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A gift of spices: New details are emerging of Indian WW1 troops amid the Christmas Truce of 1914
On December 24, 1914, amid the bloodshed and chaos of the Great War, peace unexpectedly broke out along the Western Front.
Spontaneously and without official sanction, troops on both sides observed a series of ceasefires, setting aside their weapons and exchanging gifts and souvenirs in no man's land. Joint burials and unsanctioned prisoner swaps were carried out. There was carolling, and even some impromptu football.
The spontaneous reaching out was named the Christmas Truce and celebrated in newspaper reports of the time as a sign of our enduring humanity. It would not be repeated, as the war tore on, but it would become one of the most storied events of World War 1.
Now, new evidence is uncovering how that great force within the Allied forces — the mass of Indian soldiers — participated in the truce too. The key piece of evidence has turned out to be spice tins handed out to Indians on the front, as part of Princess Mary's Christmas Gift initiative, found later in the possession of German soldiers.
Some of this tale was retold in an exhibition held at the Great War Huts Museum in Suffolk, England, where one such tin was also placed on display.
We know these tins were from Indian soldiers fighting in the British army because of their contents. Most British troops received a Christmas box that contained cigarettes, a pipe, other smoking supplies and a signed card. The boxes made up for Indians avoided most of these items, since smoking is taboo among several communities.
Instead, these boxes held candy, cigarettes (except for the Sikh troops), a signed card, and, rather ironically, spices. (In a greater irony, while the soldiers did receive the boxes, it is worth mentioning that they received little else. There was little recognition of their service during the war, or in the decades that followed. Indians were also steadily discriminated against while they served, in a trend that would continue through World War 2.)
Back to the Christmas Truce, 'it is fascinating because it reflects a sense of humanity in the depth of this really horrific time,' says Peter Doyle, a military historian with Goldsmiths, University of London, who curated the exhibition in Suffolk. 'To have Indian troops also take part in the truce has huge implications. We have evidence of these men from different continents, German and Indian, in no man's land, sharing experiences, and sharing whatever they had.'
The Tata connection
The story of how the boxes came about has become a bit of history in itself.
A total of 2.5 million were dispatched (incidentally, about 5 million British soldiers went into battle, across the four years). It took immense fundraising and organisation to make the gift a reality, particularly in the midst of the war, Doyle says. He traces some of that effort in his 2021 book, For Every Sailor Afloat, Every Soldier at the Front.
The effort began with a letter from the then-17-year-old princess published across Britain's major newspapers, announcing her intention to send a Christmas present 'from the whole nation to every sailor afloat and every soldier at the front'. As donations poured in, a high-ranking committee was set up, to decide on the nature of the gift, and, with trademark British efficiency, dispatch enough that no soldier was left wanting.
There was reportedly plenty of deliberation on what to give the Indian men. At one point, records show that the Parsi industrialist and philanthropist Ratanji Tata (1871-1918; son of Tata Industries founder Jamsetji Tata) was consulted.
A quiet retelling
Determined to learn more about this story within the story, Doyle began digging into the history of the Indian soldiers' Christmas exchange.
He knew, for instance, that the 39th Garhwal Rifles was stationed in Givenchy, France, in December 1914, and wondered whether there was any further evidence lurking there. He approached a friend, the German historian Robin Schafer, who dug into archives in Germany and found references in newspapers of the time that confirmed what Doyle had suspected.
'The Garhwal Rifles met in no man's land with members of Germany's 16th Westphalian regiment and exchanged gifts,' he says. 'It was recorded in German newspapers at the time that one of the things exchanged was a shiny tin full of Indian spices.'
It is strange to think of the young Garhwals, feared for their skill in battle, stepping across to extend a hand in peace, on a festival not even their own.
'There was a general sense of respect and fear that went with meeting Indian soldiers,' says Doyle. 'So the opportunity to do that in no man's land and see what they were like, see the warmth of engagement during that truce, must have been something spectacular.'
Doyle says he hopes this discovery will add to the growing discourse and serve as a further reminder of the 'intense engagement' of Indian troops on the Western Front.
Records indicate that over 74,000 Indians died in battle during World War 1. In all, undivided India sent over 1 million troops to fight in the war.
