A UK historian has highlighted further evidence of the widespread contribution of Indian soldiers to the First World War effort as part of the British imperial army through the discovery of spice tins used during the 1914 Christmas truce.
Professor Peter Doyle, a military historian at Goldsmiths, University of London, was quoted in ‘The Times’ on Wednesday to show how new research has found that these spices ended up in the hands of German soldiers when the Western Front was silent. he traveled across no man’s land for handshakes, gifts and a game of football 110 years ago.
Doyle has organized an exhibition about the peace treaty, including the details surrounding these spice tins, at the Great War Huts Museum in Bury St Edmunds, eastern England.
“Peace was not just a matter of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ to ‘Saxon’ fraternisation,” Doyle is quoted as saying.
“Until recently, people didn’t believe or expect the Indian military to be involved in the deal, even though they might have been watching,” he said.
Spice tins were part of the Christmas gifts to encourage the soldiers in the war by Princess Mary, the daughter of the British king George V. To the British soldiers, her gift consisted of a smoking kit, which was considered inappropriate as many members of the group. Indian soldiers did not smoke. Instead, their cans are filled with spices and a picture of Princess Mary instead of their UK counterparts’ cigarette card.
Doyle, author of ‘For Every Sailor Afloat, Every Soldier at the Front: Princess Mary’s Christmas Gift 1914’, writes how 17-year-old Princess Mary began sending Christmas gifts to all serving men.
His book is set against the backdrop of an illegal wartime “Truce in No Man’s Land” and his research leads him to find one of the spice cans – only the second known to survive. He knew that the 39th Garhwal Rifles was in Givenchy, France, at Christmas 1914, which led him to explore the possibility that spice tins could be part of the Christmas deal there, along with the men who carried them.
He went to Robin Schafer, a German historian, who delved into the archives and found quotes from German newspapers about men who received these perfumes as gifts during a brief cessation of hostilities 110 years ago.
A soldier named Wilhelm Althoff wrote: “Some Indians gave us figs.” [and] a shiny metal box with spices.”
Doyle and Schafer hope that some of these cans, which Doyle describes as “irrefutable”, may be found by people in Germany and elsewhere if they look. They also hope that some photos of the event will be available, as photography was originally encouraged in the German trenches to improve morale.
During the First World War (1914-18) India, which at the time included Pakistan and Bangladesh under British colonial rule, sent a large part of the Commonwealth’s troops to the war effort of more than 1.4 million.
Shrabani Basu, the historian of the book ‘For King and Another Country: Indian Soldiers on the Western Front, 1914-18’ has also documented their great contributions to the war effort.
“Today there are descendants of soldiers living in Britain who can be proud of what their ancestors achieved,” he said.
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