The Global War WW1 Uncut

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Even a century after it started, it can be hard to shake off that

impression that World War I

was fought by white men from Northern Europe.

But you only have to look at the contribution of men

from the colonies and the dominions of two of the main warring parties

to realise just how untrue that is.

In 1940, Britain and France had spheres of influence that

stretched right across the globe -

very useful when recruiting men to help fight a war.

India, still a major colony of the British Empire, had well over

a million of her men recruited as soldiers and labourers

to the war effort.

Britain's dominions, the self-governing territories,

such as Canada and Newfoundland, Australia

and New Zealand, all made very significant contributions.

Even the tiny islands of the Caribbean

provided much-needed manpower.

The idea of a global army was something the British were keen

to promote, although always careful to portray themselves as top dog.

The French pursued a similar policy,

with over half a million colonial troops recruited during the war -

many of them serving in Europe.

They drew in tens of thousands of men from their territories

in West Africa and in Indochina

and the French strongholds in North Africa -

all were plundered for their human resources.

There were well over four million non-white men

mobilised into the European and American armies during the war

and the effect on the Western Front was astonishing -

it transformed those parts of France

and Belgium into nothing less than the most diverse place on the planet.

In the trenches, men who'd grown up thousands of miles apart

suddenly found themselves in the closest proximity -

they were living and fighting and sleeping side by side.

Behind the front line,

in the military industrial zone of camps and hospitals and billets,

there was an even greater mixture of cultures and races and religions.

This was multicultural, diverse Europe,

but decades ahead of schedule.

This is the Chattri Memorial on the South Downs.

It's a classically Indian monument,

here in the middle of classically English countryside.

And there's a reason why it's up here -

just over there is the city of Brighton.

And during the First World War,

12,000 Indian soldiers, who'd been wounded on the Western Front,

were treated in Brighton's military hospitals.

And for the Sikh and the Hindu soldiers who didn't make it,

who died of their wounds,

this spot was where their stories came to an end.

These were men who'd come from the villages of India.

They'd travelled 6,000 miles across oceans to fight in the world's

first industrial war.

And this is where they're remembered -

in a field in southern England.

The India Corps played a critical role in World War I

and they paid a heavy price for that.

Between 80 and 90,000 of them were killed fighting in Europe and beyond.

But it was the fighting in Europe on the Western Front that was

the most bewildering.

This, after all, was an army that had been trained

for life on the frontier - they were used to putting down

tribal rebellions and pushing back border incursions, but now they

found themselves in an industrial war and to make matters worse,

many of the white British officers who spoke the Indian languages

and knew their culture were killed early on, leaving them

under the command of men who knew nothing about them.

The high casualty rate of the war highlighted one very important

cultural difference.

In the Indian Army, once a soldier had been wounded in combat,

he had fulfilled his duty.

The idea that he would be treated in a hospital

and then sent back into the war was completely alien.

But that's exactly what happened

and much of it took place here in Brighton,

where thousands of Indian soldiers were nursed back to health

in improvised hospitals, the most eye-catching of which is this one -

the Royal Pavilion, which was George IV's former seaside home.

It wasn't the biggest of the Indian hospitals, but it was the most

important, because it created this image, this vision,

that went around the world of Britain as a culturally sensitive power that

was looking after its Indian soldiers in the most difficult of times.

That's just what the British wanted.

There's no doubt there was a good standard of care,

much better than in the hospitals back in India.

But even at the time, the British authorities realised the PR value

to its empire of the image of colonial soldiers being

afforded a touch of Eastern-inspired luxury.

Whenever we tell stories about war, we have this urge,

this tendency to want to find the positive, redemptive stories,

the little rays of hope in the middle of all the suffering.

But the reality is that for most of the men,

who had their wounds tended here in Brighton, the war wasn't over.

They were only here for a few months or a few weeks

and at the end of that time, they were sent back to the Western Front

or back to Africa or to Mesopotamia to keep fighting,

to keep fighting anywhere the Empire needed them.

This is just one stop in their global war.

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It comes as a genuine surprise to many people when they learn

that the First World War was fought beyond the fields of Europe.

And that's understandable, because now, a century later, our image

of the conflict is almost completely dominated by the Western Front.

But all you need to do is take a look at the faces of the men

in the photographs that were taken during the war

and what you see is evidence of a conflict that was truly global.

At the outbreak of war, in 1914,

Europe's empires ruled over huge swathes of territory in Asia,

in the Americas, in Australia

and almost all of the African continent and, instantly,

all of the peoples of those colonies found themselves also at war -

not that they had any choice in the matter.

When the fighting began, there was a rush to secure vital strategic

interests, but there was another process going on.

All sides secretly drew up plans for the parts of the world

they planned to take control of once the fighting was over.

And the British campaign in Mesopotamia is a perfect

example of that process.

In 1914, large areas of the Middle East were under

the control of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

When the Turks sided with Germany

and the Central Powers, Britain was anxious not to lose control

of the oilfield she had established in Mesopotamia -

the area we now know as Iraq.

That region became the focus for a bitter and costly conflict.

Basra - such a familiar name today, but 100 years ago,

it was the base of operations for the British Army.

And it was from there that British and Indian troops set off

for what was to become a long, complicated and challenging campaign.

The campaign led to a series of titanic battles that were fought

along the Tigris River. The British launched what seemed to be

an unstoppable advance, but the Turks halted them, pushed

them back and with each battle and each siege, the death toll increased.

Towards the end of 1918, the British finally defeated

the Ottoman Turks and set about, along with the French,

establishing themselves as the dominant power in the Middle East.

Today, this whole campaign, along with the 100,000 British

and Indian casualties, has been largely forgotten.

Yet I think the war in the Middle East is the perfect example

of how a conflict in Europe spilled out into other continents.

So Germany goes to war with Britain, which involves Germany's ally,

Ottoman Turkey.

The British seek to defend their interests in the Middle East

against the Turks, but they do so using their own empire,

men from India, men from Australia and New Zealand.

And they turn to THEIR ally, the French,

who bring in men from THEIR empire, from North Africa and West Africa.

There were some people even as late as 1915 who were still calling this

the great European war, yet in reality, it had been global

since day one.

But there is another reason why we should remember

the Mesopotamia campaign.

And that's because for most of the 21st century,

British soldiers, the great-grandsons of the soldiers

of the First World War,

have found themselves fighting on the same battlefields.

After the war, the borders of the entire region were redrawn

in the sands of the defeated Ottoman Empire and special care was taken

to make sure that the British kept hold of their precious oilfields.

The lines that were drawn into the sand of the Middle East were

drawn for the convenience of the winners - of the British

and the French.

But today, a century later,

those lines in the sand are beginning to blur and to break down as

the ethnic and religious identities of the people of the region -

identities that were ignored just after the war -

begin to reassert themselves.

The First World War shaped the world we live in in many ways,

the world beyond Europe as well as the world in Europe.

But who knows how long the borders

and the nations created by the First World War are going to last?

After all, the empires that drew those lines on the maps

have long gone.

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