Asian contributions to both world wars are not widely known
about, despite the fact that India raised the world’s largest
volunteer armies: 1.5 million in WWI and 2.5 million in WWII.
World War I marked an important watershed. For the first time,
Indian soldiers were fighting on European soil. They fought in
all the major theatres of war on land air and sea, alongside
British troops. Their many awards for bravery, as well as their
war graves and memorials on the battlefields, are testimony to
their sacrifice in the service of Britain. Unrecognised for
decades, their contributions are only now being fully
acknowledged. World War I In August 1914, soon after the
outbreak of war when the British Expeditionary Force had been
almost wiped out, Britain called on the Indian Army to fill the
vital gap left in its defences. The first 28,500 Indian Army
troops arrived on the Western Front on 26 September. They played
a crucial role in holding the line and are said to have arrived
just ‘in the nick of time’. Indian sold