Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the Great War’s immediate impact on and longer-term legacies for Bombay Presidency, looking at ports, prisoners-of-war and other conflict-related activities between 1914 and 1918.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the Great War in relation to its consequences for one of the key administrative divisions of British India, namely Bombay Presidency. Bombay Presidency may not have been the most important source of recruits to the Indian Army, but the conflict's immediate impact, together with its long-lasting legacy, was enormous there. Drawing on contemporary records in the British Library, the UK National Archives and the Imperial War Museum, my contribution will highlight the various ways in which the war 'came home' to this part of British India by investigating the knock-on effects of the huge number of combatants who passed through its ports (between 1914 and 1918 well over one million troops and related personnel embarked and disembarked at the docks in Bombay alone), the camps set up to house enemy prisoners-of-war and other nationals at Ahmadnagar, Belgaum and Bellary, the hospitals such as that at Deolali that dealt with the wounded, the military cemeteries where those who died were buried, and the civilian war relief effort that took place during these years.