With the Indian Troops at the Front was released in two sections in January 1916, as part of the first series of official war pictures. Its production was the result of protracted negotiations between an influential group of news film companies, known as the Topical Committee of the Kinematograph Manufacturers’ Association, and the War Office. The government was initially reluctant to cooperate with commercial film companies, but by August 1915 it finally granted permission for two cameramen to visit British GHQ. Disagreements over the details of the project briefly led to its postponement, but on 25 October the Topical Committee signed a contract for the ‘production and exhibition of official film within the British Empire’ (Malins, 1993, xix).

Early on the morning of 2 November 1915, the two selected cameramen – Geoffrey Malins of Gaumont and Edward George Tong of Jury’s Imperial Pictures – set off from Charing Cross on a wage of £1 a day and with their lives insured by the War Office for £1,000 each. Their trip lasted a fortnight, and when the two men returned on 17 November, they were reported to have ‘about ten thousand feet of really interesting film of beautiful quality’ (Hiley, 1993, 143).

This material was quickly edited into six short films, which were given a trial exhibition at British Headquarters on 30 November. The films were shown to the press on 4 January, before the first part of With the Indian Troops at the Front was released on 17 January, followed a week later by part II. The trade bought over seventy copies of each section at a cost of more than £1,400, ensuring that the films played throughout the country (Hiley, 1993, 143). 

It may appear surprising that footage of Indian troops should feature so prominently within the first set of official war pictures. Reviews noted a popular fascination with the Indian material. A Times correspondent argued that ‘the views of the Indian troops will at least have much of the charm of novelty’, while a subsequent review suggested that Indians were ‘always a picturesque and popular subject’ (The Times, 2 December 1915, 7; 5 January 1916, 11). However, the focus on Indian troops may be explained by the earlier work of Hilton DeWitt Girdwood. Although Malins and Tong have been widely credited as the first cameramen to work officially in the British sector, film historian Nicholas Hiley showed that Girdwood actually preceded both men in filming as an official cameraman with the British army on the Western front between July and September 1915.

Girdwood had a particular interest in filming Indian troops. Having lived in India since 1903, he had set out in 1914 with the first units of the Indian Expeditionary Force ‘determined to make a photographic record of their service overseas’. He wanted to take photographs and films to strengthen India’s support for the war (‘I found that nothing so impressed the vast multitudes of the East as pictorial representation’) and emphasised to the India Office the importance of making these films ‘so that Indians may see with their own eyes the actual state of affairs and how well the Indians are being looked after in camp, in trench, and in hospital’ (Hiley, 1993, 131). GHQ intelligence had already expressed some concerns about possible unrest amongst Indian troops in France and suggested that ‘popularising the Indian E[xpeditionary] F[orce]’ could help to alleviate this apparent unrest (Hiley, 1993, 130). Significantly, the man responsible for organising Girdwood’s film excursions, Captain John Faunthorp, would assume a similar role for Malins and Tong. Hiley noted that Malins and Tong were ‘taken on similar assignments, enabling them to duplicate large amounts of Girdwood’s footage’ – for example, filming an Indian wrestling match (Hiley, 1993, 143). Girdwood’s previous trip, and his interest in Indian troops, may therefore have directed the subjects filmed within this first batch of official films.

The War Office’s agreement with the Topical Committee ensured that With the Indian Troops and the other official productions were the only films from the war front passed for exhibition in Britain. This agreement scuppered Girdwood’s plans to release his films commercially in eight short parts (he was eventually able to present his footage as part of a lecture from September 1916 under the title With the Empire Fighters). However, the official pictures could not be exhibited in India (or Egypt). With the Indian Troops thus did not present the work of the Indian troops back to Indian audiences. Furthermore, by the time these films were released, the Indian troops had been withdrawn from France. Consequently reviews emphasised the films’ role in promoting imperial collaboration and in showing the efforts of the Indian troops to British audiences. The Times wrote that the Indian pictures ‘helped us all to realise how strange and trying must be the conditions under which these sons of the East heroically work and fight’ (The Times, 5 January 1916, 11). Upon the public release of the first set of films the paper added that ‘the pictures now placed before the public are concerned chiefly with our brave and resourceful Indian troops and give interesting glimpses of the character and life of the dusky soldiers who, after fighting through one winter of snow and rain and mud, have been transferred, it is understood, to scenes less strange and climatically less trying’ (The Times, 18 January 1916, 5).

The first set of films was not particularly well received. The Evening News published an extensive report in March 1916 suggesting that picture theatre managers were boycotting the official war pictures. The Topical Film Agency strongly rejected these claims, stating that ‘the sales of these Official War topicals are phenomenal, when it is remembered how disappointing the first series proved to be when shown to the trade’ (KW, 9 March 1916, 13). Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly explained that ‘the first series somewhat dampened the enthusiasm of the exhibitors, but the second series has more than atoned for the lack of strength and interest from which the first effort suffered’ (KW, 9 March 1916, 3). Luke McKernan has more recently deemed this first set ‘a disappointment’, and a ‘product of official interference and organisational naivety … mostly depicting scenes of drilling and training, all well behind lines’ (McKernan, 1991, 37).