大象传媒

Sarfraz Manzoor tells the forgotten story of the 1.27 million men from the Indian Army who fought valiantly in the Great War, through a series of the soldiers' letters written home from Western Front.

The Asian contribution to World War One has been almost completely overlooked in the history books, despite the fact that 1.27 million volunteer soldiers from the Indian Army fought valiantly alongside British troops in every major battle from Ypres to Gallipoli.

In this programme, on the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War, Sarfraz Manzoor tells the extraordinary story of these Indian soldiers, revealed through a selection of letters written home by sepoys themselves, which were saved by military censors and have survived to this day.

In this second programme of the three-part series, Sarfraz charts the experiences of soldiers and labourers in Mesopotamia, which is Iraq today, and Gallipoli. The story for India changes as the war wears on. Recruitment becomes more draconian, British officers are killed leaving a void which is not easy to fill and the pressure on India for food supplies and the resources of war increases. As Turkey enters the war, German and Turkish propaganda plays on the Muslim soldiers' faith and the British Authorities take very seriously the threat of mutiny. Interviews include Dr Kristian Coates Ulrichsen of Rice University, Texas and excerpts from diaries as well as archive interviews with British officers bring the reality of the Mesopotamian conflict to life.

Today in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, there is a sense that the memory of the First World War has been forgotten as it is a 'colonial' war, but Sarfraz discovers how the centenary is bringing the memory of these sacrifices once again to the fore, and in Britain, he emphasises how important this story is as part of the WWI narrative.