indians from Flanders to the Tigris’, Daily Mail, 29 Jan. 1915, p. 6; ‘The Calm Spirit of India’, The Times, 19 Mar. 1915, p. 7; ‘Australians and Indians: Friendship at the Dardanelles’, The Times, 9 Aug. 1915, p. 7.
63 The following are representative: ‘The Indian Troops at Marseilles’, The Times, 2 Oct. 1914, p. 9; ‘A Day At—Where Our Indian Troops Wait’, The Times, 25 Oct. 1914, p. 3; ‘Our Indian Comrades’, Manchester Guardian, 3 Dec. 1914, p. 9; Hammerton, J. A. (ed.), ‘East and West Join Hands in France’, The War Illustrated Album Deluxe: The Story of the Great European War told by Camera, Pen and Pencil, Vol. 3, London, Amalgamated Press, 1915, p. 801Google Scholar; Hammerton, J. A. (ed.), ‘Brothers in Arms from East and West in Bagdad’, The War Illustrated Album Deluxe, Vol. 10, London, Amalgamated Press, 1919, p. 3398Google Scholar.
64 Harrison, Medical War, pp. 52–4.
65 ‘“Hail to the King-Emperor!”: Royal Visit to Indian Wounded’, Daily Mail, 18 Nov. 1914, p. 3.
66 ‘Wounded Indians’, The Times, 2 Jan. 1915, p. 11; ‘Wounded Indians at Brighton’, The Times, 28 May 1915, p. 11.
67 ‘Arrangements Made for Indian Sick and Wounded in England and France: Report by Col Sir Walter Lawrence to the SoS for War’, Walter Lawrence Papers, India Office Records and Private Papers (IORPP), British Library (BL) [hereafter, Lawrence Papers], Mss Eur/F143/65, p. 4.
68 Lawrence to Kitchener, 15 Feb. 1915, Lawrence Papers, Mss Eur/F143/65, p. 27.
69 Hardinge's letter cited by Lawrence in his letter to Kitchener, 27 May 1915, Lawrence Papers, Mss Eur/F143/65, p. 67.
70 Lawrence to Kitchener, 21 Jul 1915, Lawrence Papers, Mss Eur/F143/65, p. 92.
71 Ibid., p. 92.
72 ‘Song of the Sikhs: Lord Crewe's Visit to Indian Wounded’, The Times, 30 Mar. 1915, p. 7.
73 See, for instance, ‘Indian Heroes: Modest Story of the Great Charge’, Daily Mail, 9 Nov. 1914, p. 3; ‘What the Indian Soldiers Think’, Daily Mail, 9 Dec. 1914, p. 6; ‘Royal Visit to Brighton’, The Times, 11 Jan. 1915, p. 4; ‘“In the King's Palace”: Indians’ Appreciation of the Brighton Hospital’, The Times, 18 Feb. 1916, p. 3.
74 ‘India's Highlanders: Gallant Gurkhas who will Never be Beaten’, Star, 10 Oct. 1914, p. 3; ‘Indians in Camp: Picturesque Scenes in the New Forest’, The Times, 28 Oct. 1914, p. 5. Sehrawat has argued that the ethnicity of sepoys was important for imperial military officers reliant on mercenaries from a colonized population and anxious about the loyalty of such troops. This anxiety was especially pronounced during the early phases of the First World War when Indian soldiers were deployed on the Western Front and was especially evident in the care given to respecting their ethnic practices in war hospitals in southern England during 1914–16. See Sehrawat, Colonial Medical Care, especially pp. 202–19.
75 ‘Care for Caste at Indian Hospitals: Mr Chamberlain and the V.C.’, Manchester Guardian, 14 Jul. 1915, p. 8; ‘The King's Message to the Indian Army Corps’, Manchester Guardian, 29 Dec. 1915, p. 4.
76 ‘The Indian Troops’, Letter to the Editor by Gen. O'M. Creagh, retired commander-in-chief of the Indian Army, The Times, 5 Dec. 1914, p. 9; ‘Indian Soldiers’ Mistreatment: Mischievous Rumours’, Manchester Guardian, 15 Apr. 1915, p. 12; ‘Wounded Indians in the New Forest’, The Times, 1 Mar. 1915, p. 5; ‘Indians in Brighton Hospital: Care for Caste Prejudices’, The Times, 4 Sep. 1915, p. 3.
77 This was especially strict at the Kitchener Indian Hospital: ‘A Report on the Kitchener Indian Hospital Brighton’, c. 1916, India Office Record (IOR), British Library (BL), L/MIL/17/5/2016 [hereafter, ‘KIH Report’]. See Greenhut, J., ‘Race, Sex and War: The Impact of Race and Sex on Morale and Health Services for the Indian Corps on the Western Front, 1914’, Military Affairs, vol. 45, 1981, pp. 71–4CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Levine, Philippa, ‘Battle Colors: Race, Sex, and Colonial Soldiery in World War I’, Journal of Women's History, vol. 9, no. 4, 1998, pp. 104–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
78 ‘KIH Report’; Harrison, ‘Disease, Discipline and Dissent’.
79 ‘KIH Report’.
80 Section on ‘Amusements’, ibid., p. 14; ‘Sikh Sightseers’, The Times, 9 Apr. 1915, p. 10; ‘Indian Officers in London’, The Times, 29 Sep. 1915, p. 5.
81 Section on ‘Amusements’, ‘KIH Report’, p. 14; ‘Indian Army Devotion: Relentless Swords Against the Foe in France’, Daily Mail, 11 Dec. 1914, p. 3; ‘Wounded Indians to See London’, The Times, 24 Dec. 1914, p. 5; ‘Wounded Indians in London: At Lord Roberts's Grave’, The Times, 6 Jan. 1915, p. 4; ‘Indian Wounded at Brighton’, The Times, 26 Jul. 1915, p. 5.
