When and Why did the Gurka,s become known as Johnny Gurka?

Answer 1

The Military tend to re-name everything. Sometimes thought goes into it sometimes not. The names that stick are the ones that capture the immagination or are easy to use. The prefix 'Johnny' originated during the various lttle spats in the rebellious former colonies ( i.e' Johnny Reb', the Confederate Soldier). Johnny is used as a general prefix for virtually any non UK soldier where there is no more specific name, e.g. 'Johnny Turk' and so on. Certain nations get specific names which proliferate depending on the number of times we meet them in the field, thus there are lots for the French (Johnny Crapaud, Johnny Snail-eater etc) a few for the Germans (Johnny Boshe The Hun etc) and so on.

As a rule however the more respect the Army has for a particular Army the less mucked about the name, so 'Johnny Gurkha' is a term of respect and endearment as it is the proper, unadapted title, 'Gurkha' with the ubiquitous prefix - 'Johnny'.

For title of disrespect (albeit often in jest) the British Military reserves the best for its comrades in arms, i.e.

'Donkey Wallopers' - 'The Household Cavalry'
'Cabbage Hats' - '(esp used by Parachute Regiment to refer to the Green Beret) The Royal Marines.
'Cherry Berries' - (esp used by Royal Marines to refer to the red Beret) The Parachute Regiment.

...and so on.

Answer 2

Robert Clive's decisive victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 firmly established British supremacy in India thereby opening the door for expansion of the Honourable East India Company.

However, some 10 years after Plassey the British started to come into contact with fighters from the city-state of Gorkha led by its dynamic King Prithwi Narayan Shah. Gorkha was a feudal hill village in what is now western Nepal, the village from which the Gurkha takes its name.

Prithwi Narayan Shah and his successors grew so powerful that they overran the whole of the hill country from the Kashmir border in the west to Bhutan in the east. Eventually, as a result of boundary disputes and repeated raids by Gurkha columns into British territory, the Governor General declared war on Nepal in 1814. After two long and bloody campaigns a Peace Treaty was signed at Sugauli in 1816.

During the war a deep feeling of mutual respect and admiration had developed between the British and their adversaries, the British being much impressed by the fighting and other qualities of the Gurkha soldier. Under the terms of the Peace Treaty large numbers of Gurkhas were permitted to volunteer for service in the East India Company's Army. From these volunteers were formed the first regiments of the Gurkha Brigade, and from this time stems Britain's friendship with Nepal, a country which has proved a staunch ally ever since and has become our 'oldest ally' in Asia.

Johnny Foreigner is the arch nemesis of the Xenophobic Edwardian foot soldier. At a time when the Empire was starting to show cracks, it was blamed on Johnny Foreigner - or somebody who cannot speak English very well.

For troops in the great war (ww1) Johnny Foreigner tended to be everywhere. This caused a problem, as some of the Johnny Foreigners were decent chaps fighting on our side, so they only called the enemy 'foreigner's, and all nice chaps who couldn't speak English very well were called Jhonny - some thing else - like the Johnny Ghurka's.

However most folks who didn't suffer from xenophobia respected them enough to call them by thier name, they had very sharp knives you know. also if there was a minute's silence for every Gurkha casualty from World War II alone, we would have to keep quiet for two weeks.