Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Colonial Adventures => Topic started by: Hobbit on May 21, 2015, 02:56:04 PM
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Coming off the back of Italwars' question on British colonial headgear I stumbled across the following photo. Unless I'm much mistaken it shows an armed and uniformed Indian soldier in South Africa during the Boer War. I didn't think such a thing ever happened. Any thoughts, comments, observations?
(http://www.walkervillesa.co.za/kamfferroyaldublin.jpg)
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It certainly does! I wonder what the story is there? :) Someone on "Shooting Leave"?
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I can imagine that , maybe, some gentlemen British Officers sent to South Africa...detached from the Viceroy Army in India..maybe choosed to lead a Volunteer less formal unit ...carried with them their personal orderly, servant, cook...or very devote soldier that obtained to act a first line trooper
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There were certainly Indians active in the conflict in 'auxiliary' roles - M K Gandhi was a stretcher bearer in the war (he was already living in SA at the time). A quick google came up with this article:
http://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/boer_war.htm
It indicates that although the British apparently decided to use only 'white' soldiers in combat, there were thousands of Indian soldiers present in non-combat roles.
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Yes, there were certainly Indian auxiliaries and there were certainly armed black scouts (even though both sides had agreed not to arm the "native" population) but I'd not previously seen any evidence of armed Indians.