82 Yong, The Garrison State, pp. 105–8; Mazumder, The Indian Army; ‘Treatment of Indian Troops: Spread of Baseless Rumors’, The Times, 15 Apr. 1915, p. 9.
83 Wilson, Arnold, Loyalties Mesopotamia, 1914–1917: A Personal and Historical Record, New York, Greenwood Press, 1969, 1st edn 1930, p. 164Google Scholar. For a recent effort at problematizing the significance of propaganda and censorship on the British home front, see the discussion of military censorship in McCartney, Helen, Citizen Soldiers: The Liverpool Territorials in the First World War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 89–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As opposed to McCartney's discussion of the attenuated efforts to censor communication between soldiers of a Territorial regiment and the civilian population, military censorship for Indian soldiers had a second layer of censorship deployed by the India Office: see Omissi, Indian Voices, pp. 4–9.
84 Candler, Edmund, The Long Road to Baghdad, London, Cassell and Company, 1919, pp. 65–72Google Scholar.
85 ‘Extracts from a letter from an officer in Mesopotamia, 5 Feb. 1916’, Lawrence Papers, Mss Eur/F143/101, p. 11.
86 The first report was made in ‘Mismanagement in Mesopotamia’, The Times, 14 Mar. 1916, p. 7.
87 ‘Mesopotamian Needs’, Letter from John Byrne, The Times, 17 Mar. 1916, p. 9. The letter from Byrne's son, which was quoted, was especially harrowing as it was written just days before his death.
88 For instance, ‘Fortiter’ claimed shortages had existed right from the beginning of the campaign, as early as December 1914. The Northcliffe press had earlier begun campaigns that were meant to uncover official shortcomings which had, it was claimed, placed soldiers’ lives in danger. Thompson, ‘Fleet Street Colossus’. See also McEwen's account of Northcliffe's criticism of Kitchener early in the war, even at the expense of a fall in the circulation of his papers: McEwen, J. M., ‘“Brass-Hats” and the British Press during the First World War’, Canadian Journal of History, vol. 18, no. 1, 1983CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
89 Thompson, ‘Fleet Street Colossus’, pp. 122–3.
90 Haste, Keep the Home Fires, p. 7; Thompson, J. Lee, Politicians, the Press and Propaganda: Lord Northcliffe and the Great War, 1914–19, Kent, Kent State University Press, 1999, pp. 12–14Google Scholar.
91 Haste, Keep the Home Fires, pp. 75–6. For details of the role of the press in engineering Asquith's downfall, see McEwen, ‘Fall of Asquith’. For an analysis of the criticism of the Asquith coalition and the rising support for Lloyd George as a decisive war leader during this period of intense press criticism, see Grigg, John, Lloyd George: From Peace to War, 1912–1916, London, Methuen, 1985Google Scholar; Cassar, George, Asquith as War Leader, London, Hambledon, 1994Google Scholar; Thompson, Politicians, Press, Propaganda, pp. 103–22. Anger about the Mesopotamian breakdown was also fuelled by growing war-weariness in 1917. Haste, Keep the Home Fires, pp. 74–6; Monger, Patriotism and Propaganda, p. 26.
92 G. Dawson to Northcliffe, 14 Jul. 1916, Northcliffe Papers, BL [hereafter, Northcliffe Papers], Add MS 62251, p. 142. Harrison argues that there was a lag in adopting elements of the medical machine developed on the Western Front on fronts further away from metropolitan scrutiny, such as those in Mesopotamia and Gallipoli. Harrison, Medical War, pp. 297–9.
93 Harrison, Medical War, pp. 11–13, 301–2. See also Mitchell, T. J. and Smith, G. M., History of the Great War Based on Official Documents, Medical Services: Casualties and Medical Statistics of the Great War, London, HMSO, 1931, pp. 5–6Google Scholar.
94 See, for instance, ‘Our Mesopotamian Troops: An “Inexcusable” Medical Breakdown’, Manchester Guardian, 23 Mar. 1916, p. 5; ‘Editorial: Who is Responsible?’, Star, 23 Mar. 1916, p. 2; ‘Supplies for Mesopotamia: Mr Chamberlain says Many Offers were Accepted’, Star, 24 Mar. 1916; ‘Mesopotamia: More Questions about Hospital Arrangements’, Star, 28 Mar. 1916, p. 1; ‘House of Lords: The Mesopotamia “Breakdown”’, Manchester Guardian, 19 Jul. 1916, p. 6. In contrast to the conservative press, the liberal press gave much less space to coverage of reports of the medical breakdown during 1916 and the first half of 1917, though parliamentary discussions about it were regularly reported. ‘The Mesopotamia Black Book: Nobody has yet been Punished’, Star, 27 Jun. 1917, p. 1; ‘Pukka’, ibid., p. 2; ‘Public Anger over Mesopotamia: “No Whitewashing”’, Star, 28 Jun. 1917, p. 1; ‘Mesopotamia Scandal’, ibid., p. 1; ‘Mesopotamia Report: Expedition Badly Organised and Ill-Equipped, Indian Government's Responsibility’, Manchester Guardian, 27 Jun. 1917, p. 5; ‘Mesopotamia Scandal: Sufferings of the Wounded’, Manchester Guardian, 28 Jun. 1917, p. 8; ‘Mesopotamia: Questions in the House’, Manchester Guardian, 5 Jul. 1917, p. 6; ‘The Blunder of Bagdad and its Tragic Sequel: Mesopotamia Muddling’, Daily Chronicle, 27 Jun. 1917, p. 1; ‘Mesopotamia: Sensational Disclosures’, Daily News and Leader [hereafter, Daily News], 27 Jun. 1917, p. 1; ‘Medical Breakdown: Painful Revelations of the Sufferings of the Troops’, ibid., p. 3; ‘Editorial: Crime and Punishment’, Daily News, 28 Jun. 1917, p. 2.
