Sepoy Harnam Singh, 34th Sikh Pioneers, by Paul Sarrut (1882-1969)

Camp de Cercottes, near Orleans, France, dated 7 November 1914

Footnotes

Provenance
Major Arthur Wallace Dunlop, 23rd Sikh Pioneers (1866-1937).

Published
British and Indian Troops in Northern France, 70 War Sketches by Paul Sarrut, 1914 - 1915, Delépine, Arras, prior to 1920.
The Illustrated War News (Feb. 17, 1915, p. 18).
L'Illustration, Journal Universel Hebdomadaire, no. 3751, 23 January 1915, p. 89.
Amandeep Singh Madra and Parmjit Singh, Warrior Saints, Three Centuries of the Sikh Military Tradition, London, 1999, p. 120.

Exhibited
Empire, Faith and War: The Sikhs and World War One, Brunei Gallery, London, 9 July - 28 September 2014.

Paul Sarrut was a French Liaison officer who had access to some of the Indian camps at the Western Front between 1914-15. He produced a number of intimate sketches of sepoys, often in places undocumented by camera, such as the inside of camps and billets. Seventy of these sketches, including the present lot, were reproduced as prints in British and Indian Troops in Northern France, 70 War Sketches by Paul Sarrut, 1914 - 1915, Delépine, Arras, prior to 1920. The publication was limited to 250 copies, issue no. 40 of which is retained at the British Library as part of the India Office Library (cat. no. BLL01007259929).

The image of Harnam Singh would become one of the most famous and reproduced images of a Sikh soldier in World War I, used in various series of early 20th century postcards, and appearing in publications such as The Illustrated War News (Feb. 17, 1915, p. 18), an original copy of which is included with the present lot. A lithograph version of the drawing is also in the Archives départementales du Pas-de-Calais (Coll. No. 3 Fl 608).

Harnam Singh was killed in action on the 24th November, just seventeen days after this portrait was completed. He is commemorated at the Neuve-Chapelle Memorial, Pas de Calais, along with nearly five thousand other Indian soldiers with no known graves.

He was imortalised in A Poem For Harnam Singh by General Sir James Wilcox, Commander of the Indian Corps in France.

Beneath an ancient pipul-tree, fast by the
Jhelum's tide,
In silent thought sat Harnam Singh,
A Khalsa soldier of the King;
He mused on things now done and past,
For he had reached his home at last,
His empty sleeve his pride.

Five years before a village lout, beneath
the self same tree,
He met the Havildar, who'd come
With honeyed words and beat of drum,
Cajoling all who glory sought,
And telling how the regiment fought
The Zakha and the Mohmand clans
With shouts of victory.
WaheGuru Ji ! Rang in his ears, the famous
battle cry
And since those days Harnam had seen
On Flanders plains, from fierce Messines
To Festubert and Neuve Chapelle
'Mid festering bogs and scenery of hell
How Khalsa soldiers die.'