The New Zealand government made ample arrangements to keep the first contingent up to full strength. Shortly afterwards a further body of troops left for the front, and in February a third party sailed. The third party was notable on account of a corps of five hundred Maoris in its ranks—magnificent and eager fighting men.
German expectation that the declaration of war would be followed by revolt and dissention within the British empire was nowhere more completely disappointed than in the case of India. Here they had confidently predicted that the princes would seize this chance of striking off the shackles of British rule. Moslem races, fired to fanaticism by the careful preaching of a Holy War from Constantinople, were to fly to arms against Great Britain. The ancient jealousies of the hundred and one peoples who make up the vast Eastern empire were to be rekindled, and a greater mutiny was to drive the hated British into the sea. Here a maharajah was to lead his troops upon them; there the advocates of native rights were to provoke the people to rise. A witch's cauldron of hatred and strife was to be stirred, and Britain was to be robbed of the brightest jewel in her sovereign's crown.
If the Germans were astonished and disconcerted at the conduct of India immediately after the outbreak of war, it may be admitted that they were not the only people to be surprised. Few in Great Britain had the imagination or the courage to anticipate the overwhelming wave of loyalty and enthusiasm which swept over the race. Rulers of the great states summoned their armies together and hastened to offer all they had to their emperor. The Bengalee merchants raised big war funds. Most wonderful of all to those who know the East, the women of India broke the conventions that kept them from public life, and, from the maharanis on their thrones to the humblest wife of Hindu, Moslem, or Parsee, they brought forward their silver and gave their personal gifts for the men at the front. The council of the All-India Moslem League, at a meeting at Lucknow, assured the Viceroy "that the participation of Turkey in the present was does not and cannot affect our loyalty in the least degree, and that the council is confident that no Mussulman in India will swerve even a hair's-breadth from his duty to the sovereign."
The ruling princes of India made the most generous contributions to the war funds. The nizam of Hyderabad subscribed sixty lacs of rupees (about £400,000) and defrayed the entire cost,