British West Indies Regiment

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British West Indies Regiment

British West Indies Regiment Q001202.jpg

Soldiers of the British West Indies Regiment (France, September 1916)
active 1915-1921
Country United Kingdom
Armed forces British Armed Forces
Armed forces British Army
Branch of service infantry
Subordinate troops

14 battalions

Strength 15,601
Location Alexandria (Egypt)
Former locations Alexandria (Egypt), France, Taranto (Italy)
Origin of the soldiers Barbados , British Guiana , Grenada , Jamaica , St. Vincent and the Grenadines , Trinidad and Tobago

The British West Indies Regiment ( BWIR ) was a unit of the British Army that fought in World War I and consisted of volunteers from the British colonies in the West Indies .

history

Lineup

Even before the outbreak of World War I, blacks and people of color from the British colonies were active in the British military. On the one hand, the West India Regiment had existed since 1795 and was stationed in the Caribbean itself. On the other hand, immigrants from the Caribbean in Great Britain were occasionally active in various branches of the military.

At the beginning of the war, the English-speaking West Indies felt that they had to support the mother country. The economic conditions were difficult, so that the support provided was limited . Trinidad and Tobago , for example, was only able to provide small amounts of oil for the British war machine based on demand. The Trinidadian government decided to recruit troops for the British army. The British government initially refused to allow black residents of the West Indian colonies to do military service. It was only after the intervention of Colonial Secretary Andrew Bonar Law and King George V that the War Office rethought. In September 1915, the British West Indies Regiment was founded, to which the military of Caribbean origin were assigned. The British West Indies Regiment was formally part of the British Army, but the members received lower pay than regular soldiers and the regiment was initially not supposed to take part in combat operations. Some experienced officers have been transferred from the West India Regiment to the British West Indies Regiment. Since the War Office rejected blacks in higher ranks of the military, it was determined that members of the British West Indies Regiment could reach a maximum of the rank of sergeant . Nevertheless, numerous volunteers were found in the West Indies. There were two main reasons for this. On the one hand, the economic conditions in the colonies were poor due to the decline of the agricultural sector, which particularly motivated members of low-paid classes such as plantation workers and artisans as well as unemployed city dwellers to do military service. On the other hand, participation in the war in the colonies was seen by the black middle class as a step towards the emancipation of the colonized population, which gave the volunteers a moral boost. In Trinidad, the recruiting of soldiers began immediately, and they received basic training in the barracks of St. James , even before the War Office had issued a statement on the use of the recruits.

The first four battalions included soldiers from the colonies of Barbados , British Guiana (present-day Guyana ), Grenada , St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. The first commanders included Colonel AE Barchard (1st Battalion) and Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Faunce (2nd Battalion). As a result, the regiment was ultimately increased to 14 battalions with a total of 15,600 men, two thirds of which came from Jamaica . The first battalions underwent further military training in the English coastal town of Seaford and were inspected by Commander-in-Chief Leslie Rundle in November 1915 and found fit for war. The condition of the recruits was comparatively poor; They were hit by the unusually cold and rainy weather, the medical care was inadequate for the high number of cases of illness, and numerous deaths from pneumonia and a mumps epidemic occurred.

War participation

The army command subsequently considered the soldiers unsuitable for deployment in Europe and from January 1916 gradually relocated the battalions to Egypt, which at that time had to reckon with an invasion by the Turkish army and also with the Suez Canal an important traffic route housed. The British West Indies Regiment was deployed to guard the Fort Mex ammunition depot near Alexandria , and the First and Second Battalions continued to do so throughout the war. The regiment's camp was inspected by General John Grenfell Maxwell , among others , and at the end of March the 3rd Battalion received an award for the cleanliness of the camp. The continuous recruitment of recruits on the West Indies got a damper in March 1916 when 1,140 recruits were to be relocated east of the Caribbean via Halifax, Canada, to Europe due to German submarine activities , and over half of them suffered frostbite due to insufficient equipment . Freeze-related amputations had to be performed on over 100 soldiers.