95 Harrison, Medical War, pp. 300–2.
96 Ibid., pp. 295–6.
97 Members of parliament, such as Ian Malcolm, also wrote to The Times in support of its exposé of the scandalous medical breakdown. Malcolm was a Tory politician who had not only travelled to India but was associated with Red Cross work in Mesopotamia.
98 Lovat Fraser, ‘Who is Responsible? Townshend's Besieged Little Army in Kut’, Daily Mail, 27 Mar. 1916, p. 4; Lovat Fraser, ‘The Mystery: Who sent Townshend to Baghdad?’, Daily Mail, 24 Jul. 1916, p. 4. Press censorship was often used for political ends during the war. It helped to manage dips in civilian morale due to defeats, but also to prevent criticism of the government's management of the war.
99 Letter from James Rolt, The Times, 17 Mar. 1916, p. 9.
100 Private letters intimating medical shortages were sent to Chamberlain from February 1916. For summaries of such private letters, see ‘Medical Arrangements, Mesopotamia (enclosed with letter from Chamberlain to Hardinge, 11 February 1916)’, AC46/2/57; ‘Copy of Letter dated 16 January 1916, from an Officer Serving in Mesopotamia’, AC46/2/58; ‘Extracts from Private Letters from Mesopotamia (enclosed with letter from Chamberlain to Hardinge, 24 January 1916)’, AC46/2/60; ‘Extract from Letter from Bombay’, 28 Jan. 1916, AC46/2/61; Letter from Chamberlain to [Hardinge?], 22 Feb. 1916, AC46/2/2; all in the Austen Chamberlain Collection, Cadbury Research Library, Birmingham [hereafter, Austen Chamberlain Collection]. Lawrence received letters from October 1915, some of which were sent by messenger by highly placed officers to escape the censor. ‘Extracts from letters from Indian Medical Service officers describing their experiences in Mesopotamia’, Lawrence Papers, Mss Eur/F143/101, pp. 1–11.
101 See, for instance, private letters and reports forwarded by Lord Midleton, the Unionist and Conservative MP and the former governor of Bombay; Lord Selborne, the Liberal Unionist; and the King to Chamberlain. Selborne to Chamberlain, 23 Jun. 1916, AC46/2/46; Curzon to Chamberlain, 2 Apr. 1916, AC46/2/29; Midleton to Chamberlain, 1 Apr. 1916, AC46/2/28; Stamfordham to Chamberlain, 28 Feb. 1916, AC46/2/65; all in the Austen Chamberlain Collection. For Midleton's persistent demands for greater information regarding the campaign, see ‘Campaign in Mesopotamia’, Hansard, House of Lords Debate [hereafter, HL Deb], 30 Mar. 1916, vol. 21 cc587-93; ‘Operations in Mesopotamia’, HL Deb, 22 May 1916, vol. 22 cc2-3; ‘Rations of the Troops in Mesopotamia’, HL Deb, 25 Jul. 1916, vol. 22 cc905-7.
102 Ibid.
103 ‘Mesopotamia Hospitals’, Daily Mail, 24 Mar. 1916, p. 6.
104 Mark Harrison shows that as the War Office took over the command of the campaign in August 1916, the ‘medical machine’ developed on the Western Front to evacuate casualties and improve the health of soldiers, was finally deployed on the Mesopotamian front. Harrison, Medical War, pp. 274–84.
105 ‘Rations of the Troops in Mesopotamia’, 25 Jul. 1916, HL Deb, 25 Jul. 1916, vol. 22 cc905-7905.
106 Kaul, ‘Popular Press and Empire’, pp. 45–69, has outlined the imperial sympathies of Northcliffe and in the greater coverage given to Indian news by The Times and the Daily Mail. McEwen points out that the views of the editor of the Morning Post, H. A. Gwynne, closely reflected those of Sir Edward Carson, leader of the Irish Unionist party. Carson had resigned from the Asquith coalition in October 1915, after which he was an active critic of the Asquith government. He led the Unionist war committee, formed in January 1916, for the more vigorous prosecution of the war, which was especially active in condemning the Mesopotamia scandal. McEwen, ‘Fall of Asquith’; Thompson, ‘Fleet Street Colossus’.
107 ‘Absolootely Nootral’, Morning Post, 21 Oct. 1916.
108 See the repeated questioning in parliament regarding military medical equipment, military hospitals in India, and suggestions for their reform. ‘Army Medical Equipment (India)’, Hansard, Commons Debates, 5th ser., vol. 85, col. 650: 7 Aug. 1916; ‘Military Hospitals (India)’, Hansard, Commons Debates, 5th ser., vol. 86, col. 978W: 24 Oct. 1916; ‘Barrackpore Hospital and Barracks’, ibid., col. 1117: 25 Oct. 1916; specifically about Indian military hospitals, see: ‘Military Hospitals’, Hansard, Commons Debates, 5th ser., vol. 95, col. 1942-3W: 11 Jul. 1917.
109 The deaths of British soldiers from heatstroke in a train transporting them from Karachi to Peshawar caused a considerable stir as it came at a time when the government was asserting that earlier lapses in organization had been remedied. The news of the tragedy was broken by the Truth, a weekly journal that had a reputation for investigative journalism to expose frauds: Truth, Aug. 1916. ‘Indian Troop Train Tragedy: Many Deaths from Heatstroke’, Manchester Guardian, 22 Jul. 1916, p. 6; ‘Editorial: The New Black Hole Tragedy’, Morning Post, 22 Jul. 1916, p. 6; ‘Imperial Parliament: Karachi Train Blunder’, Morning Post, 2 Aug. 1916, p. 4; ‘Territorial Death Train’, Daily Express, 22 Jul. 1916, p. 5.
