Protected behind a breastwork of sandbags and earth, an infantry unit of Vaughan’s 58th Rifles undergo training in trench warfare at Fauquissart, France in this photo produced by Charles Hilton DeWit Girdwood on the 9th of August, 1915.
A small hamlet of Laventie in the Pas-de-Calais department of what is now the region of Hauts-de-France, Fauquissart at the time, was a tiny settlement of buildings sprouting on either side of a dirt road, yet a site that witnessed pitched encounters between allied forces and the central powers.
The British having arrived in October 1914 had subsequently made use of the buildings at Fauquissart as a forward command post. On the 23rd of the same month, a battalion of the 4th Middlesex Regiment had begun erecting the earthen defences south-west of the settlement. Later, other military units had taken over the task of building the trench including the 58th Rifles, in 1915.
Vaughan’s 58th Rifles during Word War I.
Formally known during the war as Vaughan’s 58th Rifles after British general J.L Vaughan, the battalion was an Asian contingent of the British Indian Army. It had drawn its recruits mainly from the Sikh, Punjabi Muslim, Kashmiri Dogra and Gurkha communities of British India, and during World War I, it was a part of the British Army’s Indian Corps send overseas to assist the allied forces.
Having landed in Marseilles on the 14th of October in 1914, the battalion had made its way to the front some 1,000 km inland. There it had participated in the battle of Neuve Chapelle on the 10th of March, the battle of Aubers Ridge on the 9th of May, and the battle of Festubert on the 15th of May in 1915.
From Europe it had been shipped to Egypt to serve on the Suez Canal and later the Palestine Front. In 1917 alongside other British forces, the 58th Rifles had participated in the capture and occupation of Jerusalem and had remained in the area till the Armistice of Mudros in October 1918.
The Hypo Helmet: A Gas Mask of the Allied Forces.
The gas masks that the men of this battalion can be seen wearing was known as the Hypo Helmet or British Smoke Hood. This protective gear was issued to allied soldiers in June 1915 and remained in service till replaced by the P Helmet in September 1915.
This particular gas mask was invented by Dr. Cluny Macperson, a medical officer with the Canadian Newfoundland Regiment. Macperson had come up with the idea after witnessing a German soldier cover his head in a wet canvas bag during a gas attack. The Hypo Helmet was the third British invention in the race to produce an effective gas mask and had followed the Black Veiling Respirator issued in May 1915.
It was made from an impregnable fabric and designed with a small celluloid window for visibility. The mask was basically like a small potato sack dipped in a solution of chemicals and had offered protection from the hazardous effects of chlorine for up to nearly 3 hours.
During the three month period, the mask was in use, nearly 2.5 million units were manufactured and distributed not just among British soldiers serving on the front but also British allies.
The protective gear was produced in beige and grey colour for better camouflage and its main advantage was ease of usage. Soldiers could quickly slip it over their heads and tuck the open end into their shirts. The name Hypo was derived from Sodium Hyposulphite – one of the chemicals that was used in combination with Sodium Thiosulphate and Glycerine to make the mask effective in the field.
Though the Hypo Helmet was eventually discarded for its inability to protect the wearer against more deadlier chemicals such as Phosogen and Hydrogen Cyanide, it had nonetheless marked an important step in the evolution of gas masks, especially from the early days of panic and helplessness that gripped the British Army immediately after the battle of Ypres.
At Langemark on the 22nd of April 1915, so unprepared were the British for gas warfare that they had advised soldiers to urinate on handkerchiefs and hold it over their mouth and nose with the hope the urea in the urine would help reduce the poisonous effects of chlorine.
Photographer, Charles Hilton DeWit Girdwood.
DeWit Girdwood who produced this photo during his tour of the western front was at the time a 36-year-old artist of many talents and delightful doggedness.
Born in Ottawa, Canada in 1878 he was a photographer, filmmaker and an adventurer who earned a living by selling visual merchandise to publishers and other buyers. In 1914 he was determined to photograph the role of the Indian Corps. His enthusiasm is generally believed to have stemmed from his genuine admiration for the Corps, and to also build his fame in the field of visual arts.
