Yet another Indian First World War memoir found!

Capturing the war:

The Marathi War Memoirs of Captain Gopal Gangadhar Limaye.

An introductory note by MR.

Published in February 1939, nearly two decades after the events they recalled, the War Memoirs of Captain Limaye, start from early 1918 when he received a temporary commission in the Indian Medical Service and continue through to 1921 when he was discharged from the army. As part of the 87^th Punjabis, he saw action in Mesopotamia and was involved in operations against the Kurdistanis in 1919 and in quelling the Arab Rebellion in 1920. While both these operations are from a period after the armistice (11 November 1918) and technically may not form part of the First World War, they can be viewed as an extension of that war and as the foreword suggests, “in many ways conditions during these operations were more trying than those during the period of the Great War proper.”

Originally written in the period immediately following his return, parts of the memoir first appeared in the Marathi monthly magazine, Masik Manoranjan in 1923-24. In many ways, the book is an unique artifact. It is based on the notes Dr. Limaye kept during the war and the letters he sent home. It contains over fifty photographs, most of them taken by the author. And all that could not be photographed, is sketched or painted, with the book having over fifty sketches, small and large. Wherever his narration required maps, he drew them himself; the maps provide a distinctive pictorial representation of the war front.  To top it all, there are his cartoons related to his war experiences, some of which originally appeared in the Bombay Chronicle in the 1920s. As he confidently declares in his introduction, the world of Marathi literature had never before seen a book like this. And sadly, never since!

The memoirs are preceded by by a foreword (in English) by Lt. Col. J. M. Hunt of the 5^th Battalion, 2^nd Punjab Regiment (which was the new avatar of the 87^th Punjabis). He was a colleague of the doctor during this period and was the senior-most officer who could be traced after 20 years, others having died or otherwise disappeared. Hunt tries to jog his memory of events and imagines a Dr. Limaye committed to his work, liked and admired by the injured soldiers, and an enthusiastic spark. The Marathi text has a prefatory note by General Nanasaheb Shinde, retired chief of the Baroda Army.[1]

In his stolid preface, General Shinde laments the complete dearth in Marathi of memoirs and autobiographies by soldiers who had seen action during the First World War. He remarks that the thousands of Marathi soldiers who ventured to the battlefields and lived to tell the tale must have had minimal powers of observation and registration, not to mention narration.

From the author’s introduction onwards, one gets a distinct feeling of perkiness which seems to permeate the character of Dr. Limaye. In the few photographs not taken by himself, he comes across as diminutive, almost elfin, charmingly mischievous and sprightly. Born in 1895, he was 23 when he first went to East Africa in 1918. And for the next three years, he seems to have maintained the same lightheartedness of character with which we are first made acquainted. The introduction contains a meticulous account of how and when the memoirs were written, the antecedents of the photographs, maps and sketches, the notes and letters which he referred to, and the publication history of some of the material.

The memoirs start from his joining the army at Peshawar, which he says is as foreign to him as Africa. His brief stint in East Africa, based in Zanzibar and Dar-es salaam, and his interaction with the natives are described with anthropological fervour. On a two-month furlough in India, he was suddenly recalled and asked to report to the Middle East. By way of Basra and Baghdad he joined his battalion which was involved in the quelling of the 1919 Kurdish revolt in Chamchamal and then found itself caught in the Arab Rebellion of 1920. The 87^th Punjabis saw action in Hillah and was part of the harried withdrawal of the British forces from Diwaniya. During the relief of Kufah, he was injured in the foot by a bullet on 12 October 1920 while ministering to the injured at the battlefront. He was informally reprimanded for venturing right to the head of the battlefront to attend to the injured instead of keeping to the rear. There is even a long-shot photograph of him sitting injured on the ground next to his ambulance lines, soon after he was shot.

There are the usual accounts about the excessive heat, lack of water and the adverse conditions (but thankfully, no trenches!) in which they had to live for much of the period. However, his enthusiasm never seems to flag. A lot of the confidence which comes across in the writing can be linked to his work, in the most trying circumstances, as a medical practitioner amongst men who need him most urgently.

Besides the main narrative of his war experiences, there is a separate note on each period where he particularizes his daily schedule of activities, the places he stayed in, the food he ate, the salaries and allowances which he received, the transport which was available to him. An appendix contains a detailed calendar of the three years giving his location and the principal events which occurred during this period.

Last but not the least, there is a section on war ditties (in English) which Dr. Limaye composed as the war situation demanded. They were to be sung at the mess-table. The longer ones narrate the activities of the 87^th Punjabis and the idiosyncrasies of the various officers, including their one-armed General. Two of the shorter ditties are reproduced by way of example.

March of the 87^th Punjabis.

Flies to the right of them

Mosquitoes to the left of them

Sand-flies beneath them

Bullets in front of them.

Dust inside them

Heat outside them

Into the Marsh of Hillah

Marched the sturdy PUNJABIS.

Soliloquy of a B. O. R. (British Other Rank)

To drink or not to drink, that is the question!

To abstain – to die; to drink – to trot.

Whether ’tis nobler in the Heart

To suffer the pangs of thirst

Or by drinking to quench them!

HILLAH, August 1920. (when there was severe shortage of water.)