THE GURKHAS
THE GURKHAS
The Gurkhas and the British have fought side by side for 207 years, but they first met as enemies. In the latter half of the eighteenth century the Gurkhas – originally the men of Gorkha, a tiny mountainous kingdom to the west of Kathmandu – unified the plethora of principalities, chiefdoms and statelets into what is now Nepal. Then the Gurkhas looked east, and marched into Sikkim; they looked west and conquered Kumaon and Garhwal; they even invaded Tibet and for a time extracted tribute from the Emperor of China, until the inevitable equation of riches and population told, and the Gurkhas withdrew back into their mountain stronghold. Now they cast their eyes south, to the Plain of Bengal, to what seemed to be a land rich beyond the dreams of mere soldiers, where the streets were paved with gold, the women and the cattle were fat, where a man only had to throw a seed onto the ground for it to grow, and where the people were seemingly indolent and unwarlike. Inevitably this brought them into conflict with the British, in the form of the Honourable The East India Company, which, no longer primarily a trading organisation, governed huge tracts of British India. The Company made treaties, raised taxes and administered the law. It also had an army, composed of locally raised regiments of native soldiers with British officers, and regiments of the British Army stationed in India but paid for by the Company.
The Anglo Nepal War of 1814 to 1816 was a hard fought and bloody war. The British had been accustomed to turning up, firing a disciplined volley or two, and seeing vastly larger native hordes break and run. The Gurkhas too had grown used to dispersing numerically superior enemies by a ferocious but controlled charge. Neither side would run away, to the consternation of the other. Technology favoured the British, while geography was on the side of the Gurkhas.
Unusually for the time and the place both sides treated prisoners honourably, controlled looting and behaved properly towards civilians and women. A mutual respect grew up between the adversaries. In November 1814, At Kalunga, a Gurkha army under General Balbahadur Thapa was surrounded and cut off by a British force. Eventually Balbahadur’s men ran out of food, water and ammunition, but still they would not surrender. Drawing their kukris they chanced all on one last charge straight towards the besieging British. They were mown down in their hundreds, and only a very few got away. After the battle the British raised two identical monuments, which stand at Kalunga to this day. One is to the fallen British soldiers; the other ‘to our gallant adversary’ who ‘fought in their conflict like men’
The war ended in stalemate, although the Gurkhas were the first to sue for peace. The terms were not onerous; Nepal was not annexed to the Crown and only some border adjustments were demanded. The Company concluded that the Gurkhas had been the toughest opponent it had yet faced in the East, and that it would be better by far to have them as friends, fighting for the British rather than against them. The King of Nepal and his advisers agreed – they now had a very large number of fit young men with no means of employing them. If the British wanted them as soldiers then let them have them – and anyway, the Nepali rulers rather liked the British.
The first British Gurkha battalion was raised from Gurkha prisoners of war in British hands, and while part of the British Indian army it was obvious from the early days that Gurkhas were different. They were nominally Hindu (although actually most were and are Buddhist), but not obsessively so; they were unconcerned by rules of caste and what could or could not be eaten; they liked strong drink and they had a British sense of humour. When the Indian mutiny broke out in 1857 the Gurkhas were the first non-British troops to go into action against the mutineers, and their loyalty was never in doubt.
The mutiny put down, Gurkhas, like other loyal races, were rewarded, and by the outbreak of the First World War there were ten regiments of Gurkhas each with two battalions. Six Gurkha battalions fought on the Western Front, and others fought at Gallipoli and in Mesopotamia and Palestine. In addition to the 20,000 Gurkhas already serving in 1914, a further 55,000 volunteered during the war, and the Nepal army was put at the disposal of the British. Between 1914 and 1918 almost every Gurkha of military age was serving the British, and of those who joined the British Gurkha regiments one in ten was killed – a higher proportion than that of even the British. In the Second World War around 150,000 Gurkhas served, fighting in Burma, North Africa and Italy. Again, ten per cent were killed.
After Indian independence in 1947 the Brigade of Gurkhas was divided between the new Indian and the British armies. To Britain came four regiments of infantry, each with two battalions, and subsequently new regiments of engineers, signals and transport were raised. The Brigade was given little time to settle down, however, for the Malayan Emergency broke out in June 1948, and the battle against Communist terrorists was to be the major focus for the Gurkhas until the final defeat of the insurgency in 1960.
