Talk:Indian units in World War I

There's a list on http://web.archive.org/web/20050210120910/http://www.regiments.org/regiments/southasia/lists/ia1918.htm but its copyright/rights status is uncertain. --Mia (talk) 19:23, 16 November 2014 (PST)

There's a list of units taken from CWGC memorials at http://www.militarian.com/threads/indian-units-listed-by-cwgc-ww1.3629/ but without additional hierarchical information it may be difficult to incorporate. --Mia (talk) 19:23, 16 November 2014 (PST)

There's a list of regiments in this period at Wikipedia but I'm not sure if it's definitive. Regiments have mostly unique numbers as well as names. Most regiments seem to have had only one battalion but some had more than one. So far I haven't found any information about admin structures above regiment level. I've got lots of Indian battalions from WO 95 but can't do much with them without more information.--GavinRobinson (talk) 01:26, 1 December 2014 (PST)

It'd be worth getting the names in, even if the military structures have to be added later, in case anyone searching for specific names is able to add more information. --Mia (talk) 15:55, 3 December 2014 (PST)

According to CWGC, in 'August 1914, the Indian Army comprised: 39 horsed cavalry regiments, 138 infantry battalions, 20 of which were Gurkhas. There were 200,000 enlisted men, although 45,000 of these were non-combatants such as cooks, grooms and tailors.' And 'An average company might consist of 150-200 men and five or six officers.'CWGC So if the Wikipedia page lists anything like 200 units it might be an ok list for the start of the war.

I've used Wikipedia to disambiguate Indian battalions, so I can import them along with the British. They won't have admin parents, but will be better than nothing. What's the best nation suffix for Indian units? ", Indian"? Should the country value in the main infobox be "India" or "British India"?--GavinRobinson (talk) 04:31, 6 December 2014 (PST)

It's tricky, but perhaps 'British Indian Army'? --Mia (talk) 04:36, 6 December 2014 (PST)

I've noticed they've gone in as 'Indian' - is that a bug or a feature? --Mia (talk) 05:13, 4 April 2015 (PDT)

I decided to go with "Indian Army" for the value of the service parameter because it's what it was called at the time and what IWM Lives calls it, there's no need to disambiguate it from the post-independence Indian Army in the scope of this project, and it makes related category names slightly shorter. Page name suffix is ", Indian" because it matches units that already have "Indian" as part of the name, and because it also covers Imperial Service troops from the princely states that didn't belong to the Indian Army. Country "India" because consistent with the above and again no need to disambiguate. Category:India explains the extent of India at this time. (I thought I'd posted about this here before Christmas, but I obviously hadn't!).--GavinRobinson (talk) 00:02, 5 April 2015 (PDT)

Thanks Gavin! --Mia (talk) 03:28, 5 April 2015 (PDT)

It looks like some unit diaries are held by the Australian War Memorial and/or listed by National Archives Australia, with one digitised diary at the AWM.

Indian Army - Headquarters, 7th Indian Mountain Artillery Brigade: May 1915 (AIF war diary, AWM4 13/22/1), April-July 1915 [Mediterranean Expeditionary Force unit war diaries, 1914-1918 War:], August-November 1915 [Mediterranean Expeditionary Force unit war diaries, 1914-1918 War:]; AIF unit war diary precis, 1914-18 War. 2-30 April 1915. Mainly for: 7th Indian Mountain Artillery Brigade; 21st (Kohat) Mountain Battery; 26th (Jacobs) Mountain Battery

--Mia (talk) 04:25, 4 April 2015 (PDT)