Featured Collection: British West Indies Regiment

On Armistice Day we highlight some material relating to the West Indian contribution to the Great War. The Institute of Commonwealth Studies holds some records of the British West Indies Regiment, Incluided within the West India Committee papers. These include the War Diary of the 1st Battalion of the British West Indies Regiment, detailing the operational history of the battalion, and the papers of the West Indian Contingent Committee and Ladies Committee – established to provide for the welfare of West Indian soldiers, who visited the camps at Seaford in Sussex and Plymouth, where the units were stationed, raising funds and providing comforts for men in hospitals, clothing, sports equipment and musical instruments, and entertainment and board and lodging for those visiting London.

The experience of West Indian soldiers in the Great War exacerbated underlying tensions and contradictions implicit in West Indian society, stimulating the growth of working-class consciousness and facilitating the growth of black consciousness and nationalism. Peter Fraser has described the war as “a bog into which flowed an idealized loyalty to Britain and an innocent belief in the justice of the metropolitan British and out of which flowed more realistic, jaundiced and cynical views of the true nature of the Imperial connection.”

Despite the level of support for the war effort from the British West Indies, the War Office was initially hostile and reluctant to accept black West Indians. Despite this early unease, by the end of the war 15,601 West Indians had been recruited and sent to do military service in Palestine, Egypt, Mesopotamia, East Africa, India, France, Italy, Belgium and England as members of the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR). 185 soldiers were killed or died due to wounds received, a further 697 soldiers were wounded and 1071 died of sickness. The high level of illness has been attributed to the conditions of wartime service, with a poor and irregular diet, unsanitary and overcrowded conditions, poor medical care, climatic conditions and the high incidence of contagious diseases. The Regiment was awarded 5 DSOs, 9 MCs, 2 MBEs, 8 DCMs, 37 MMs and 49 Mentions in Dispatches.

Although two battalions of the BWIR were involved in fighting in Palestine and Jordan against the Turkish army (where they sustained many casualties and honours) the War Office determined that Black colonial troops would not fight against Europeans, consequently most members of BWIR functioned in non-combat positions, as labour battalions. Members of the BWIR also experienced discrimination in housing, promotion, treatment in demobilisation and even pay. The most blatant experience occurred at the end of the war when the entire BWIR were denied a pay rise granted to other imperial troops under Army Order No.1 of 1918. The BWIR soldiers protested quickly and angrily and were supported by West Indian Contingent Committee who pointed out the hypocrisy and impossibility of the situation and warned of the serious effect differentiation would have on public opinion in the colonies when the West Indies contingent was demobilised. Discriminatory treatment was a significant factor in a four day mutiny by the men of the ninth battalion, in December, 1918. These events at Taranto, Italy produced much anxiety in the Colonial Office and impelled it into pressing the War Office to grant the BWIR the pay increase. The argument was won, but not so much as a triumph of fair pay and justice but as an effort to prevent unrest in the West Indies.

More photographs from the collection are available here