The 1915 Singapore Mutiny, (also known as the 1915 Sepoy Mutiny or the Mutiny of the 5th Light Infantry) was a mutiny of elements of the British Indian Army's 5th Light Infantry in British Singapore. Up to half of the regiment, which consisted of Indian Muslims predominantly from Rajput backgrounds, mutinied on 15 February 1915 due to rumours that they would be sent to fight against the largely Muslim Ottoman Empire as part of the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. The mutineers killed 36 soldiers and civilians before the mutiny was suppressed by Allied forces. After the mutiny, more than 205 mutineers were tried by court-martial, and 47 were publicly executed by firing squad.
Background
5th Light Infantry
The 5th Light Infantry was a long established regiment in the Indian Army, dating from 1803. and had a good military record. It was initially known as the 2nd Battalion, 21st Bengal Native Infantry and was re-designated as the 42nd Bengal Native (Light) Infantry in 1843. After the Indian Mutiny, also known as the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the surviving Bengal regiments were renumbered in 1861 and consequently the 42nd became the 5th Bengal Native (Light) Infantry. Following army reforms, the word ‘’Native’’ was eventually dropped and the regiment renamed as the 5th Light Infantry. During its history the regiment had been awarded several battle honours, which included the Arakan, Afghanistan and Kandahar 1842, Ghunze 1842, Kabul and Moodkee, Ferozeshah and Sobroan 1857 campaigns. It also fought in the Second Afghan War of 1879–80 and the Third Burmese War of 1885–87, which led to the British annexation of Burma and its tributary Shan states.
Immediately prior to World War One, the regiment was employed in garrison duties in India. On 10 October 1914, the 5th Light Infantry was stationed in Nowgong when it was posted to Singapore to replace the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, which had been ordered to France. Unusually for 1914–15 the 5th Light Infantry was an entirely Muslim unit, mainly comprising Ranghars (Muslims of Rajput origin) and Pathans, commanded by British and Indian officers. Upon arrival in Singapore, the 5th Light Infantry was based in Alexandra Barracks.
Disunity and discontent in regiment
Even before its departure from India the 5th Light Infantry suffered from weak senior leadership and discord amongst its British officers (see details of Court of Inquiry report below). To compound the problem, the Indian sepoys themselves were divided into two major cliques influenced by some of their non-British Viceroy Commissioned Officers (VCOs). One was led by the Subedar Major Khan Mohamed Khan and Subedar Wahid Ali, and the other consisted of Subedar Dunde Khan plus Jemadars Chiste Khan and Abdul Ali Khan. According to the Court of Inquiry, discipline was compromised by this division and any particular policy innovation or other measure taken within the regiment was likely to be opposed by one faction or the other.
The sepoys reportedly had difficult in adapting to unfamiliar living conditions in their new garrison. While in India, the soldiers had a constant supply of goat meat and milk but because it was difficult to receive a constant supply of goats in Singapore, they had to make do with a substitute – chicken - and very little milk. The sepoys resorted to buying their own meat and milk to make up for the insufficient amounts they received and the use of the Straits dollar instead of the rupee unsettled the soldiers further.
The Court of Inquiry report, as well as contemporary accounts of the mutiny, saw it to be essentially an isolated affair - resulting from internal problems arising within a single poorly-led unit on overseas service. The possibility of German or Turkish involvement was closely examined but otherwise wider political and social implications were generally ignored.
Mutiny
On 27 January 1915 the regiment's commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel V.E. Martin, announced that the 5th Light Infantry was to be transferred to Hong Kong for further garrison duties, replacing another Indian regiment. However, rumours were circulated among the sepoys that they might instead be sent to Europe or to the Ottoman Empire to fight against their Muslim co-religionists. Three Indian VCOs; Subedar Dunde Khan, Jemedar Chiste Khan, and Jemedar Ali Khan, were later to be identified by a court of enquiry as key conspirators in the matter. When the final order to sail to Hong Kong aboard the SS Nile arrived in February 1915, they and other ringleaders among the sepoys decided that it was time to rebel. On the morning of 15 February, the General Officer Commanding Singapore addressed a farewell parade of the regiment, complimenting the sepoys on their excellent turnout and referring to their departure the next day, without mentioning Hong Kong as the destination. At 3:30 pm on the afternoon of the same day, four Rajput companies of the eight companies making up the 5th Light Infantry mutinied. The mostly Pathan sepoys of the remaining four companies did not join the mutiny but scattered in confusion. Two British officers of the regiment, Captain Perceval Boyce and Lt. Harold Elliott, were killed as they attempted to restore order.
The mutineers divided themselves into three groups. A party of 100 men went to obtain ammunition from Tanglin Barracks, where 309 Germans, including crew members from the German light cruiser SMS Emden, had been interned by the British. The mutineers fired on the camp guards and officers without warning, killing ten British guards, three Johore troops present in the camp and one German internee. Amongst the dead were Second Lieutenant John Love Montgomerie, Rifles; Sergeant G. Wald, (Reserve) Engineers; Corporal D. McGilvray, Rifles; Corporal G.O. Lawson, Cyclist Scouts; Lance Corporal J.G.E. Harper, Rifles; Private B.C. Cameron, Rifles; Private F.S. Drysdale, Rifles; Private A.J.G. Holt, Rifles and Stoker 1st Class C. F. Anscombe, HMS Cadmus. Three Britons and one German were wounded but survived the attack, as did eight Royal Army Medical Corps personnel in the camp hospital, including one who managed to escape under heavy fire to raise the alarm. The mutineers tried to persuade the Germans to join them, but many of the latter were shaken by the sudden violence and reluctant to do so. Some German sailors and reservists wanted to join with the mutineers, but the majority adopted a neutral stance, refusing to accept rifles from the Indians. Thirty-five Germans escaped but the rest remained in the barracks.
