Democracy’s Foot Soldiers
“You must demand justice”
Eugent Clarke, former soldier, British West Indies Regiment
The demand for justice is a common refrain that could apply no more acutely than to the case of the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR), whose important contribution appeared to have been effectively written out of history until the publication of Democracy’s Foot Soldiers: World War I and the Politics of Empire in the Greater Caribbean, Professor Reena Goldthree’s enriching and meticulously investigated new book which chronicles the experiences of the former militiamen of the BWIR before, during and after the War. Goldthree challenges predominant notions that the militance of the soldiers represented the advent of a possible dismantling of existing power structures and racial dynamics in the Caribbean and shows this to be a corollary concern among the returning belligerents. Through carefully interrogated and deeply moving personal accounts, Goldthree spares no effort in Foot Soldiers to demonstrate the innate human yearning for commensurate recognition for one’s efforts and with the delicateness and sensitivity such an endeavour demands.
It is an unfortunate fact that most contemporary searches for the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR) are likely to instead yield results referencing the former West India Regiment. While the latter served as the main defence force for colonial possessions in the Caribbean, the BWIR, formed a year after the beginning of the Great War, was a specially created, temporary detachment accommodating Black and colored West Indians who wished to take up arms for the cause of Empire. However, the 15,600-strong contingent was disallowed from actual fighting, with its members relegated to non-combatant, manual and administrative roles, while 1,200 of them would never return. They served with distinction but they were under-appreciated and not meaningfully recognized relative to their expectations. While sub-standard treatment would eventually stir up nationalistic fervour and racial enlightenment from ex-BWIR servicemen,[1] enlistees did not initially adopt an anti-colonial outlook and instead saw themselves as paragons of masculine virtue within a conservative framework of what Goldthree describes as “imperial patriotism.” She further exposes the absurdity of the idea, which unfortunately gained currency at the time, that former BWIR members by their service were repaying a debt of gratitude to the British Empire for having set their ancestors free, which only served to reinforce deference to the monarchy.
Remonstrating with history is a difficult task but one that Goldthree proves herself more than equal to in Foot Soldiers. She doesn’t retreat into the redoubt of mere re-interpretation of the pertinent facts but launches a sustained assault on imperial consciousness, led by a battalion of intimate revelations of racism, suffused with feelings of inferiority and neglect. Despite the general pro-Empire sentiments expressed by potential recruits, who considered themselves on level footing in every measure to their British counterparts, Goldthree maintains fidelity to the lack of universality of public opinion on the matter by providing less mainstream recollections of those who harboured no allegiance to an Empire that they knew didn’t want them and thought of them as less than. She later outlines how things come full circle with many former BWIR members later re-directing their animus towards Britain amidst feelings of betrayal, while having to suffer the ignominy of returning to a personal social and economic position that was in many respects worse off than when they departed for the battlefields of the Western Front and the Middle East. Despite their dissatisfaction with the seeming absence of any personal progress and their unchanged status in the social hierarchy, the former BWIR members were able to at least wrest some concessions from the colonial administration, including being allowed to vote in the general election the year following their demobilization, albeit only in that edition.[2]
Such gestures, however, merely represented cosmetic advances rather than tangible assistance. Feelings of disillusionment were to set in and manifest themselves in violent post-war insurrections in the former British Honduras and Trinidad and Tobago. Foot Soldiers does a remarkable job in highlighting the psycho-social contestations which the former soldiers had to navigate, starting with elite calls for their participation in the war, while the white and brown upper crust insulated itself from any physical involvement while professing greater devotion to the Empire. Meanwhile, local recruitment committees comprised exclusively of wealthy and influential men (the “military boosters” as Goldthree calls them throughout) who were all too happy to sacrifice lower-class Black men on the frontlines while doubting their abilities in comparison to their metropolitan peers, though their willingness was never in question. Goldthree treats power relations, individual agency and racial and gendered considerations with the requisite dynamism and boundless energy of a seasoned intersectional academic by distilling the inherent contradictions and hypocrisy of elite thinking while unsheathing the farce of martial interracialism, which masked the composition of the regiments and their colour-class hierarchy.
