James Willcocks

General Sir James Willcocks was a British Army officer whose career was spent largely in India and Africa. Commissioned in 1878, he served in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, West Africa and the Second Boer War before holding senior commands in British India.

Willcocks was a British Army officer with extensive service in India and West Africa before the First World War. In 1914 he was given command of the Indian Corps sent to the Western Front, where Indian divisions fought in the severe battles around Ypres and in the offensives of 1915. He resigned his command in September 1915 after disagreements over the employment and administration of the corps.

Gordon Corrigan’s Sepoys in the Trenches places General Sir James Willcocks in command of the Indian Corps sent to the Western Front in 1914. His decisions over deployment, reinforcement and the use of Indian infantry form part of Corrigan’s account of how troops trained for imperial service adapted to trench warfare in France while contending with heavy casualties, unfamiliar conditions and an overstretched command system.