Longest Great War?

If the Indians had been any good on the western front, the Brits happily would have sacrificed them by the million in 1915 or 1916.
The French did the same with their black African soldiers, only they couldn't stand winter conditions in northern France.
The solution was not more men, it was more machines.
 
If tanks weren't used,the war may have kept going on,niether side making advances. It could last up to 1925. Max.
 
I am sure I have read somewhere that the Indian army in WWII was the largest purely volunteer army ever raised. Maybe a manpower desperate Britain could have offered independence in exchange for defeat of Germany.

Yes, i'm sure I have read somewhere a proposition tabled by the INC (or whatever body was in effect at this time) for India to take a far greater part in the war in exchange for Dominion status. It was turned down flat by the British at the time, but a man starved Britain might well reconsider if they were desperate enough.
 
If Britain and France needed more men to continue the fight wouldnt they have been able to recruit more from there colonies

I am sure I have read somewhere that the Indian army in WWII was the largest purely volunteer army ever raised. Maybe a manpower desperate Britain could have offered independence in exchange for defeat of Germany.

Problem is that with both the French and British armies in the Great War, colonial forces were considered élites and suffered much higher casualties. For the French, the Senegalese and Morrocan tirailleurs were always in the first wave of attackers in a major offensive, and the Brits put the Canadian Corps in front of many of their offensive in Flanders and Picardie. The British didn't send Indian units to the Western Front because they were sending them to Mesopotamia and Palestine trying to knock the Turks out, or to East Africa to conquer German colonial forces under von Lettow-Vorbeck.

Anyway, the Great War ends in 1919 no matter what. Without the Americans coming in, the French are at the end of their rope in terms of manpower. They were so desperate that OTL Pétain was urging Clemenceau in mid-'18 to call up the class of 1921. 17 year olds! By the time of Operation Michael in March '18, the French were already dipping into the class of 1920.

The Germans aren't much better off either. Sure, they have more manpower, but they can't feed themselves. The homefront is collapsing, and soldiers on leave see this. They might be eating pretty well at the Front, but their families are living off of rotten potatoes and turnips. This isn't exactly news to inspire the "offensive spirit."
 
Indian Troops on the Western Front

An Indian Corps consisting of the Meerut and Lahore divisions of the Indian Army served on the Western Front from about October 1914 for 18 months (ish). Gordon Corrigan has written about them as did John Masters (in fictionalised form) in 'The Ravi Lancers' - well worth a read, though not alt hist.
Don't think Indian troops were seen as elite. As has been posted above they struggled to cope with cold winter conditions and they were difficult to support with reinforcements etc so far from India, which is why the corps was eventually redeployed to the Middle East.
IMO the Brits were still conditioned in thought by the events of the Indian Mutiny aka First War of Independance and their view of Indians as low status 'natives'.
 
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