110 The news of the tragedy was reported widely in the empire as well as in the United States and proved very embarrassing to the Indian government. See, for instance, New York Sun, 6 Aug. 1916, vol. 83, p. 39. ‘Deaths from Heat Stroke’, HC Deb, 20 Jul. 1916, vol. 84 cc1226-7W; ‘Death of Territorials in India’, HL Deb, 01 Aug. 1916, vol. 22 cc1037-42; ‘Death of Territorials in India’, HL Deb, 25 Jul. 1916, vol. 22 cc911-6.
111 ‘Many Deaths on Hospital Ship: Terrible Effects of Heat’, Manchester Guardian, 8 Aug 1916, p. 5; Viceroy of India, ‘Hospital Ship Heat Strokes’, Daily Mail, 8 Aug. 1916, p. 5.
112 ‘Indian Hospital Scandals: Lamentable Deficiencies’, Morning Post, 13 Oct. 1916, p. 4; ‘Questions in Parliament’, Morning Post, 21 Oct. 1916, p. 5.
113 ‘Green Glasses’, Daily Mail, 4 Sep. 1916, p. 3; ‘Green Glasses’, Daily Mail, 5 Sep. 1916, p. 3; ‘Soldiers’ Green Goggles’, Daily Mail, 6 Sep. 1916, p. 3; George Spiller, ‘Bad Green Glasses’, Daily Mail, 9 Sep. 1916, p. 3.
114 See news reports in Justice (Madras), 11 Aug. 1919, Supplement to Punjab Press Abstract, vol. 32, no. 35, 1919, p. 85; the Hindu (Madras), 20 Aug. 1919, ibid., p. 94.
115 For a discussion of the report, see Davis, Ends and Means. Harrison, Medical War, pp. 204–27, 262–90, covers the medical aspects of the breakdown. Sehrawat, Colonial Medical Care, pp. 241–8, examines the impact of the culture of economy within the government on military and civilian medical care. We do not argue that the judgements of the Commission were influenced by the conservative press in Britain, but rather that the latter influenced the lines of enquiry pursued by the Commission.
116 The government had clearly been influenced by a desire for victory to boost public morale after the stalemate on the Western Front and the debacle in the Dardanelles. However, David French argues convincingly that the decision to focus on the mid-East was meant to strengthen the British position in Asia and protect British imperial interests. French, ‘Dardanelles, Mecca and Kut’.
117 See repeated demands in parliament to ask the government to release papers related to the Mesopotamian campaign: ‘Mesopotamia Papers’, HL Deb, 21 Jun. 1916, vol. 22 cc336-8; ‘Mesopotamia Papers’, HL Deb, 6 Jul. 1916, vol. 22 cc601-2; ‘Mesopotamia Papers’, HL Deb, 11 Jul. 1916, vol. 22 cc606-8; ‘Mesopotamia papers’, HL Deb, 13 Jul. 1916; vol. 22 cc724-8.
118 ‘Still Wobbling: Mr. Asquith Postpones Once More’, Daily Mail, 19 Apr. 1916, p. 4; ‘Still Hushing-Up’, Daily Mail, 11 May 1916, p. 5; ‘Mr Asquith: “Please Trust us”’, Daily Mail, 3 May 1916, p. 6; ‘Carson: Plain Speaking’, Daily Mail, 5 May 1916, p. 6. McEwen has argued that Carson used his connections with newspaper editors to engineer the failure of a compromise between Asquith and Lloyd George which led to the fall of the coalition in December 1916. McEwen, ‘Fall of Asquith’; Thompson, ‘Fleet Street Colossus’.
119 ‘Mesopotamia Hush-Up’, Daily Mail, 23 Oct. 1916, p. 5.
120 ‘Mesopotamia: Mr Asquith Blames the Newspapers’, Daily Mail, 14 Jul. 1917, p. 3.
121 ‘Shamefully Misplaced’, Morning Post, 11 Jul. 1917, p. 6; ‘Mesopotamia and After’, Lord Portsmouth, correspondence to the Morning Post, 12 Jul. 1917, p. 6; ‘Mesopotamia in Chancery’, Morning Post, 13 Jul. 1917, p. 6.
122 Revisiting the medical breakdown, Harrison argues that the logistical difficulties did contribute to the breakdown but systemic neglect of medical arrangements by military authorities and the absence of British public scrutiny exacerbated it. Harrison, Medical War, pp. 288–90.
123 Dawson to Northcliffe, 28 Jun. 1917, Northcliffe Papers, Add MS 62245, p. 43.
124 ‘Pukka’, Star, 27 Jun. 1917, p. 2; ‘Milner, Curzon, Carson’, Star, 17 Jul. 1917, p. 2; ‘Mr Balfour has a Bad Press Day’, Star, 13 Jul. 1917, p. 1; ‘Mess upon Mess’, Star, 13 Jul. 1917, p. 3; ‘No Responsibility’, Star, 16 Jul. 1917, p. 2; ‘The Byng Boys are Still Here’, Star, 18 Jul. 1917, p. 2.
125 ‘Editorial: Fish and Flesh’, Star, 28 Jun. 1917, p. 2; ‘Mr Balfour has a Bad Press Day’, Star, 13 Jul. 1917, p. 1; ‘Editorial: Mesopotamia—Blames Fair and Unfair’, Daily Chronicle, 28 Jun. 1917, p. 2; ‘Impeachment and Court Martial: Public Anger over Mesopotamia’, Star, 28 Jun. 1917, p. 1.
