In March 1915 I had recommended to G.H.Q. that wounded Indians should not be sent back to the front, and the Adjutant-General had issued orders to this effect. They still continued, however, to be sent, and in May the G.O.C. First Army himself made similar recommendations, to which the A.G. replied that only those who volunteered would be returned. It was a great mistake keeping wounded men at Marseilles. They did little good and much harm, and they should either have been kept in England or returned to India. It was folly to mix them up with fresh drafts, who were not cheered on first arrival by meeting a lot of bandaged men. The Indian is not built that way. However, it was eventually decided that all recovered wounded, as well as sick, should as soon as pronounced fit be sent back to the front. On this I made fresh recommendations for forming a working battalion behind our lines, which could be utilised, at any rate for military working parties. This project had taken shape before I left France. It was indeed the only way out of the difficulty, and served as a means of partially clearing that focus of discontent, Marseilles. On 2nd July I attended the regimental sports of the 4th Cavalry. A big French crowd had gathered, and the proceedings recalled many happy days in India. The tent-pegging was quite good, and the jumping showed that the horses were in good fettle and well trained. The 4th Cavalry, the Divisional Cavalry Regiment of the Meerut Division, was originally raised in 1838 as the “Cavalry Regiment of the Oudh Auxiliary Force,” and received its present title in 1904. It was granted an honorary standard for service in Scinde in 1844, and served in Afghanistan (1879–80). On 8th July Lord Kitchener visited us. He told me the Indians were to have a rest and also said very decidedly that he meant to keep them in France to the end of the war. He informed me that they would be formed into ONE Division, and not kept as two, which was the opposite of what he had sturdily maintained when I last saw him, so I presume the pressure brought to bear on him had been too much even for his determination. The G.O.C. First Army also informed me that the Indians were to have three weeks’ rest, and that the British battalions were to be formed into two Brigades and have a third added whilst the Indians’ rest lasted. By the 16th July this reorganisation had been completed, but was of short duration, as only a week later we were again ordered to change our front, and 3000 rifles of those in rest were sent to the Lahore Division, which had been detailed to hold the line whilst all the Indian units had been temporarily turned into the Meerut Division. Lord Kitchener on this visit was in peculiarly happy vein and made light of all his difficulties.