India. Army; World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Western Front; World War, 1914-1918 -- Regimental histories -- India
It is impossible in writing of the Supply and Transport to omit mention
of the personnel. The British portion of the work was done with the
thoroughness which characterises the A.S.C., but the Indian rank and
file are a hardworking, patient body of men who do much and say little
about it. In every campaign in which they have served the Transport
driver is acknowledged as a very loyal servant of the State. Most of the
Indian Transport was transferred to Gallipoli early in the war and did
good work there.
The Medical establishments from India soon fell into the routine of
trench warfare. The requirements of Frontier expeditions were of a
nature so different from anything in France that it practically meant a
fresh start as far as the transport and interior arrangements were
concerned. There is no need to go into the details of removing the
wounded from the firing-line to the Regimental Aid Posts and thence on
to the Field Ambulances, with their bearer and tent divisions, the
dressing stations and finally the clearing hospitals from which they are
conveyed by ambulance trains to the base. These things have become
familiar to all during the past war years; but the friends and relations
of the Indian soldier may rest assured that nothing was left undone by
the authorities to make the removal of the sick and wounded as easy as
it was possible to make it.
The Indians received in due course a complement of the best ambulances,
and at all times every attention that was their due. The buildings
appropriated at St. Venant, Merville, etc., for their hospitals were
fitted with every comfort that could be expected on service; the French
authorities went out of their way to do all in their power to help “les
Hindous” as they always called them, and the Medical officers of both
Services worked with a devotion which can never be forgotten by the men.
From France they were speedily removed to the special hospitals in
England, and those for India left later for that country or Egypt,
according to orders. At Marseilles also, which was the great Indian Base
in France, the hospital arrangements were excellent, and when in July
1915 I visited that seaport I found a most perfect open-air hospital,
with large tents, known as E.P. or European Privates in India,
containing several hundred beds for patients, located on cliffs
overlooking the Mediterranean. I asked an Indian officer recovering from
a serious illness how he liked it and he said, “If there be a bhist
(paradise) before death it is this.”
The Red Cross Association too, with all its million activities, was
blessed by none more than by the men who came from the far-off mountains
and plains of India. Indeed nothing made a more lasting impression on
them than the medical arrangements of the entire Army.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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