126 Fraser, ‘Who is Responsible?’. Lovat Fraser, who wrote leaders for the Daily Mail, had been a journalist in India. Kaul, Reporting the Raj, pp. 61–2, 66, 106.
127 ‘Mesopotamia’, Letter to the Editor by Barnes, The Times, 31 Mar. 1916, p. 9.
128 Fraser, ‘Who is Responsible?’.
129 See, for instance, Lovat Fraser, ‘Mesopotamia’, Daily Mail, 27 Jun. 1917, p. 2; ‘Defects of the Indian System’, The Times, 2 Jul. 1917, p. 9; ‘Hill-Top Government’, Letter to the Editor from ‘K.’, The Times, 3 Jul. 1917, p. 9.
130 ‘Sir William Meyer: The Man who Grudged the Money’, Daily Mail, 29 Jun. 1917, p. 3; ‘More about Mesopotamia’, The Times, 29 Jun. 1917, p. 7.
131 ‘Responsibilities in Mesopotamia’, The Times, 14 Jul. 1916, p. 9.
132 It would seem that such a connection had indeed been made. At the front, Aubrey Herbert, the Conservative MP, asked that a telegram be sent directly to Chamberlain claiming that ‘All realise here that the past economy of the Government of India is responsible for our failures …’. Telegram from Viceroy, 17 May 1916, IOR/L/MIL/7/17935.
133 Sir Victory Horsley (1857–1916) was a renowned educator, a Liberal Party candidate, and had volunteered as a surgeon at the beginning of the war. Horsley's letter condemning the Indian Finance Department for depressing expenditure on medical aid for soldiers on the Mesopotamian front had been sent to the British Medical Journal merely ten days before his death from heatstroke. The Journal published this letter in August 1916 when it received it in a sensational opinion piece titled ‘Voice from the Dead’ that condemned India's ‘cheesepairing policy’. ‘A Voice From the Dead’, British Medical Journal, 19 Aug. 1916, pp. 261–2.
134 George, David Lloyd, War Memoirs of Lloyd George, London, Odhams, 1938, Vol. 1, pp. 488–95Google Scholar.
135 ‘Mesopotamia: The War and the Indian Government’, Letter to the Editor by H. S. Barnes, The Times, 31 Mar. 1916, p. 9. Barnes was foreign secretary to the Indian government from 1900–03, during which time he dealt with Persian affairs; he also served on the Council of India in the India Office from 1905–13, after which he developed considerable stakes in Middle Eastern oil and banking concerns, and played an influential role in retaining British commitment in the region after the First World War. See Bostock, Frances, ‘Barnes, Sir Hugh Shakespear (1853–1940)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004Google Scholar, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/53561, [accessed 14 Nov. 2015].
136 Bruce Seton, ‘Causes of Breakdown’, Letters to the Editor, The Times, 30 Jun. 1917.
137 ‘Experience’, Letter to the Editor, The Times, 3 Jul. 1917, p. 9.
138 Mentioned in ‘Civilian’, Letter to the Editor, The Times, 3 Jul. 1917, p. 9; ‘Constructive Army Reform in India’, The Times, 6 Jul. 1917, p. 7; ‘The Aga Khan's Views’, The Times, 23 Jul. 1917, p. 5. This Commission was merely one in a long series that sought to reduce army expenditure. For example, the Army Organization Commission of 1879 was meant to propose retrenchments in military expenditure after its sharp increase during the Second Anglo-Afghan War.
139 Sehrawat, Colonial Medical Care, esp. pp. 219–31.
140 ‘Responsibilities in Mesopotamia’, The Times, 14 Jul. 1916, p. 9. Privately, the editor of The Times was far more hostile, commenting on Meyer's unsuitability for the office of finance member, given that he was a ‘a Jew and the son of a German missionary …[who] ought never to have had his present job’: G. Dawson to Northcliffe, 14 Jul. 1916, Northcliffe Papers, Add MS 62251, p. 142. In defending Meyer, Chamberlain's views converged with the public line adopted by The Times: Letter from Austen Chamberlain to John Hewett, 29 Mar. 1916, AC46/2/21, Austen Chamberlain Collection.
141 The Mesopotamia Commission blamed the Indian government for causing the medical breakdown by failing to provide adequate river and other transport to supply the expedition and due to the impact of the Kitchener reforms (1903–09). Mesopotamia Commission Report, London, HMSO 1917, Cd. 8610 [hereafter, Mesopotamia Commission Report], pp. 10, 48–9.
142 Ibid., pp. 98–101.
143 ‘Absolootely Nootral’, Morning Post, 21 Oct. 1916, p. 6.
144 Ibid.
145 Ibid.
146 Haste, Keep the Home Fires, p. 77. For an expanded discussion of the changing meaning of the term ‘sacrifice’ and its malleability in British social and political life during the war, see Gregory, Last Great War, pp. 112–86. On war loans, see ibid., pp. 220–35.
147 ‘India and the War’, Letter from F. E. C. Carr, honorary secretary, British Empire Union, Morning Post, 25 Oct. 1916.
148 SoS to Viceroy, 13 Nov. 1916, ‘Letters to and from the SoS for India, 1916’ [hereafter, ‘Letters, 1916’], Chelmsford Papers, India Office Private Papers, BL [hereafter, Chelmsford Papers], Mss Eur/E264/2, p. 309.
149 Mesopotamia Commission Report, p. 106. Davis, Ends and Means is especially liable.
150 Most of the recruitment in the Indian army was concentrated in a few regions in the north. Omissi, Sepoys and the Raj, pp. 38–40; Yong, The Garrison State, pp. 98–140.
