5 – West Indies Regiment in Palestine
The Indians of the subcontinent were not the only Commonwealth soldiers known by that epithet. From the other side of the world came the West Indian Regiment, a group of some 15 and a half thousand men from the Caribbean who distinguished themselves at various points in the Great War. Not to be confused with the similarly named but functionally separate West India Regiment – which was drawn from the Caribbean but had been in existence since 1795 – the West Indies Regiment was first mustered in 1915.
The idea of a battalion solely of black Caribbean soldiers was one which the British Army had long resisted and initially, the West Indies Regiment was reserved for logistical support – in practical terms, manual labour. Some stacked shells ready to be fired, they built roads and loaded supplies, while other engaged in more perilous duties such as building gun emplacements and carrying stretchers, often in full sight of snipers and within range of artillery. At no point were they considered the equals of their white fellow soldiers and efforts were made to ensure that they never fought alongside one another.
This was to change in the Palestine campaigns towards the end of the war. In the vital battle for Jerusalem in 1918, black Caribbean soldiers proved invaluable in clearing the way to the city, destroying enemy emplacements and laying the platform for the eventual capture of the Palestinian capital.
The discrimination suffered by the West Indies Regiment would come to a head at the end of the war. Sick of ill-treatment at the hands of officers, of constant backbreaking labour tasks and of poor pay and conditions – particularly a pay rise for the all-white Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps that was not extended to the black soldiers – WIR members stationed at the southern city of Taranto went on strike. For four days, various battalions refused to work and eventually, after a series of fights broke out, the Worcestershire Regiment was sent in to quell the mutiny. 60 men were tried for their role in the uprising and one was executed. The mutiny would be successful, however, as in February 1919, the West Indies Regiment was granted the same pay rise that their white counterparts had received.
The effects of the mutiny would be long-lasting. Around 50 of the sergeants continued to meet and took the unity formed through fighting side by side in the West Indies Regiment and turned it to a political movement known as the Caribbean League, which promoted the unity of Jamaican, Trinidadian, Barbadian and Guyanese people across the whole West Indies. From their cadre emerged men such as Arthur Andrew Cipriani, founder of the Trinidad Labour Party, Samuel Alfred Haynes, a prominent Belizean anti-racist activist and Clennell Wickham, a noted journalist and anti-colonial leader in Barbados.