A. G. Culpeper
Lieutenant, Indian Medical Department
Died Saturday, 9th May 1920
Grave Reference/ Panel Number: Face G
(Ancestry unknown)
Kirkee 1914-1918 Memorial
The Memorial commemorates nearly two thousand soldiers who served and died in
India during the 1914-1918 War, who are buried in many civil and cantonment cemeteries in
India and Pakistan where their graves can no longer be properly maintained.
On the same memorial are commemorated 193 East and West African soldiers who served and
died in non-operational zones in India in the 1939-1945 War, and whose graves either
cannot be located or are so situated that maintenance is not possible.
The memorial is composed of eight pylons of a sandstone known as "malad" forming
a crescent behind the Cross of Sacrifice. The names are inscribed on both faces of each
pylon. The inner faces of the two central pylons bear, in English and Hindi, the
dedicatory inscription, which reads:
These stones bear
the names of soldiers who served and died during the 1914-1918 War and
lie buried in Ajmer-Merwara, Bombay, Central India, Central Provinces,
Rajputana and Eastern Punjab. Here also are honoured soldiers from East
and West Africa who gave their lives during the 1939-1945 war and rest
in many parts of India and Pakistan.
Historical Information
The officers and men commemorated on the Kirkee 1914-1918 war memorial number 1,810. The following paragraphs describe briefly the
operations in which they died, from August, 1914, to the close of the Third Afghan War in
August, 1919.
They do not attempt to suggest the great part played by Indian soldiers in
the other campaigns of the War, from Ypres to Tsingtao, and the spirit in which German and
Turkish armies were met, or the equal resolution with-which the Indian Government, month
by month, reduced its margin of military security in order to serve the common purpose.
The part played by the Indian Expeditionary Forces is described in other Registers,
prefacing the names of their dead on the battlefields of Iraq, France and Belgium, Egypt
and Palestine, East and West Africa, Persia, China and Macedonia.
The services rendered by
India as a whole may be summarized as the defense of her own frontiers by means of:
 | Twelve British and certain Indian Regular battalions; |
| Eight Indian Cavalry regiments; |
| A number
of British Territorial units and Garrison Battalions; |
| Generous reinforcements from the
Government of Nepal; |
| A remarkable and sustained expansion of the Indian Army; |
| The
maintenance of internal order by the Volunteers (later the Indian Defense Force), with the
help of a fraction of the Regular units; |
| The release of the main body of British Regular
troops for service overseas; |
| The dispatch of 552,000 Indian combatants and 391,000
Indian non-combatants to the theatres of War; |
| The provision of sea and river transport on
an unprecedented scale; |
| The manufacture of munitions; |
| The generous gifts by the
Government, by the States and by individuals, of money, hospitals and material both for
the Indian troops and for the British armies as a whole; and |
| As her most important
service, and despite incessant enemy propaganda, the steady co-operation of almost the
whole of the people with the Government, in the prosecution of a war in which Indian
interest were never directly threatened in any serious degree. |
To defeat Turkish armies
overseas, and even more distant German armies, British Indian and the Indian States stood
by the side of Great Britain and the self-governing Dominions. For the purposes of this
Register, those achievements must be barely summarized; the narrative which follows is
concerned with the defense of India herself against direct aggression.
If the extent of
this aggression seems, in the end, to have been small, it must be remembered that the
potential dangers were those of successful invasion by either fanatical tribes or
disciplined troops; that it was partly sheer good fortune which prevented the coalition of
overpowering numbers of hostile mountaineers on a 1,610 kilometers of frontier; and that
the forces available for defense were at all times much weaker than Indian military
opinion had laid down as essential "pending reinforcement from Home".
| 1914-1915:
The Tochi. The war with Germany began on the 4th August, and the war with Turkey on the
1st November, but it was not until the end of November that the frontier were disturbed.
In the meantime, the German cruiser "Emden' fired on the port of Madras on the
22nd-23rd September, and was driven off by gun-fire; and on the 29th September Sikh
emigrants, returning from America, rioted near Calcutta. On the 28th November the
Operations in the Tochi began, and they lasted until the following 27th March. The Tochi
river flows Eastward from tribal territory, through North Waziristan, to join the Kurram
and the Indus. An incursion by 2,000 tribesmen from Khost was defeated by North Waziristan
Militia near Miranshah, on the Tochi, on the 29th November. The same unit, on the 7th
January, defeated and expelled a similar force which had attacked Spina Khaisora post. On
the 25th-26th March a force of over 7,000 men, threatening Miranshah, was completely
defeated by the Bannu Moveable Column and the Militia in the Action of
Dardoni.
|
| 1915: The Mohmands and Kalat. The year began with the hatching and discovery of a conspiracy in the
Punjab and a small Mohmand raid near Shabkadar. With the spring the Mohmand trouble became
serious, and the Operations against the Mohmands (14th-19th April) were carried out.