151 Editorial: ‘Lord Hardinge's Defence’, Daily News, 4 Jul. 1917, p. 2.
152 Sarkar, Modern India, p. 169.
153 Some coverage was given to questions and statements in the parliament regarding the breakdown during 1916, but these were on a much smaller scale than in the conservative and Northcliffe press. See, for instance, ‘Our Mesopotamian Troops: An “Inexcusable” Medical Breakdown’, Manchester Guardian, 23 Mar. 1916, p. 5; ‘House of Lords: The Mesopotamia “Breakdown”’, ibid., 19 Jul. 1916, p. 6; ‘Indian Troop Train Tragedy: Many Deaths from Heatstroke’, ibid., 22 Jul. 1916, p. 6; ‘Many Deaths on Hospital Ship: Terrible Effects of Heat’, ibid., 8 Aug. 1916, p. 5; Mesopotamia Scandal: The Late Sir V. Horsley's Criticisms’, ibid., 18 Aug. 1916, p. 6; ‘Who is Responsible?’, Star, 23 Mar. 1916, p. 2; ‘Mesopotamia: More Questions about the Hospital Arrangements’, ibid., 29 Mar. 1916, p. 1.
154 Montagu had been the under-secretary of state for India from 1910–14 in Asquith's government.
155 Hansard, Commons Debates, 5th ser., vol. 97, cols. 1695: 20 Aug. 1917.
156 Robb, Government of India and Reform; Ryland, Shane, ‘Edwin Montagu in India, 1917–18: Politics of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 1975, pp. 79–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moore, R. J., Liberalism and Indian Politics, 1872–1922, London, Edward Arnold, 1966Google Scholar; Legg, S., ‘Dyarchy: Democracy, Autocracy and the Scalar Sovereignty of Interwar India’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, vol. 36, no. 1, 2016, pp. 44–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
157 Woods, Phillip, ‘The Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms (1919): A Re-Assessment’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, 1994, pp. 25–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
158 SoS to Viceroy, 14 Feb. 1917, ‘Letters to and from the SoS for India’, vol. II, 1917 [hereafter, Letters, 1917], Chelmsford Papers, Mss Eur/E264/3, pp. 46–7.
159 ‘Court of Inquiry’, Hansard, Commons Debates, 5th ser., vol. 95, col. 2211: 12 Jul. 1917.
160 Ibid., col. 2205: 12 Jul. 1917. Montagu's characterization of the Indian government won him fulsome praise in the Indian nationalist press: ‘Home Rule for India’, Abhyudaya, 13 Jul. 1917, Selections from Indian-owned Newspapers Published in the United Provinces [hereafter, SINUP], no. 29, 1917, pp. 423–4.
161 ‘Mesopotamia’, Manchester Guardian, 28 Jun. 1917, p. 4; H. E. A. Cotton, ‘Mesopotamia: An Impeachment of India's Bureaucracy’, Star, 29 Jun. 1917, p. 2.
162 The thrust of liberal newspapers’ discussion of the Commission privileged the reform of the machinery of colonial governance, though some, like the Daily News and Daily Chronicle, joined in demands for punishment of individual politicians and administrators. ‘Mesopotamia’, Manchester Guardian, 28 Jun. 1917, p. 4; ‘Crime and Punishment’, Daily News, 28 Jun. 1917, p. 2; ‘Editorial: Mesopotamia—Blames Fair and Unfair’, Daily Chronicle, 28 Jun. 1917, p. 2.
163 ‘The Mesopotamia Report’, Manchester Guardian, 27 Jun. 1917, p. 5; H. E. A. Cotton, ‘Mesopotamia: An Impeachment of India's Bureaucracy’, Star, 29 Jun. 1917, p. 2; ‘Mesopotamia’, Daily News, 27 Jun. 1917, p. 2; ‘The War Office and the Nation’, Letter to the Editor by Joshua Wedgwood, Daily News, 27 Jun. 1917, p. 2.
164 Nihal Singh, ‘The Mesopotamia Failure’, Daily News, 12 Jul. 1917, p. 2. Nihal Singh was a prolific contributor to British, American, and Indian publications, with links to various Indian nationalists. He published several books on India's contribution to the British war effort. See http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/makingbritain/content/saint-nihal-singh, [accessed 11 June 2019].
165 ‘To-morrow's Mesopotamia Debate’, Manchester Guardian, 12 Jul. 1917, p. 4; ‘Mesopotamia: Lord Hardinge to Make a Statement To-day’, Daily News, 3 Jul. 1917, p. 1.
166 Kaul has analysed Montagu's concerted efforts to secure the support of the London press to create a more receptive environment in Britain for the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms of 1919. Kaul, Reporting the Raj, pp. 135–47, 175–98.
167 SoS to Viceroy, 12 Jul. 1916, ‘Letters, 1916’, Chelmsford Papers, Mss Eur/E264/2, p. 157. See ‘Mesopotamian Expedition’, HL Deb, 20 Jul. 1916, vol. 22, cc.835-74.
168 Demi-official note by E. G. Barrow, 26 Oct. 1916, Private Papers of E. G. Barrow, IORPP, BL, Mss Eur/E420/14 [hereafter, Barrow Papers], p. 36.
169 Viceroy to SoS, 12 Oct. 1916, ibid., p. 339; Viceroy to SoS, 10 Nov. 1916, ibid., p. 406.
170 Telegram no. 216 from SoS to Viceroy, 4 Aug. 1916, ‘Telegrams to and from the SoS for India, 1916’ [hereafter, ‘Telegrams, 1916’], Chelmsford Papers, Mss Eur/E264/7, p. 71; Telegram no. 235 from SoS to Viceroy, 16 Aug. 1916, ibid., p. 77.
