The British Indian Army in WWI

The largest of the colonial military forces was the British Indian Army. Recruitment was voluntary: about 1.3 million men served in the First World War. Initially the soldiers and NCOs were Indian, with British officers, but later Indian officers were promoted King’s Commissioned Indian Officer. 

Indian regiments saw action on the Western Front, Gallipoli, Sinai and Palestine, Mesopotamia and East Africa. Participants from the Indian subcontinent won 13,000 medals, including 12 Victoria Crosses. By the end of the war a total of 47,746 Indians had been reported dead or missing; 65,126 were wounded.

The First World War and Medicine

Amid the horrors of war, one can often overlook the rapid medical innovations from the trenches to the home front. Whether it’s surgery on the front lines or shell shock years after the war, the treatment of soldiers deserves greater study and understanding. 

• Veiled Warriors: Allied Nurses of the First World War by Christine E. Hallett
• Wounded: A New History of the Western Front in World War I by Emily Mayhew
• The Medical War: British Military Medicine in the First World War by Mark Harrison
• Medicine and Victory: British Military Medicine in the Second World War by Mark Harrison
• The Politics of Wounds: Military Patients and Medical Power in the First World War by Ana Carden-Coyne

Find further resources from us here on Tumblr, at the First World War Centenary Hub on our UK website, World War I: Commemorating the Centennial on our US website, Oxford Journals World War I Virtual Issue, the University of Oxford First World War activities, the World War I Centenary: Continuations and Beginnings resource center from the University of Oxford and JISC, Bodleian Libraries’ Oxford World War I Centenary Programme, and more to come throughout 2014. 

What books would you add to a list of resources for studying medical innovation and treatment during the First World War?

We might associate Victory Gardens with World War II, but it was actually coined in the First World War by Charles Lathrop Pack, head of the National War Garden Commission as the Great War was nearing its end. These image comes from The War Garden Victorious by Pack (1919) before the term “victory garden” came into heavy usage.

While the battles of #WWI were fought overseas, millions of American did their part to help the war effort by turning front yards, backyards, schoolyards, and vacant lots into vegetable gardens.

Victory gardens are one of the many aspects of gardening that will be featured in our upcoming exhibit, Cultivating America’s Gardens, opening next month! 

Today is #WorldWar1 social media day, so do look around for some great content from museums, archives, and libraries regarding the centennial of America’s entry into World War I.