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Archiver > CARIBBEAN > 1999-09 > 0936283173


From: "Edward Crawford" <>
Subject: Re: [CARIBBEAN] Re: British West Indian Regiment
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 15:39:33 +0100


I am not entirely sure about this Dorothy but most of the colonial troops,
including the Indian Army were used either in colonial theatres of war,
German Cameroons, East Africa and Egypt/Palestine against the Turks. The
only forces used in Europe was one Indian division perhaps a corps, in
France in the winter of 1914-1915 and they suffered terribly from the cold
and had heavy causualties. The Germans made a lot of propaganda about Muslim
imans and Hindu holy men (their chaplains) being allowed into Europe. They
were then sent to Egypt. There was also the recruitment of "Labour
battalions" for doing the dirty work behind the lines in Europe. (They did
not, it is fair to say, suffer the dreadful casualties of trench warfare
even if often badly treated but they may have got a campaign medal.) There
were also units of white settlers raised in the tropical colonies which were
allowed in the front line.

The French used Algerian (Turcos) and Senegalese in large quantities and
they were massacred in heaps in the front line. What is more they imposed
conscription on their colonial territories which the British did not do.

In the WW2 the African troops were used in East Africa and Burma, not
Europe. After Japan entered the war I think nearly all the Indian Army
except a token force in Italy went back to India to the Burma front. They
were prominent in the fighting in North Africa before that though. That is
all from memory. About the West Indian forces I do not know.

Edward Crawford
-----Original Message-----
From: Dorothy Kew <>
To: <>
Date: 02 September 1999 12:58
Subject: Re: [CARIBBEAN] Re: British West Indian Regiment


>I'm a bit puzzled by the comment that "The British War Department had a
>policy of not using colonials against Europeans (whites) until WWII." Is
>there any published reference for this Jacob P. M. Andrade, in his book "A
>Record of the Jews of Jamaica, from the English conquest to the present
>time" (Kingston: Jamaica Times, 1941), lists some of the Jews who served
>with different regiments, including the B.W.I.R., in World War I, in
>Palestine, German East Africa, and France, against the Germans. (pp.
>270-277).
>
>Furthermore, there is Frank Cundall's book on the British West India
>Regiment in World War I, "Jamaica's Part in the Great War, 1914-1918"
>(London: West Indies Committee, 1925). And Madeleine Mitchell, in her
book,
>"Jamaican Ancestry", also refers to the West India Regiments which fought
in
>WWI.
>
>
>Dorothy
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Richard Bond <>
>To: <>
>Date: September 1, 1999 10:54 AM
>Subject: Re: [CARIBBEAN] Re: British West Indian Regiment
>
>
> The British War Department had a policy of not using colonials against
>Europeans (whites) until WWII. That they were not soldiers in the Boer
>War under those circumstances does not mean they weren't there. There
>were besides Pres. Barclay of Liberia other soldiers who remained in
>West Africa after srving in the BWIR bringing over their wives or
>marrying locally. Mrs Barclay was a black South African.They were
>important in introducing many items in trade to the indigenous. The West
>Indian traders were also discriminated against in terms of credit by the
>British mercantile houses who favored the Greeks and Lebanese.
>
>
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