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'Memoirs and Recollections of An Officer of the Indian Political Service' [‎13r] (25/156)

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The record is made up of 1 file (78 folios). It was created in 1983?. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

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- 13 -
effective air force. He did not last long as a few weeks later, on the occasion of
a well-attended air display on the race course, he crashed his aircraft into a belt
of trees at the end of the runway without taking off. I remember also a young British
pilot officer who had been cashiered from the RAF; an elderly but famous Turkish
General who had defended Medina and the Holy Places against the Arabs in 1917, and a
batch of belligerent Belgian administrators who had served in the Independent State
of the Congo when it was the private fief of Leopold II. Many of these people were
professional military mercenaries who had gravitated from China, via the Gran Chaco
war in Paraguay to Ethiopia; later some of them were to be found fighting on different
sides during the Civil War in Spain.
Even in the Legation we were as poorly informed about the real situation up country as
were the journalists. The official Ethiopian communiques were totally valueless;
inaccurate, bombastic and inflammatory. But all this time large contingents of armed
and indisciplined tribesmen were passing through Addis Ababa on their way to the
northern front under the command of their "Rasses" or Chieftains. It was these very
people who we were apprehensive of when one day they would return to the capital
demoralised and defeated by the Italian armies.
Now that our own Indian contingent would shortly be arriving from India, I was made
responsible for hiring local contractors to build huts and cook-houses in the compound
for the use of the troops. I had also to arrange for the daily supply of rations for
the Sikh soldiery - like Hindus, they would not touch beef, but mutton was acceptable
so long as the sheep had been killed in the tradional Sikh way. This type of meat was
known as 'Mutton Jhatka'. I found the Indian merchants trading in Addis Ababa par
ticularly helpful, especially the important Aden firm of Mohamed Ali, which had branches
not only in the city but also throughout the interior.
The complex negotiations between the Emperor and the Minister, and the problems of
getting the Indian Contingent into Addis Ababa, all of which required constant
references to the British Foreign Office and to New Delhi, put a great strain on the
small Chancery staff of the Legation. Cyphering and de-cyphering telegrams occupied
the daylight hours of myself and the two wireless operators. At the same time, the
Foreign Office poured out a spate of telegrams keeping us abreast of the international
scene as it developed in Geneva at the League of Nations, and in particular the efforts
being made there to secure uniformity of action by the great powers for the imposition
of sanctions against Italy, should she decide to invade Ethiopia. In the evenings,
two or three of us would frequent the sleazy bars and night spots in the city in the
hope of picking up some item of reliable information from the journalists and others
as to the situation in the city, the morale and effectiveness of the "Shifta" Armies

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Content

This file contains a photocopy of a typewritten draft of Sir John Richard Cotton's (b 1909) memoirs of his time in the Indian military and civil service. The memoirs, which were written when the author was 'in his seventy-fourth year', cover his time in the Indian Army, at Aden, Ethiopia, Attock, the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , Mount Abu, Hyderabad, Rajkot (Kathiawar), the Political Department in New Delhi, and finally the UK High Commission in Pakistan.

Extent and format
1 file (78 folios)
Physical characteristics

Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the first folio with 1, and terminates at the last folio with 78; these numbers are written in pencil and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. The file also contains an original printed foliation sequence.

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English in Latin script
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'Memoirs and Recollections of An Officer of the Indian Political Service' [‎13r] (25/156), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/7, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100076278456.0x00001a> [accessed 28 March 2024]

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