It has been impossible to write a book of this kind without entering into personal matters, but so intimately connected is a Commander of Indian troops with the whole being of his officers and men, that the doings of the one cannot be separated from the other, if their combined efforts are to be intelligently described. But putting this aside, so erroneous are many of the opinions and so ill-natured have been some of the criticisms of the part taken by the Indian Corps in Flanders, that it has been impracticable to avoid writing strongly when I considered it necessary, and hence I have not hesitated to do so. Moreover, it is due to India to be told the facts. The day is past when that great portion of our Empire could be kept in comparative darkness; the light is dawning, and the Great War has opened to her an opportunity which she never had before. Her sons have shared the glory of the Empire. From the boggy fields and trenches of Flanders and the desert sands of Egypt; from the immortal heights of Gallipoli; from the burning plains of Mesopotamia and the impenetrable jungles of East Africa, comes up with one voice, from the thousands who fought and bled for England: India has taken a new birth; the heavens above, the sea, the earth Have changed for aye, the darkness dies, light has illumined all men’s eyes, Since Armageddon’s day. I am indebted to many officers of the Army Corps for short stories and some details regarding their units, but I have avoided asking any of them for information which might raise controversial matters, and for anything contained in this book I take full responsibility. My thanks are due to Professor John Wardell, late Professor Modern History and Lecturer Military History, Trinity College, Dublin, for having furnished me with some interesting diaries of deceased and other officers as well as extracts of letters written from France. In a few instances I have taken the liberty of copying the numbers of casualties suffered by the Corps, as well as the names of certain officers and men rewarded, from the semi-official history quoted above—_The Indian Corps in France_. Unfortunately many very useful manuscripts, notes, and returns on the way to me in Bermuda were lost in the _Adana_ when that ship was torpedoed in the Atlantic. BERMUDA, _20th October 1919_. CHAPTER I On the 5th September 1914 I was quartered at Murree in the Punjab, and within a few days of finishing my four years’ tenure of command of the Northern Army in India, when the good news reached me that I was to proceed to France in command of the Indian Army Corps, then already on its way to take part in the Great War. My luck was once more “In.” I say “once more,” for I had had the good fortune to serve in fourteen campaigns or expeditions, and in all but two of these had been associated with or in command of British and Indian troops combined.