Then, in 1962, came the Brunei revolt and ‘Konfrontasi’, an attempt by Indonesia to seize the British colonies and protectorates in north Borneo and prevent the formation of Malaysia. Gurkhas formed the nucleus of the British force, and when in 1967 Indonesia acknowledged defeat, the campaign was rightly held up as an example of cost-effective professionalism. It was during the Borneo campaign that in November 1965 the first Victoria Cross to be awarded since the Korean War was won by a Gurkha, Lance Corporal Rambahadur Limbu, who ended his service as a captain. Rambahadur’s son joined in turn and like his father became a Gurkha officer.
Then came reductions in the Armed forces as a whole, and a decision by the British government to reduce its presence in the Far East. Soon the five remaining Gurkha battalions were spread between Hong Kong, Brunei and the United Kingdom. It was the UK Gurkha battalion that was deployed to Cyprus in 1974 and to the Falklands War in 1982. As this battalion was unaccompanied by wives and children, and could be deployed anywhere at a moment’s notice, it took on many of the tasks that were more difficult for British units, such as six months long tours in Belize in Central America, and the post war garrisoning of the Falklands.
The ending of the Cold War and the handing over of Hong Kong to Communist China brought the inevitable cuts in the British armed forces, and the Gurkhas, with no members of parliament and no county connections to lobby for them, were cut by nearly seventy percent during the ‘Options for Change’ exercise in the mid-nineties. In 1994 the infantry regiments of the Brigade, 2nd, 6th, 7th and 10th Gurkha Rifles amalgamated to form one regiment, The Royal Gurkha Rifles, while the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers, Queens Gurkha Signals and the Queens Own Gurkha Transport Regiment (now the Queens Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment) were reduced to one squadron each. The cuts were premature, however, for the British army could not recruit even to its much-reduced establishment, nor could it retain those whom it did recruit. Two infantry and one parachute Gurkha reinforcement companies were raised, and attached to British infantry battalions, while the Gurkha corps raised second squadrons.
The Brigade continued to expand, and today consists of two battalions of Gurkha infantry (The Royal Gurkha Rifles), a regiment each of The Queen’s Gurkha Engineers, The Queen’s Gurkha Signals and The Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment, demonstration companies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the Infantry Training Centre, a recruit training company, the Gurkha Staff and Personnel Support Company which provides Unit Admin Officers (paymasters), clerks and cooks for the Brigade, a company in support of the Specialist Weapons School, The Allied Rapid Reaction Corps Support Battalion, the Brigade Band and provides a major contribution to the specialist Ranger Regiment, or around 4,000 Gurkhas in total.
Every year, beginning in November, recruiting for the Brigade starts in Nepal. Around 60,000 young men come forward for the 300 or so places available, and in January those selected after rigorous tests of mental and physical stamina, intelligence and capacity to learn are flown to England to begin their forty-week recruit training programme at Catterick, where Gurkha officers and NCOs will train them to take their place in the modern British Army. This training combines basic training and combat infantry training, so that all Gurkhas, whatever their eventual regiment or trade, can operate as infantry if required. The recruit training period for Gurkhas is longer than that of their British contemporaries, for they must learn not only to be soldiers, but also to fit into a world of electricity, running water, motor cars, computers, railways, and aircraft. The language used within Gurkha units is Nepali, but Gurkhas will attend courses with British soldiers, will operate alongside British units and increasingly will take part in coalition, NATO or United Nations operations, and so they must be taught to speak and write English. Language training takes up eight weeks of the recruit training syllabus. Although this training period for Gurkhas is longer than that for British recruits, the Gurkha’s minimum period of service is 15 years, compared to an average of around four years for British soldiers, so there are considerable savings in training costs.
On completion of recruit training, and trade training for soldiers going to the technical corps of the Brigade, the young Gurkhas join their regiments. Promotion is dependent upon merit, service and qualification, and competition is fierce. A small number of British officers – around twelve in a battalion, compared to over thirty in a British equivalent – hold the more senior posts, while platoon commanders and company seconds-in-command are Gurkha officers, men who have joined as young recruits and have worked their way up the ranks. British officers in Gurkha units are required to be fluent speakers of Nepali and to be conversant with all aspects of their men’s culture, religion and homeland. Of course, all this take time, but an officer who, after proper training, cannot pass the Nepali language examination is required to leave.
It is sometimes suggested that the very existence of the Brigade of Gurkhas in the British Army is an anachronism in the twenty-first century. There is nothing wrong with an anachronism provided that it works, and provided that it is freely entered into by both sides. By any objective standards of military competence – annual shooting results, physical fitness tests, retention figures and disciplinary statistics – Gurkhas are amongst the best soldiers anywhere in the world. By their record of exemplary loyalty, courage and skill, Gurkhas have earned their place in the British Army, and they will keep it as long as they remain cost effective and maintain the highest standards of professional excellence.
Recent experience in Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan shows that they are doing just that.