Remarkably, among the many personal accounts of the Great War published over the past century, the experiences of the ordinary Indian soldier, one of the hundreds of thousands of men who played a key role in one of the defining events of the 20th century, have never come to light - until now.
Translated from a recently discovered unpublished memoir, World War Sikh recounts the insightful and poignant story of Harnam Singh, a young man hailing from a military family in Punjab who joined the Indian Army's 30th Lancers (Gordon's Horse) as a trooper a year before war was declared.
From the euphoric reception given by the people of Marseilles in November 1914 to his battlefield experiences on the Western Front and in Mesopotamia (Iraq), Harnam Singh's observations of daily military life in far flung lands among foreign cultures are unique. They provide a compelling and crucial voice to ordinary Indian soldiers, members of the forgotten legions of the Great War whose contribution to the making of the modern world remains largely unknown.