Foot Soldiers also provides the catalyst for broader commentary on the ambiguous position of former colonial soldiers preparing to manoeuvre imminent post-colonial society in the Caribbean. The disdain with which the soldiers were treated both in and out of service offers a painful reminder of the esteem placed on them as colonial subjects and bolstered the need for validation through the assertion of their masculinity. Moreover, the regard with which the West Indies generally was held (with advertisements for recruitment initially excluding Caribbean men altogether) reflected its declining status within the Empire as their strategic and financial value was outstripped by India, Africa and the larger dominions including Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Nevertheless, the members of the BWIR believed they earned the right to serve because of their loyalty and saw potential enlistment as an opportunity to prove themselves. Goldthree acknowledges the shift in imperial priorities immediately upon Emancipation, which proved a turning point in the administration of the colonies.
Military influence was so strong as to be the main driver of public expenditure in the Empire. Given the historical antecedents of British taxation as a revenue generating mechanism to bolster military spending and pay down the resultant debt incurred, tax collections were directly sensitive to this imperative – they rose during times of conflict and fell commensurately during their absence.[3] While the general direction of fiscal policy moved away from funding military expenditures, this did not automatically translate into increased social spending on the whole. Whereas some colonies managed to expand expenditure in this area as late as the 1930s, welfare improvements were susceptible to deliberate neglect and non-prioritization by the colonial authorities. Prior to the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean, the colonial government also managed a fiscal-military state – where about two-thirds of the total tax rate went to security and paying colonial officers.[4] With the newly freed population, expenditure priorities had to shift, but this was not always borne out in reality nor did this realization match actual needs. The focus gradually shifted from being a fiscal-military state[5] to one where revenue generation was central to the new resource demands inherent in the administration of a free colony, with only minimal consideration for social endeavours.
Consequently, it should come as no surprise that owing to the historical reverence with which the military was held in the colonies, volunteers believed their service would automatically accord them with augmented status and enhanced social capital. It is more surprising, however, that ex-soldiers would retain their affinity to England amidst the obvious contempt with which they were held especially when their treatment was juxtaposed against resident West Indians in England (of whom Norman Manley was the most well-known figure) who were allowed to enlist without the arm-twisting effort and ultimate relenting from authorities that accompanied colonial subjects’ eventual participation. Instead of being galvanized by these provincial attitudes, ex-soldiers became even more naively quixotic in the beginning until few soldiers felt more impelled to do something about the status quo in their own countries. Yet, this arousal was merely reformist in nature through the development of nascent veterans’ organizations and other civic associations.
Protestations for more proportionate compensation were greeted with hostility and repelled by accusations of grift and laziness on the part of the ex-servicemen. Radical transformation was not on the cards and advocacy continued to take place largely within the existing imperial framework, preceding the early development of trade unionism and labour movements in the region. While for many soldiers their agitation did not represent a distinct march towards nationalism, Goldthree shows how self-defeating racism acted as a motivating factor in pursuit of this goal. The revolt at Taranto, Italy where BWIR troops were stationed led to the formation of the Caribbean League, which expressed Black aspirations for self-determination.[6] Naturally, elite anxieties were heightened in the lead up to their return to the Caribbean, but those fears were largely allayed, and their immediate arrival passed without incident.
Almost a century after Armistice, Keith Eastmond, a member of the Antigua and Barbuda Ex-Servicemen’s Association described the BWIR contingent as being “airbrushed” from history – “"The Caribbean was keen to support the mother country, as they saw it then. But Britain was reluctant to let West Indian soldiers fight white Europeans in those days."[7] Professor Reena Goldthree in Foot Soldiers gives much-needed prominence to the voices of marginalized ex-soldiers and fills an important lacuna in the re-telling of early 20th Century Caribbean history, with the hope that they may continue to receive their rightful acclaim.
[1] Bean,Jamaican Women and the World Wars
[2] Altink, Public Secrets
[3] O’Brien, The Political Economy of British Taxation
[4] Knox, British Colonial Policy
[5] Graham, The Colonial Sinews of Imperial Power
[6] Elkins, A Source of Black Nationalism in the Caribbean
[7] Handy, The Caribbean Honours its overlooked WW1 Soldiers, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46110120