The third and fourth battalions of the regiment were posted to France in mid-July 1916, where they were employed as ammunition carriers and digging trenches. This downgrading of the battalions to pure labor battalions as well as the pure watchfulness of the first and second battalions were still the subject of discussions in 1916 at a conference of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force , at which it was agreed to concentrate the entire regiment in Egypt. Political considerations played a role here, since the subordinate activities of the West Indian soldiers, who after all had received at least rudimentary training for combat operations, threatened to lower morale at home in the colonies. Efforts to give the British West Indies Regiment more responsible tasks were suddenly put on hold when subordinate commanders of the Third and Fourth Battalions expressed their wish to the War Office not to be sent back to Egypt. The War Office subsequently rejected plans for new tasks for the regiment, left the first, second and fifth battalions in Egypt and all other battalions in France, and limited their tasks to ammunition transport and subordinate work. In April 1917, Captain Arthur Cipriani arrived in Egypt with a contingent of volunteers from Trinidad who were incorporated into the British West Indies Regiment. The demotivating situation of the regimental members was to shape his later work in Trinidadian politics.

In June 1917, the regiment in Egypt came under fire for the first time. The deliberate actions of the soldiers convinced Major General Edmund Allenby to allow a machine gun section consisting of soldiers from the first battalion to take part in combat operations on Umbrella Hill, southwest of Gaza . The soldiers' performance was rated so positively that the entire battalion was temporarily moved closer to the front. Small missions such as taking opposing posts led to awards such as B. Medals of Bravery. Despite numerous commendations, resentment towards the regiment persisted, with General Headquarter suspecting the West Indian soldiers of secretly selling their rifles to Egyptians.

Later battalions of the British West Indies Regiment were mainly deployed in the area of ​​the present-day states of Palestine and Jordan to fight the Turkish army in conjunction with the ANZAC Mounted Division . Other locations were, depending on the battalion, Egypt, France and Flanders. The first and second battalions were involved in the capture of the Jisr ed Damieh in September 1918, fighting on the Palestine Front 80 km northwest of Amman .

After the end of the First World War , the demobilization of the battalions stationed in Egypt was delayed for a few months because riots had broken out in the country . In June 1919 the battalions were finally relocated to Taranto in southeastern Italy, where the demobilization was to take place and where eight battalions of the British West Indies Regiment originally stationed in France and Italy had been located since November 1918.

The Taranto Revolt

The members of the battalions stationed in Taranto from November 1918 were not allowed to use the canteens or the cinemas of the other British troops, and they were denied medical treatment in the military hospital, so they had to go to an Italian hospital. During the preparations for demobilization, everyday chores had to be done and the members of the regiment were given low-level work due to insufficient civilian labor, including loading and unloading ships and cleaning the latrines . A complaint to General Carey Bernard, the camp's South African commander, led him to testify that "niggers" were not treated like regular British troops. Claims of discrimination, including those brought by Arthur Cipriani, were also rejected. A petition from 180 sergeants to the Minister for Colonial Affairs also remained ineffective. From December 6, 1918, the soldiers refused to do the base work for a few days and turned to their former commanding officer, Major Bertie Harragin, a white Trinidadian. There were isolated exchanges of fire and a British lieutenant was attacked by BWIR personnel. Harragin managed to get the soldiers to return to work after four days, but General Bernard learned of the temporary insubordination. Another infantry regiment was relocated to Taranto as a deterrent, Harragin was demoted and over 50 soldiers were sentenced to prison terms of between 15 months and five years. A soldier was shot dead for involvement in the Taranto Revolt. About 8,000 soldiers of the regiment were disarmed, which would have happened a little later anyway as part of the demobilization that was completed at the end of 1919. When asked that the regiment had been promised comparable treatment to other British troops when it was recruited, General Bernard replied:

"He replied that (...) the men were only niggers, and that (...) they were better fed and treated than any nigger had a right to expect (...)"

- Major John Horace Thursfield

Effects on the post-war period

As a result of the "Taranto Revolt", more than 50 sergeants of the British West Indies Regiment founded the "Caribbean League", an informal, secret group in which an amalgamation of English-speaking West Indies and measures against the colonial administration were discussed. The Caribbean League was disbanded soon after the army leadership learned of the secret meetings. However, the short-lived unification influenced various Trinidadian military in their political point of view and subsequently their political work in post-war Trinidad, which ultimately paved the way for the country's independence. In general, the racism experienced by the British West Indies Regiment in the British colonies of the Caribbean encouraged a black-dominated nationalism. For example, the Barbadian military wrote a letter to Governor Mackey O'Brien complaining that the lower pay for black soldiers was "an insult to the entire West Indies." In Taranto, strikes were planned by the Caribbean League in the respective home colonies in order to enforce higher wages for workers. In July 1919, a mob of returning soldiers attacked the British warship HMS Dartmouth in Trinidad; in December of the same year, former soldiers led the most violent strikes to date in Trinidad and plunged the capital Port of Spain into chaos. In British Honduras , demobilized soldiers deliberately attacked white shops and homes.