As it was the middle of the Chinese New Year, most of the locally recruited Chinese Volunteers Corps were on leave, leaving Singapore almost defenceless against the mutiny. The British administration was initially caught unprepared, and the mutineers encountered little opposition at Keppel Harbour and Pasir Panjang, where they killed 19 European and local civilians. Martial law was imposed and every available man from HMS Cadmus went ashore to join with hastily assembled British, Malay and Chinese Volunteer units plus the small number of British regular troops forming part of the garrison. British Vice-Admiral Sir Martyn Jerram sent a radio message requesting help from any allied warships nearby.
A group of mutineers laid siege to the bungalow of the commanding officer of the 5th Light Infantry, Lieutenant-Colonel E. V. Martin, which effectively blocked the route into Singapore Town. Martin and a detachment of the hastily mobilised Malay States Volunteer Rifles held out through the night of the 15th, under sporadic fire. Loyal sepoys who tried to join them were ordered to "go to a safe place" to prevent them from being confused in the dark with mutineers. With daylight, the defenders were successful in retaking the regimental barracks, at the cost of one killed and five wounded. The mutineers scattered, and despite sniper fire, the general population stayed calm while volunteers, sailors and marines fought sporadic skirmishes with the mutineers.
Malay States Guides
Attached to the 5th Light Infantry at Alexandra Barracks were a detachment of 97 Indian officers and men of the Malay States Guides (MSG) Mule Battery. Raised in 1896 for the internal garrisoning of the Federated Malay States, this artillery unit was recruited from Sikhs, Pathans and Punjabis in both India and Malaya. The British officer commanding the battery was shot dead by an unknown sniper as he hastened to the gun park. The MSG gunners then dispersed when a large body of 5th Light Infantry mutineers approached their lines. The MSG artillery pieces were abandoned but not brought into action by the mutineers.
Seven men of the MSG were subsequently arrested in Outram Road, Singapore while they were carrying rifles, which had been fired. They were court-martialed and sentenced to a year in prison.
Killing of civilians
Among the civilian fatalities during the mutiny were thirteen British men; one British woman, Mrs. G.B. Woolcombe (her death was later assumed by the British authorities to have possibly been unintended); two Chinese women; one Chinese man; and two Malay men. The fact that only one British woman was killed was often ignored in the reports that followed the mutiny. For instance, in a long letter detailing her experience during the mutiny, a British woman who was an eyewitness to the incident misleadingly wrote in to The Times that the sepoys had "deliberately shot at every European man or woman they saw" and that "21 English men and women were buried yesterday" (26 March 1915). Sir Evelyn Ellis, a member of the Legislative Council in Singapore and of the official court of enquiry that investigated the mutiny, publicly described the revolt as "part of a scheme for the murder of women and children". More than 15 years later, in 1932, a journalist in Penang, George Bilainkin, wrote that during the mutiny, the sepoys had "knifed and shot white men and women indiscriminately".
Final suppression
On 17 February, the French cruiser Montcalm, followed by the Russian auxiliary cruiser Orel (1908 auxiliary cruiser):ru and Japanese warships Otowa and Tsushima arrived. Seventy-five Japanese sailors, 22 Russians and 190 French marines were landed, and employ to round up mutineers who had taken refuge in the jungle to the north of Singapore. They were joined in this operation by 60 soldiers of another regular regiment of the Indian Army the 36th Sikhs, who were passing through Singapore; plus Singaporean police, British sailors and Malay States Volunteer Rifles. Lacking strong leadership, the mutiny had started to lose direction – a large number of the mutineers surrendered immediately, and the rest scattered in small groups into the jungles. Many tried to cross the Strait of Johore, but were quickly rounded up by the Royal Johor Military Force. While local media spoke of serious battles there were in fact only minor skirmishes between the allied landing parties and the now demoralised mutineers. By the evening of 17 February, 432 mutineers had been captured.
On 20 February, companies of the 1st/4th Battalion, King's Shropshire Light Infantry (Territorials) arrived from Rangoon to relieve the sailors and the marines. They succeeded in quickly rounding up the last of the mutineers.
Russian role and reservations
News of the mutiny reached the Russian Consul-General in Singapore, N.A. Rospopov, on the morning of 16 February 1915 through a Russian citizen who was a patient at a charity hospital in Singapore. As offices were closed for the Chinese New Year and the town was in a state of siege, Rospopov had difficulty finding formal and conclusive information about the mutiny through official sources. A day later, on 17 February, the Russians, having been advised by their Japanese allies, dispatched the Orel to assist the British in putting down the mutiny. It was only on the 18 February that Rospopov eventually received a telegram from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and another from the Commander of the Russian Pacific Squadron, Admiral Schulz (Шульц, Максимилиан Фёдорович), instructing the Orel to depart quickly for Singapore from Penang and to exercise "extreme caution and military preparedness en route".