171 Telegram no. 238 from SoS to Viceroy, 16 Jul. 1916, ibid., p. 78.
172 Telegram no. 294a from Viceroy to SoS, 13 Sep. 1916, ibid., p. 135; SoS to Viceroy, 16 Aug. 1916, ‘Letters, 1916’, Chelmsford Papers, Mss Eur/E264/2, p. 220.
173 Viceroy to SoS, 6 Oct. 1916, ibid., p. 324.
174 Demi-official note by E. G. Barrow, 26 Oct. 1916, Barrow Papers, p. 36.
175 Letter from Viceroy to SoS, 10 Nov. 1916, ‘Letters, 1916’, Chelmsford Papers, Mss Eur/E264/2, p. 406.
176 Kaul, Reporting the Raj, pp. 123, 132.
177 Copy of a private and confidential letter from Chamberlain to Lord G. Hamilton, 25 Sep. 1916, enclosed in letter from SoS to Viceroy, 21 Sep. 1916, ‘Letters 1916’, Chelmsford Papers, Mss Eur/E264/2, p. 270.
178 Telegram no. 324 from SoS to Viceroy, 27 Sep. 1916, ‘Telegrams, 1916’, Chelmsford Papers, Mss Eur/E264/7, p. 106.
179 Chelmsford, ‘Speech to First Meeting of the Imperial Legislative Council, Simla Session, 1916’, 5 Sep. 1916, Speeches by Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy and Governor General of India, Simla, Government Monotype Press, 1919, p. 65, and ‘Speech to Last Meeting of the Imperial Legislative Council, Delhi Session, 1916–17’, 23 Mar. 1917, ibid., p. 289.
180 Chelmsford, ‘Speech at Annual General Meeting of St. John Ambulance Association in Simla’, 27 Jun. 1917, ibid., p. 365.
181 SoS to Viceroy, 5 Jul. 1917, ‘Letters, 1917’, Chelmsford Papers, Mss Eur/E264/3, p. 143.
182 Viceroy to SoS, 7 Jul. 1917, ‘Letters, 1917’, Chelmsford Papers, Mss Eur/E264/3, p. 219. ‘[I]n India, as in England, it was recognised that the report of the Mesopotamia Commission had had a “disastrous” effect on the government's prestige. Meston reported that “the air has never been thicker with suspicion”; he believed that “the anti-Government and almost anti-British feeling among the advanced party is stronger than I have ever seen it. Everything that we do is misrepresented … The misunderstandings are spreading into wider circles …”’: Robb, Government of India and Reform, p. 73.
183 B. Horniman complained of the ‘meagre and disjointed’ summary of the Commission's report provided by Reuters: ‘A Friend of India’: Selections from the Speeches and Writings of B. G. Horniman, Bombay, Tairsee and Ram, 1918, p. 238.
184 ‘The Week Abroad’, Capital, 20 Jul. 1917, p. 121.
185 ‘Bombay’, Capital, 20 Jul. 1917, p. 129.
186 Bombay, 17 Jul. 1917, press cutting in Guy Fleetwood Wilson Private Papers, IORPP, BL, Mss Eur/E224/28-9 [hereafter, Fleetwood Wilson Papers].
187 ‘A Ditcher's Diary’, Capital, 20 Jul. 1917, press cutting in Fleetwood Wilson Papers.
188 Ibid., p. 122. Indian nationalist newspapers, on the other hand, were extremely supportive of what they perceived as Meyer's targeting of the British community in India for the first time to increase revenues. See, for example, ‘Sir W. Meyer and the Anglo-Indian Press’, Kisan, 20 Oct. 1916, Selections from the Indian Newspapers Published in the Punjab [hereafter, SINP], vol. 29, no. 44, 1916, p. 870.
189 See, for example, news reports asserting that the Indian government's contribution to the war was entirely adequate: ‘India's Contribution to the Cost of the War’, Punjabee, 2 and 3 Mar. 1917; Tribune, 3 Mar. 1917, SINP, vol. 30, no. 10, 1917, pp. 177–8.
190 Gujrati, 10 Sep. 1916, Report on Indian Newspapers in the Bombay Presidency [hereafter, RINBP], no. 38, 1916, p. 10.
191 ‘Viceroy on India's Great Share in the War’, Daily Mail, 8 Sep. 1916, p. 7.
192 Leader, 18 Jul. 1917, SINUP, no. 29, 1917, p. 422.
193 Douglas M. Peers, Between Mars and Mammon: Colonial Armies and the Garrison State in India, 1819–35, London, I. B. Tauris, 1995.
194 See Manu Sehgal, ‘Politics, State and Empire: Colonial Warfare and the East India Company State, c.1775–1805’, PhD thesis, University of Exeter, 2011, esp. pp. 163–202. Also see Richards, J. F., ‘Imperial Finance under the East India Company 1762–1859’, in Ghosh, Durba and Kennedy, Dane (eds), Decentring Empire: Britain, India and the Transcolonial World, Hyderabad, Orient Longman, 2006, pp. 16–50Google Scholar.
195 Pioneer, 23 Sep. 1916, cited in correspondence to Morning Post, 26 Oct. 1916.
196 The Tribune pointed out that such claims revealed the ignorance of some retired Indian officials writing to the British press and criticized ‘their misrepresentation of India to British people’. ‘India's supposed wealth’, Tribune, 14 May 1916, SINP, vol. 29, no. 19, 1916, p. 379; Hamdam, 13 Oct. 1916, SINUP, no. 42, 1916, p. 938. Indeed, Chamberlain himself had pointed out that selective quoting of the Commission's report by newspapers like the Daily Mail would misinform the public regarding Indian issues.
197 See, for instance, Tribune (Lahore), 6 Sep. 1917, SINP, vol. 30, no. 37, 1917, p. 721.
198 ‘The Budget and Education’, Punjabee, 21 Mar. 1914, SINP, vol. 27, no. 13, 1914, pp. 346–7.