In 1921 the British West Indies Regiment was formally dissolved. The empire's humiliating treatment of the members of the British West Indies Regiment was not the trigger for the independence of the English-speaking West Indies. At least in the largest colonies of Jamaica and Trinidad, increasing education and economic output formed an identity of their own for the inhabitants, the recession after the First World War led to dissatisfaction with the colonial power, and the successes of the labor movement promoted the desire for further reforms. The feeling of being treated as second-class people within the Empire, however, acted as a catalyst for the increasing striving for independence that led to the establishment of the West Indian Federation in 1958 .

Known relatives

  • Arthur Cipriani (1875–1945), later politician and trade union leader
  • Walter "Railway" Douglas, later Calypsonian
  • Norman Manley (1893–1969), later Prime Minister of Jamaica

Web links

Commons : British West Indies Regiment  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Anthony: A History of Trinidad & Tobago in the 20th Century. Volume One - 1901 to 1925 . Lonsdale Saatchi & Saatchi, Port of Spain 2010, ISBN 978-976-8068-05-7 , pp. 149 .
  2. ↑ a b Bridget Brereton: A History of Modern Trinidad 1783 - 1962 . 4th edition. Terra Verde Resource Center, Champs Fleurs 2009, ISBN 0-435-98116-1 , pp. 158 .
  3. ↑ a b BBC.co.uk: A White Man's War? World War One and the West Indies. Retrieved January 13, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Michael Anthony: A History of Trinidad & Tobago in the 20th Century. Volume One - 1901 to 1925 . Lonsdale Saatchi & Saatchi, Port of Spain 2010, ISBN 978-976-8068-05-7 , pp. 159 .
  5. ^ Frank Cundall: Jamaica's Part in the Great War 1914-1918 . The Institute of Jamaica, London 1925, pp. 26 .
  6. ↑ CLR James: The Life of Captain Cipriani . Duke University Press, Durham 2014, ISBN 978-0-8223-5651-6 , pp. 69 .
  7. ^ Frank Cundall: Jamaica's Part in the Great War 1914-1918 . The Institute of Jamaica, London 1925, pp. 27 .
  8. ^ Frank Cundall: Jamaica's Part in the Great War 1914-1918 . The Institute of Jamaica, London 1925, pp. 31 .
  9. ↑ a b IWM.org.uk: The Story of the British West Indies Regiment in the First World War. Retrieved January 13, 2019 .
  10. ↑ CLR James: The Life of Captain Cipriani . Duke University Press, Durham 2014, ISBN 978-0-8223-5651-6 , pp. 70 .
  11. ↑ CLR James: The Life of Captain Cipriani . Duke University Press, Durham 2014, ISBN 978-0-8223-5651-6 , pp. 71 .
  12. ↑ CLR James: The Life of Captain Cipriani . Duke University Press, Durham 2014, ISBN 978-0-8223-5651-6 , pp. 74 .
  13. ↑ CLR James: The Life of Captain Cipriani . Duke University Press, Durham 2014, ISBN 978-0-8223-5651-6 , pp. 75 .
  14. ↑ a b C.LR James: The Life of Captain Cipriani . Duke University Press, Durham 2014, ISBN 978-0-8223-5651-6 , pp. 76 .
  15. ↑ a b Libcom.org: The British West Indies Regiment mutiny, 1918. Accessed January 12, 2019 .
  16. ^ A b W. F. Elkins: A Source of Black Nationalism in the Caribbean: The Revolt of the British West Indies Regiment at Taranto, Italy . In: Science & Society . 34, No. 1, 1970, p. 99.
  17. ↑ CLR James: The Life of Captain Cipriani . Duke University Press, Durham 2014, ISBN 978-0-8223-5651-6 , pp. 77 .
  18. ↑ Michael Anthony: A History of Trinidad & Tobago in the 20th Century. Volume One - 1901 to 1925 . Lonsdale Saatchi & Saatchi, Port of Spain 2010, ISBN 978-976-8068-05-7 , pp. 250 .