This is very far from the truth. The Indian regiments
were among our best, but they could not stand the rigors of the European
climate. They had been used to the warmth and brightness and dryness of
their homeland; they came to cold and rain and mud and unknown discomforts.
It was too much. Again, the Indian is made for open, hand-to-hand warfare.
Give him a hill to climb and hold, give him a forest to crawl through and
gain his point, give him open land to pass over without being seen, he can
not be beaten. But the strain, mental and physical, of trench life was too
much.
To the Indian, war is a religion. One day I went down the line to where a
body of Ghurkas were lying to our left. I walked along about a mile through
the muddy ditches and at last came up with one of the men. I stopped and
spoke, then offered him a fag. After this interchange of courtesies we
fell into conversation. He did not know very much English, and I no
Hindustani at all, but in a short time one of the Ghurka officers
approached. The officers and men of these regiments are very friendly, more
chummy almost than are our officers to our men.
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