All too often the sacrifice of so many men from all over the Empire has been forgotten, in particular the Indian contribution.
In WW1, after the initial fighting, troops were urgently needed to reinforce the badly depleted British army. The first to arrive were 4 Indian divisions which landed in Marseille in September and October 1914 and were immediately sent to northern France and Belgium. In fact, in the autumn of 1914, nearly one-third of the British forces on the Western Front were from India.
Despite being unused to trench warfare in the cold wet conditions of northern France and Belgium, they fought valiantly in October at the First Battle of Ypres, and during the winter at Neuve Chapelle and Festubert to the north-east of Bethune. In April/May 1915, they fought alongside the French, British and Canadians in the Second Battle of Ypres after the first gas attack and continued to hold the line north of Lens throughout 1915, fighting again at Neuve Chapelle and Festubert before being transferred to Egypt and Mesopotamia where the conditions suited them better and the supply lines from India were shorter. And two divisions of Indian Cavalry remained on the Western Front until March 1918, fighting in the Battle of the Somme and at Passchendaele.
Overall, around 800,000 Indian troops fought in all theatres of the war, including some 130,000 on the Western Front, of whom 8,557 were killed in action.