Shabkadar is a fort in the Peshawar district, due North of Peshawar across the Kabul
river. It had been attacked by Mohmands in 1897, and on the 13th April that tribe was
found to be again mustering for a raid. On the 18th April, in an attack on troops of the
1st (Peshawar) Division, about 2,400 Mohmands were defeated near Hafiz Kor (a border place
6 kilometers North-West of Shabkadar). In May the Indian Government learnt that a
Turco-German Mission was on its way to Kabul. Similar propaganda in Persia led to the
establishment of the East Persia Cordon at the end of July. This force was based on
Robat,
at the extreme North-West corner of Baluchistan. It joined the Russian Cordon on the 7th
October, and it kept the Indian border from possible penetration by way of Persian
territory. The first Kalat Operations lasted from the 1st June to the 10th July. The Kalat
State covers the greater part of Baluchistan, and the premier chief of
Jhalawan, one of
its Eastern districts, had sacked the State treasury at Khozdar. Disciplinary measures
were carried out by the 106th Hazara Pioneers and a section of Sappers and Miners. The
Operations against the Mohmands, Bunerwals and Swatis (17th August-28th October) entailed
considerable fighting. The people of Swat and Buner inhabit tribal territory North-East
and East of Mohmand country, and the three tribes enclose the Northern half of the
Peshawar civil district. Fighting began with the defeat of about 3,500 Bunerwals near
Rustam (26 kilometres North-East of Mardan) on the 17th August, and ended with the route
of 3,000 Bajauris near Wuch (a river village in Swati territory, 8 kilometres North of
Chakdarra). Six other small engagements had been fought; the most important was the Action
of Hafiz Kor, on the 5th September, in which about 10,000 tribesmen were defeated, after a
gallant resistance by infantry and cavalry. The Turco-German Mission arrived at Kabul
about the beginning of September. It found support in a faction led by the Amir's brother,
but to the end of hostilities the Amir-though encouraging the Mission as long as it was
willing to be encouraged-kept his engagement of neutrality. On the 18th November a
detachment of the 45th Rattray's Sikhs encountered a small party of Mahsuds near Khajuri
Kach, on the Comal river, on the borders of Southern Waziristan and
Baluchistan.
|
| 1916-1917: Persia, Kalat and the Mohmand Blockade. The year 1916 was at once more anxious
and less troubled than 1915 had been. The fall of Kut (29th April) had not the effect on
Indian opinion that was anticipated; the real apprehension felt in June that the Amir
would join the Central Powers was gradually relieved. Serious hostilities were in fact
confined to two areas. The East Persia Cordon was engaged from time to time, but with only
small parties of raiders; the Mekran Mission, which travelled Persian Baluchistan in
April, 1916-February, 1917, was not opposed. In the period 5th June-18th August the
bandits in Jhalawan, Kalat State, Baluchistan, were suppressed. The Mohmand Blockade was
begun on the 30th September and lasted until the 19th July, 1917. It was provoked by raids
on the Peshawar district, and it was carried out by the erection of a chain of blockhouses
linked by wire. It was marked by one definite encounter, the Third Affair of Hafiz Kor
(15th November), in which about 6,000 Mohmands were defeated and dispersed. In July, 1917,
the tribes formally submitted.
|
| 1917: The Mahsuds. The Operations against the Mahsuds
(2nd-March-10 August) were the only definite series of operations needed in 1917. The
capture of Baghdad, reported in March, gratified Indian feeling and impressed the tribes.
The Mahsuds of Southern Waziristan attacked and surrounded |
Location and Commemorative Information
Kirkee, also known as Khadki, is a Military Cantonment
adjoining the large university town of Poona on the Plateau above Bombay. It can be
reached by train from Bombay to Poona or by long distance taxi service from Dada Taxi
Stand, Bombay. There are direct flights from Bombay, Madras and Delhi but these tend to be
irregular.
Taxis and Motor Rickshaws are available from Poona Railway Station. To reach Kirkee War
Cemetery, in which the memorial stands, one must ask for Mula Road along which the
cemetery is located. One way is to cross the Sangam Bridge and follow the road which has
the River Mula on its right. The CWGC road direction board is on a crossroads with the
Bombay Poona Road. The cemetery is situated on the right hand side and backs onto the
river.
From the railway station follow the way via Juna Bazar, Sangam Bridge, past the
Engineering college, over Wakdewadi Bridge, past Bajaj Kamal Nayan Udyan and onto
Bhayawadi and Mula Roads.
From the airport, one reaches Ahmadnagar Road which joins onto Nagar Road followed by
Deccan College Road; over the Holkar Bridge and, keeping left at the junction with
Elphinson road, one enters Mula Road. The cemetery is a short distance away on the left
hand side of the road. The Commonwealth War Graves road direction sign is situated at the
junctions of Elphinson Road and Mula Road, but it should be noted that this is often
hidden from view by Market Stalls.
The 1914-1918 Memorial is situated at the far end of Kirkee War Cemetery facing the
entrance.
Source: The
Commonwealth War Graves Commission Web Site
Last Revised:
06 Feb 2005 |
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