199 From J. P. Hewett to Chamberlain, 31 Mar. 1916, AC46/2/24, Austen Chamberlain Collection.
200 This criterion had been used by the colonial government to reject many schemes for industrializing India proposed by Indian nationalists. For a sympathetic representation of early nationalists’ views on the need to curtail Indian military expenditure in the late nineteenth century, see Chandra, Bipan, Essays in Colonialism, Hyderabad, Orient Longman, 2000, pp. 144–5, 188, 194–6, 203, and 293Google Scholar. For a less persuasive analysis of nationalist criticism of British military expenditure, see Cohen, S., The Indian Army: Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. 65–9Google Scholar.
201 Bhattacharya, Sabyasachi, Financial Foundations of the Raj, Hyderabad, Orient Longman, 2005, pp. 40–7Google Scholar.
202 Sehrawat, Colonial Medical Care, pp. xliv, xlviii–l.
203 ‘Mesopotamia Culprits’, Daily Mail, 28 Jun. 1917, p. 4.
204 ‘India's War Gift to England’, Message, 4 Mar. 1917, RINBP, no. 10, 1917, p. 9.
205 Ibid.
206 Financial Statement and Budget of the Government of India, 1917–18, London, HMSO, 1917, pp. 11–12, 15, 29–34. ‘India's Contribution to the War’, The Times, 5 Mar. 1917, p. 7.
207 ‘India's War Gift to England’, Message, 4 Mar. 1917, RINBP, no. 10, 1917, p. 9.
208 Ibid.
209 Tribune (Lahore), 2 Mar. 1917, SINP, vol. 30, no. 10, 1917, p. 178.
210 For an overview, see Sarkar, Modern India, pp. 147–204; Chandra et al., India's Struggle for Independence, pp. 146–83. Also see arguments about the role of soldiers returning after fighting in the war in political protests in Punjab and parts of North India in Ahuja, ‘Corrosiveness of Comparison’, pp. 139–45; VanKoski, ‘Indian Ex-Soldier’, pp. 115–33; Omissi, Sepoys and the Raj, pp. 123–31.
211 India's Contribution to the Great War, Calcutta, Superintendent Government Publishing, 1923, pp. 156–7.
212 Kesari, 10 Apr. 1917, RINUP, no. 15, 1917, p. 9; Parkash, 23 Jun. 1918, SINP, vol. 31, no. 27, 1918, p. 357.
213 Hindusthan, 28 Apr. 1917; Kaiser-i-Hind, 6 May 1917, RINBP, no. 18, 1917, p. 7.
214 ‘Our Day’ collections raised funds for the St John Ambulance Association and the Red Cross. Leigh, M. S. (comp.), The Punjab and the War, Lahore, Superintendent Government Printing, 1922, p. 48Google Scholar.
215 Evidence of Lala Mohan Lal Seth, lawyer and municipal commissioner, Kasur, Evidence Taken before the Disorders Inquiry Committee, Calcutta, Superintendent Government Printing, 1920 [hereafter, Evidence Disorders Inquiry], Vol. 4, Lahore and Kasur, p. 384.
216 Fazl-i-Hussain, member, Punjab Legislative Council, 20 Dec. 1919, Evidence Disorders Inquiry, Vol. 5, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Lyallpur and Punjab Provincial, p. 160.
217 R. C. Chopra, ibid., p. 223.
218 Sarkar, Modern India, p. 189.
219 The protests were against the draconian Rowlatt Act which extended wartime measures permitting imprisonment without trial. Kumar, R. (ed.), Essays on Gandhian Politics: The Rowlatt Satyagraha of 1919, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971Google Scholar.
220 Bose and Jalal, Modern South Asia, p. 107.
221 Goold, ‘Lord Hardinge’.
222 The Commission had criticized senior army officers such as Commander-in-Chief Beauchamp Duff, General Nixon, and senior figures including viceroys Hardinge and Chamberlain. Mesopotamia Commission Report, pp. 111, 114–15.
223 Barker, The Neglected War, pp. 458–65; also see Latter, Edwin, ‘The Indian Army in Mesopotamia, 1914–1918, Parts I–III’, Journal of the Society of Army Historical Research, vol. 72, no. 290, 1994, pp. 99–102, 160–79, 232–46Google Scholar. A preoccupation regarding the strategic origins of the campaign also dominates Cohen, S. A., ‘The genesis of the British campaign in Mesopotamia, 1914’, Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, 1976, pp. 119–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
224 Davis, End and Means, pp. 215–27; Galbraith, John, ‘No Man's Child: The Campaign in Mesopotamia, 1914–16’, International History Review, vol. 6, no. 3, 1984, pp. 358–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
225 See footnote 91 above.
226 It was not surprising that despite the sharp impetus of the India Office, the reforms in army hospitals suggested by the Mesopotamia Commission were sacrificed to prevent cuts to the number of British soldiers maintained at the expense of the Indian exchequer. Sehrawat, Colonial Medical Care, pp. 225–47.
227 Therefore, post-war efforts by the British government to shift the financial burden of maintaining British forces in Mesopotamia to the Indian exchequer were unsuccessful. Jeffery, Keith, ‘“An English Barrack in the Oriental Seas”? India in the Aftermath of the First World War’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 15, no. 3, 1981, p. 369–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
228 ‘Mesopotamia’, Manchester Guardian, 28 Jun. 1917, p. 4.
229 Both Shahid Amin and Ahuja argue that this was partly also a result of transformations in subaltern consciousness due to participation in the war. Amin, Shahid, Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1922–92, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 15, 36, 38–9Google Scholar; Ahuja, ‘Corrosiveness of Comparison’, pp. 143–4.