Khaki was first adopted in India<\/h3>\n<\/div>
The word \u2018khaki\u2019 comes from the Persian portion of the Hindustani language.<\/p>\n
The use of khaki for military camouflage is thought to have begun with Harry Lumsden, who raised the Corps of Guides in 1846, a regiment of the British Indian Army. He bought up white cotton cloth at the bazaar at Lahore, which was then taken down to the riverbank, where his troops soaked the cloth in water and rubbed mud into it. Lumsden\u2019s second in command was convinced that khaki would make his men \u201cinvisible in a land of dust\u201d.<\/p>\n
By the First World War<\/a>, the British Army had transitioned from red to khaki uniforms in response to new technologies: aerial reconnaissance and smokeless guns were making soldiers\u2019 visibility a real problem on the battlefield.<\/p>\n David Olusoga shines a light on forgotten clashes in distant lands, and on the extensive contributions of Africans and Asians<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> \u00a0 Before the war, Germany was the centre of the synthetic dyestuffs industry. By 1913, it was exporting more than 20 times the volume of dyes coming out of Britain. During the First World War the only khaki dye available for British Army uniforms was manufactured in Germany, which, at first, it secretly imported.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u2018Kitchener blue\u2019 was the collective name given to replacement uniforms used by the British Army when it ran out of khaki in 1914. The War Office had failed to obtain enough khaki uniforms in the opening weeks of the war, and early recruits were forced to wear replacement uniforms.<\/p>\n They were obtained from a range of unlikely sources: 500,000 suits of blue serge uniforms from Post Office stocks, and approximately 500,000 greatcoats purchased from the clothing trade. The War Office also ordered a huge volume of jackets, trousers and greatcoats from Canada and the United States.<\/p>\n Some soldiers were issued with old full-dress parade tunics \u2013 scarlet with colourful facings and blue trousers from various reserve stores. A 1914 article in the trade periodical the Tailor and Cutter reported that one of the alternative outfits was \u201cnot at all liked, the first men to wear it being mistaken for inmates of an industrial home\u201d.<\/p>\n \u00a0 Most were, in fact, made by various civilian tailoring firms. War Office plans for dealing with an outbreak of war were insufficient for the scale of this conflict. In August 1914, reserves were capable of supplying no more than the original expeditionary force and first-line units of the Territorial Force for a few weeks.<\/p>\n Clothing an expanding volunteer army overwhelmed the official army factories. By November 1914 a new director of army contracts had reorganised the system of supply, which led to a boom in \u2018khaki contracts\u2019 in the British tailoring trade \u2013 a system the war office regulated by public competition. It seems that war was good for business.<\/p>\n \u00a0 Civilians were busily knitting garments for British soldiers during the First World War. The gloves, socks, mittens, jerseys and balaclavas made by civilians became affectionately known as \u2018comforts\u2019.<\/p>\n But what started as a response to small gaps in uniform supply became a mass knitting frenzy, which made the government very nervous about the colourful, quirky garments reaching soldiers at the front. Hence knitting patterns were issued, warning women \u2013 thought to be the typical knitters \u2013 to narrow the range of garments, and to use only khaki wools.<\/p>\n But the success of the knitting projects often highlighted army failures. The First World War was a step into the unknown \u2013 much of the war effort had to be improvised. When the efforts of volunteer knitters threatened to expose official shortcomings, the state intervened; one such gesture was the issue of the official Kitchener stitch, which improved the comfort of knitted socks for men in the trenches!<\/p>\n \u00a0 By November 1914, one third of the British Army on the western front came from India and fought with the Indian Expeditionary Force (serving from September 1914 to December 1915). An official photograph taken in France depicts Indian troops marching along the road while young women rush up to pin flowers on them as they pass. They wear turbans and have long tunics \u2013resembling the Indian Kurta \u2013 falling to their knees.<\/p>\n For Sikh soldiers, these distinctive features described their colonial status, but it also became part of war propaganda. In July 1915 The Graphic newspaper ran a feature to celebrate the spectacle of Indian soldiers marching to battle, in which they reported that the Germans \u201cthemselves admit their surprise at this rally of India\u201d.<\/p>\n Photographs were a bit more realistic; one from July 1916 shows Indian cyclists \u2013 despatch riders \u2013 at the crossroads on Fricourt-Mametz Road wearing khaki service dress with traditional Sikh turbans. Unfortunately, rather than reflect a proud military tradition, their distinctive clothing often symbolised their lowly rank on the western front.<\/p>\n Listen: Santanu Das explores the experiences of Indians who fought in and were affected by the First World War, on this episode of the HistoryExtra<\/em> podcast<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\nRead more about WW1 beyond the western front<\/a>:<\/h4>\n
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<\/div><\/div> <\/div> <\/section>British khaki dyes came from Germany<\/h3>\n<\/div>
For a time, khaki was replaced by \u2018Kitchener blue\u2019<\/h3>\n<\/div>
Most uniforms were not made by the army<\/h3>\n<\/div>
Official knitting patterns were introduced to discourage \u2018rogue knitters\u2019<\/h3>\n<\/div>
Turbans were worn by soldiers on the western front<\/h3>\n<\/div>