page_title: Bengali Regiment
section_title: In the war
hierarchical_section_title: Bengali Regiment / In the war
caption_attribution_description: English: Monument of Bengali Regiment at College Square in Kolkata
context_page_description: Bangali Platoon or Bengalee Regiment is a regiment of Bengali soldiers raised during the First World War with Lt. S. G. Taylor as a Regiment Commander. At the beginning of the First World War. So that time many non-combatant soldiers and skilled and unskilled laborers were also recruited from Bengal. In middle 1916, the British Government decided to create a regiment of Bengali soldiers. At first, it was called Bengali Double Company. These Double Companies, each consisting of 228 soldiers, are thought to annex with Indian Army as a regiment. The Bengali Double Company raised the first Bengali Battalion on 26 June 1917. It was named the 49th Bengalee regiment or briefly the 49th Bengalee.
  This Bengali Battalion was not like an ordinary army unit. Basically, young men from educated middle-class families had joined as soldiers. Many of them were in jobs with good salaries before joining the army. Some had graduation, masters or law degrees. Some young sons of nawabs and zamindars and of rich families also joined the Bengali Battalion. Although Indian soldiers were not allowed to rise as commissioned officers, but £115 million was paid from the Indian exchequer.
context_section_description: The first battalion of the Bengali Regiment divided into three groups left Karachi in July 1917 to take part in the Mesopotamian war and by mid-September reached Baghdad. But in Baghdad a good number of soldiers became sick and some of them died. So that the 49th Bengalis were transferred from Baghdad to the city of Azizia and by mid-March to Al Kut. Still, there was no significant improvement in their health in Al Kut. Then, towards the end of October, they were sent to Tanuma near Basra. While at Al Kut, Tanuma and Azizia, the Bengalis performed mainly security duties alongside receiving military training.
  By November 1918 armistice was declared. At Tanuma the Bengalis performed the post-war rehabilitation duties. Some of the soldiers were engaged in Baghdad and elsewhere. After the Mesopotamian war, there was a revolt in Kurdistan in April 1919. As many as 235 Bengalis were engaged in suppressing this rebellion. After coming back to Kolkata in August 1920, the Bengali Battalion got disbanded on 30 August 1920.
  After the first battalion of the 49th Bengali Regiment left for Baghdad in July 1917, its remaining soldiers stayed in Karachi and continued to receive military training. This group of the Bengalis was called Karachi Depot. A group of the Bengali Battalion that stayed in Calcutta was called Calcutta Depot where the new recruits stayed. The soldiers of the Karachi Depot also used to stay here while in transit from leave or on some duty. As a large number of soldiers from East Bengal were recruited in September 1918, a Depot was also opened in Dhaka called Dhaka Depot. Some of the soldier from the Platoon are Shamal Bhattacharya (Dhaka), Jagadish Chandra Bose (Dhaka), Satyanarayan Bose (Dhaka), Abdul Rahman (Dhaka) Suresh Chandra Bose (Dhaka), Mohan Dey (Dhaka)                                  Harshgovinda Dey (Chittagong), Bharat Chowdhury (Faridpur), Surendranath Ghosh (Faridpur), A. S. (Jessore), Jaminikanta C.(Jessore), Kantichandra (Jessore), Abdul Habib S. (Jessore), Jogendranath De (Khulna), Adi Uddin (Khulna), Satish Chakrabarty (Khulna), Uddin (Khulna), Kamakshya Dey (Dhaka), Bholanath Chowdhury (Bogra), Taranchandra Sarkar (Bogra), A. N. Mukherji (MSM), Nath Basu, Subedar-Major Sailendranath Basu, IDSM.
caption: Monument in College Square in Kolkata
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