Shortly after war had been declared, Girdwood, who but of recent was involved in photographing the Durbars of British India, had prevailed upon the British Indian Government to be permitted to cover the role of the Indian Expeditionary Force in action. Upon receiving approval, however, he had self-designated himself as a Geographical and Historical photographer for the Government of India.
Girdwood had traveled with the Indian Corps to France, but with great difficulty procured a permit from the War Office to visit the front. The countless photos he produced on Indian soldiers now makes up the extensive Girdwood collection.
Equipment used by Girdwood to produce his photos.
To capture his scenes Girdwood had relied on a range of conventional and special stereoscopic cameras. He had combined sensitivity and artistic sense to produce a wide variety of images that were visually arresting as well as revealing – yet an enterprise that cost him a great deal in expenses.
Though many of Girdwood’s critics have suspected his ulterior motive to have been monetary gains and self-publicity, in which he most certainly excelled in. His undeflatable enthusiasm to photograph and film the war, despite a ban prohibiting documentation, resulted in the largest collection of wartime visual material ever produced by a single artist on Indian soldiers serving overseas.
Type of photos Girdwood produced.
Girdwood’s photos range from genuine documentation to staged photos. While his images of hospitals, mess kitchens, barracks, the trenches and liberated towns reveal real scenes of comradeship, bravery, training, medical care and cross-cultural exchange.
Many of his battle photos are staged photos with hyperbolic captions and likewise were declared as ‘fakes’ by the War Office at the time, and which was largely because of the prohibition placed upon him.
Thus, forced to recover the expenses he incurred and knowing the value of wartime photos, Girdwood had simply taken to stage illusions. Much like in the photo above that at first glance, and without a caption, can be mistaken for a line of infantry waiting to repel a real attack.
However, since most of Girdwood photos were explicitly created for propaganda, they were, nonetheless, featured in newspapers and other tabloids. Furthermore, his photos along with his captions were largely responsible for uplifting the image of Indian soldiers abroad as well as in British India, especially of Gurkhas and Sikhs and who were much admired by the British.
In the words of academic and professor of modern literature and culture, Santanu Das, who is also the author of the book, India, Empire, and First World War Culture, “Girdwood was essentially responsible for rebranding the image of the Indian soldier” – and not just with his photos and films but also lecture-tours in Britain, India and Canada.
The origin of Vaughan’s 58th Rifles.
The 58th Rifles was originally raised in 1849 as a Frontier Force under the name 5th Punjab Irregular Force. Prior to its participation in World War I, it had served with distinction in numerous conflicts in the Indian Subcontinent including the Second Burmese War of 1852-53, the Anglo-Afghan War conflict of 1878-80 and the Indian Mutiny of 1857 – where it had conducted counter-insurgency operations in Oudh to help curb the Mutiny.
Following Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener’s reforms of the British Indian Army in 1903, the battalion had adopted the name of Vaughan’s 58th Rifles, and in 1920 it had merged with other frontier battalions to form the 5th battalion 13th Frontier Force Rifles – a name under which it had later participated in World War II, serving in North Africa, Italy, Iraq and Lebanon.
The battalion’s 98 years long illustrious career of serving the British Indian army had come to an end with Independence of India in 1947 and the birth of Pakistan. Shortly afterwards and during a division of the armed forces, the battalion was amalgamated into the new formed Pakistani Army. It was later merged with other battalions to form the 10th Battalion Frontier Force Regiment.
Bidding farewell to soldiers who had opted to join India and replenishing its ranks with new recruits, it had later clashed with Indian forces on two separate occasions between 1948 and 1966.
In 1948 it was pitted against the Indian Army in the Kashmir Valley and in 1965 deployed in the Kasur district of the Lahore sector, Pakistan Punjab.
During World War I, several soldiers of the battalion were honoured for gallantry and service with the most widely recognized being Rifleman Kulbir Thapa. A Gurkha from the Palpa District of Nepal, Thappa was a recipient of the Victoria Cross for rescuing three fellow soldiers from behind enemy lines in spite of being wounded at Fauquissart in 1915.
I F I This is an Independent story produced to reveal the story behind this featured Vintage Photo from 1915 and shed light on the life of photographer Charles Hilton DeWit Girdwood. As well as the 58th Rifles and the Hypo Helmet. It has been created from facts curated out of literary and historical sources. I
