The Chinese Labour Corps
The Chinese Labour Corps

Author: Mark O'Neill

Publisher: Penguin Group Australia

Published: 2014-05-31

Total Pages: 85

ISBN-13: 0143800329

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As the young men of Europe were fighting in the trenches, a little known contingent of Chinese labourers crossed the world to provide support vital to the Allied war effort. Largely illiterate farmers from northern China, these men were simply attempting to make a better life for themselves, ignorant of the war and its causes. Under brutal conditions many died for their efforts, and their involvement wasn't recognised for decades – it is still not widely known. In this fascinating First World War China Special, journalist Mark O'Neill brings their story to light, describing in detail the labourers' recruitment, their daily experiences in a foreign land and the horrific work they carried out – including the clearing of remains from battlefields.

Harry Livingstone's Forgotten Men
Harry Livingstone's Forgotten Men

Author: Dan Black

Publisher: James Lorimer & Company

Published: 2019-10-01

Total Pages: 506

ISBN-13: 1459414330

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HARRY LIVINGSTONE was a small town doctor from Listowel, Ontario when he felt the pull of patriotism that led him to volunteer in the First World War. In 1917, Livingstone found himself embarking on a strange journey that took him to China, where he would inspect,and ultimately travel back to Canada with, men who became known as the Chinese Labour Corps. Once in Canada, the Chinese under Livingstone's care travelled across Canada in secret trains bound for Halifax. All news about the trains and the men was censored. On board crowded ships, the men crossed the U-boat-infested Atlantic. They were then put to work to keep the war machine in motion — digging trenches, hauling supplies, repairing military vehicles, and the grisly job of cleaning up the battlefields. About 300,000 Chinese labourers were recruited by the British,French, and Russian allies during the First World War. Nearly 84,000 of them passed through Canada on their way to France. Livingstone and other officers kept diaries and journals, and wrote letters home telling of their experiences with the Chinese. From these first-person accounts as well as historical records and from rare letters written by Chinese labourers themselves, author Dan Black offers for the first time a full account of Canadians and the Chinese Labour Corps — a story that had mostly been unknown until now.

Strangers on the Western Front
Strangers on the Western Front

Author: Guoqi Xu

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-02-28

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 0674060555

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During World War I, Britain and France imported workers from their colonies to labor behind the front lines. The single largest group of support labor came not from imperial colonies, however, but from China. Xu Guoqi tells the remarkable story of the 140,000 Chinese men recruited for the Allied war effort. These laborers, mostly illiterate peasants from north China, came voluntarily and worked in Europe longer than any other group. Xu explores China’s reasons for sending its citizens to help the British and French (and, later, the Americans), the backgrounds of the workers, their difficult transit to Europe—across the Pacific, through Canada, and over the Atlantic—and their experiences with the Allied armies. It was the first encounter with Westerners for most of these Chinese peasants, and Xu also considers the story from their perspective: how they understood this distant war, the racism and suspicion they faced, and their attempts to hold on to their culture so far from home. In recovering this fascinating lost story, Xu highlights the Chinese contribution to World War I and illuminates the essential role these unsung laborers played in modern China’s search for a new national identity on the global stage.

Forgotten
Forgotten

Author: Daniel York Loh

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-10-17

Total Pages: 131

ISBN-13: 178682504X

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'The foreign devils will be entranced by our performance and line our path back to Shandong with gold and cherry blossoms...' 1917. Shandong Province, Northern China. Times are tough in Horse Shoe Village. Old Six and Second Moon struggle to earn enough to feed their young child. Big Dog struggles to overcome opium addiction and for Eunuch Lin, the fall of the Imperial Dynasty couldn't have come at a worse time. Could a fierce war far away in Europe present an opportunity to put both themselves and their struggling nation on its feet? Forgotten is inspired by the little-known story of the 140,000 Chinese Labour Corps who left everything and travelled halfway around the world to work for Britain and the Allies behind the front lines during World War One.

No Labour, No Battle
No Labour, No Battle

Author: John Starling

Publisher: Spellmount Publishers

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780750956666

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From 1917, British soldiers who were unfit or too old for front line service were to serve unarmed and within the range of German guns for weeks or even months at a time, undertaking laboring tasks. The vital, yet largely unreported, role played by these brave soldiers was crucial to achieving victory in 1918. For this book John Starling and Ivor Lee have brought together extensive research from both primary and secondary sources. It traces how military labor developed from non-existent in 1914, to a Corps in November 1918, some 350,000 strong, supported by Dominion and foreign labor of more than a million men. The majority of the Labour Corps did not keep war diaries; therefore, this work provides vital information for those wishing to acquire information about an ancestor who served in the Corps.

The Chinese Labour Corps (1916-1920)
The Chinese Labour Corps (1916-1920)

Author: Gregory James

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 1285

ISBN-13: 9789881268600

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Informative account of the creation, management and operation of the 95,000-strong auxiliary unit recruited in China for service in Europe during the First World War. Financed and administered by the British War Office, it was raised at a time when Allied casualties, on the Western Front and elsewhere, had seriously reduced the availability of the manpower necessary to ensure the maintenance of a combat-fit military force. He shows that the Chinese Labour Corps derived its organisational structure from earlier Chinese units in foreign service, for example the Canton Coolie Corps recruited by the British and French during the second Opium War in the mid-nineteenth century, or the contingents of labourers contracted to the mines of the Transvaal at the turn of the twentieth. In this important and wide-ranging contribution to military history, the author draws on an extensive array of public and unofficial sources to chronicle the saga of a wartime cross-cultural encounter whose legacy remains in the narrative of contemporary Sino-Western relations--From publisher's Website.

Betrayed Ally
Betrayed Ally

Author: Frances Wood

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2016-10-14

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 147387503X

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The Great War helped China emerge from humiliation and obscurity and take its first tentative steps as a full member of the global community.In 1912 the Qing Dynasty had ended. President Yuan Shikai, who seized power in 1914, offered the British 50,000 troops to recover the German colony in Shandong but this was refused. In 1916 China sent a vast army of labourers to Europe. In 1917 she declared war on Germany despite this effectively making the real enemy Japan an ally.The betrayal came when Japan was awarded the former German colony. This inspired the rise of Chinese nationalism and communism, enflamed by Russia. The scene was set for Japans incursions into China and thirty years of bloodshed.One hundred years on, the time is right for this accessible and authoritative account of Chinas role in The Great War and assessment of its national and international significance