The untold story of WWI's forgotten black regiments | Alt History - BBC

Historian Olivette Otele explores the untold story of a black regiment in World War One.

Alt History | Series 1 Episode 3 | BBC

#BBC #BBCAltHistory #BBCiPlayer

[eliglbe]

So many innocent men died and now this, what a disgrace...

[Twistdn]

How about one on the Barbary slave trade

[mariacrouch]

I'm glad this story is beginning to be told and hopefully more storys will follow God bless all of these brave soliders who fought for us all

[Westi-lpsl]

What the moaning about.
They don’t know how lucky they were. My Grandad fought at Passchendaele, never said anything about the horrors he saw. Spent the rest of his life with the most horrendous cough due to being gassed. He’s brother was killed next to him in the 1st Battle of Ypres in 1915. Like I said they or you don’t know how lucky the were. You say about someone being shot, what about Harry Parr and the many others shot for cowardice when suffering with severe PTSD. Excuse me if my heart doesn’t bleed for them having to dig roads, I’m sure millions in the trenches artillery going of around them or having to go over the top into a hail of fire would have gladly swapped. So what’s your point?

[crunchie]

What about the forgotten Asian/Middle Eastern cultures that all came to help us in that fight?
leave it to BBC to lay a guilt trip on whites over a half assed opinion while also forgetting about anyone else who was there. MSM we see you for what you are.

[twiliblade]

so I take it you forgot about the otttoman, african and asian fronts to focus on just the western front, again.

[LegacyofAbaco]

My 2nd Great grandfather was a part of the regiment. He died in 1917, in Tanzania. He was from The Bahamas. He was a part of the first draft of The Bahamas unit, that set sail in August 1916.

[alanoh]

The untold story of all the non while slave owners... 😉

[waynebreier]

How about doing the documentary. About the 600, 000 white people that died to abolish slavery.

[MartinJames]

There were over 1 million Indians, too (that means people from what is now Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as India, of course). For the first 16 months of the war, they held a third of the British line in France. Then the moustanches in Whitehall realised it didn't make sense to have Indians dying of hypothermia in France while white soldiers (many of them Scots) were expiring of heat exhaustion in Egypt and Mesopotamia, so the forces were swapped over. There were also Africans on both sides, especially the many regiments from West and North Africa in the French army.

[konker]

Not everyone is as ignorant about history as the bbc

[slowknife]

How about a documentary on world war 1 and 2's Indian soldiers, Muslims Hindus Sikhs all of them fought together in a war they had nothing to do with and they and their people lost more since Churchill ordered to get all the food in East India to the soldiers fighting in the war which costed the lives of millions of Bengali Indians who died out if hunger, REPRESENT AND SHOWCASE THE HISTORY THAT MATTERS THE MOST SINCE THE PEOPLE OF INDIAN SUBCONTINENT ARE THE ONES WHO MADE YOU WIN WW1&2

[alongsleep]

Remember when the BBC represented the actual people of Britain, and wasn't trying to tear the country apart?

[DanTaylor-jwfg]

Way Of The World has some great takes on this sort of thing. I love his Youtube channel.

[greendragon]

they hated the British empire so much, that they were desperate to join in fighting for their British king? Such oppression!

[Gravelgratious]

My great grandfather was in the first battalion of the British West Indies regiment. He enlisted in Georgetown, British Guiana(modern Guyana). He immigrated to the U.S after he came home. And served again in WW2 as a Merchant Sailor for the United States.

[owenent]

As if BBC couldn't sink any lower...

[generalbooger]

The men of the time did their bit. God Bless them all. This video has that modern day turning honorable men who served their country into Victims thing to it. Its kinda sad, really.

[futurerelic]

Maybe you can understand why their story was "Forgotten" if you think about it in context. The French lost 20, 000 troops killed in the first 3 days of fighting the Germans on the Western front. It wasn't uncommon for Military's to lose the equivalent of this Regiment regularly. Would you rather that the British West Indies Regiment had been treated the same as the European units? If they were, you'd be crying about how black soldiers were being thrown into the meat grinder that was the Western Front. Be thankful that your ancestors were largely protected from the absolute horrors of the Western Front. I only wish that we could all say the same.

[KayAgent]

“Their country” don’t make me laugh. This country is currently at war, others being moved here at such number makes me sick.