Download or read book The Chinese Labour Corps written by Mark O'Neill and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2014-05-31 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Strangers on the Western Front written by Guoqi Xu and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-28 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book With the Chinese Labour Corps During the Great War written by Daryl Klein and published by . This book was released on 2019-07-17 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chinese Labour Corps were the 'coolies' recruited for menial tasks supporting the BEF in the Great War. 96,000 went to France - 2,000 died. This is a fascinating - if deeply patronising - portrait of them by one of their British officers.
Download or read book With the Chinks in the Chinese Labour Corps During the Great War written by Daryl Klein and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chinese Labour Corps were the "coolies" recruited for menial tasks supporting the BEF in the Great War. 96,000 went to France - 2,000 died. This is a fascinating - if deeply patronising - portrait of them by one of their British officers.
Download or read book The Chinese Labour Corps 1916 1920 written by Gregory James and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 1285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Coolie s Great War written by Radhika Singha and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though largely invisible in histories of the First World War, over??550,000 men in the ranks of the Indian army were non-combatants. From the porters, stevedores and construction workers in the Coolie Corps to those who maintained supply lines and removed the wounded from the battlefield, Radhika Singha recovers the story of this unacknowledged service. The labor regimes built on the backs of these 'coolies' sustained the military infrastructure of empire; their deployment in interregional arenas bent to the demands of global war. Viewed as racially subordinate and subject to 'non-martial' caste designations, they fought back against their status, using the warring powers' need for manpower as leverage to challenge traditional service hierarchies and wage differentials. The Coolie's Great War views that global conflict through the lens of Indian labor, constructing a distinct geography of the war--from tribal settlements and colonial jails, beyond India's frontiers, to the battlefronts of France and Mesopotamia.
Download or read book The World s War written by David Olusoga and published by Head of Zeus. This book was released on 2015-04-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WORLD WAR ONE BOOK OF THE YEAR In a sweeping narrative, David Olusoga describes how Europe's Great War became the World's War – a multi-racial, multi-national struggle, fought in Africa and Asia as well as in Europe, which pulled in men and resources from across the globe. Throughout, he exposes the complex, shocking paraphernalia of the era's racial obsessions, which dictated which men would serve, how they would serve, and to what degree they would suffer. As vivid and moving as it is revelatory and authoritative. The World's War explores the experiences and sacrifices of 4 million non-European, non-white people whose stories have remained too long in the shadows.
Download or read book Forgotten written by Daniel York Loh and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-17 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: '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.
Download or read book Harry Livingstone s Forgotten Men written by Dan Black and published by James Lorimer & Company. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Forgotten written by Will Davies and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Forgotten explores an often-overlooked part of Australia's rich and diverse history - the service and sacrifice of the Chinese Labour Corps who worked under the British and French on the Western Front during the First World War. It puts the story of the Chinese Labour Corps into the broader history of China's encounters with western European nations since the 1700s. A part of that story includes the large numbers of Chinese people who immigrated to Australia during this period. It was the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons of these Chinese settlers who volunteered to fight for Australia during the First World War. Those men are the Chinese Anzacs. The Forgotten celebrates the shared history between China and Australia and the combined efforts to promote peace.
Download or read book No Labour No Battle written by John Starling and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-09-01 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 labouring tasks. Both at the time and since they have arguably not been given the recognition they deserve for this difficult and dangerous work. From non-existence in 1914, by November 1918 Military Labour had developed into an organised and efficient 350,000-strong Labour Corps, supported by Dominion and foreign labour of more than a million men. Following the war, the grim and solemn tasks of clearing battlefields and constructing cemeteries, which continued until 1921, were also the responsibility of the Corps. Here, John Starling and Ivor Lee bring together extensive research from both primary and secondary sources to reveal how the vital, yet largely unreported, role played by these brave soldiers was crucial to achieving victory in 1918.
Download or read book Betrayed Ally written by Frances Wood and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2016-10-14 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book Asia in Flanders Fields written by Dominiek Dendooven and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2022-01-28 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The First World War brought peoples from five continents to support the British and French Allies on the Western Front. Many were from colonial territories in the British and French empires, and the largest contingents were Indians and Chinese - some 140,000. It is a story of the encounter with the European 'other', including the civilian European local populations, often marred by racism, discrimination and zenophobia both inside and outside the military command, but also lightened by moving and enduring 'human' social relationships. The vital contribution to the Alles and the huge sacrifices involved were scarcely recognised at the Paris Peace Conference in 1918 or the post-war victory celebrations and this led to resentment - see huge media coverage in 2021. The effect of the European 'other' experience enhanced Asian political awareness and self-confidence, and stimulated anti-imperialism and proto-nationalism. This is a vivid and original contribution to imperial decline from the First World War. and the originality of the work is enhanced by rare sources culled from original documents and 'local' European fieldwork - in French, German and Flemish.
Download or read book Sidelights on Peking Life written by Robert William Swallow and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Forgotten written by Will Davies and published by . This book was released on 2020-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Forgotten explores an often-overlooked part of Australia's rich and diverse history - the service and sacrifice of the Chinese Labour Corps who worked under the British and French on the Western Front during the First World War. It puts the story of the Chinese Labour Corps into the broader history of China's encounters with western European nations since the 1700s. A part of that story includes the large numbers of Chinese people who immigrated to Australia during this period. It was the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons of these Chinese settlers who volunteered to fight for Australia during the First World War. Those men are the Chinese Anzacs. The Forgotten celebrates the shared history between China and Australia and the combined efforts to promote peace.
Download or read book Asia and the Great War written by Guoqi Xu and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no single volume that shines a light on Asia's collective involvement in the First World War, and the impact that war had on its societies. Moreover, no volume in any language explores the experiences Asian countries shared as they became embroiled, with divergent results, in the war and its repercussions. Asia and the Great War moves beyond the national or even international level by presenting a 'shared' history from non-national and transnational perspectives. Asian involvements make the Great War not only a true 'world' war but also a 'great' war. The war generated forces that would transform Asia both internally and externally. Asian involvement in the First World War is a unique chapter in both Asian and world history, with Asian participation transforming the meaning and implications of the broader conflict. Asia and the Great War also takes steps to recover memories of the war and re-evaluate the war in its Asian contexts. Asia's part in the war and the part the war played in the collective development of Asia represent the first steps of the long journey to full national independence and international recognition. This volume aims to bring the Great War more fully into Asian history and the people of Asia into the international history of the war, in the hope that the shared history could lay the groundwork for a shared future.
Download or read book From the Tsar s Railway to the Red Army written by Mark O'Neill and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2014-08-25 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is a little known fact that during the First World War Russia received the majority of Chinese wartime labourers working overseas. Despite assurances that they would not be involved in the war, thousands of Chinese workers dug trenches and carried ammunition for troops on the Eastern Front under brutal conditions. Then, in 1917, life for the Chinese worsened with the Bolshevik Revolution's arrival. Some of the workers signed up to fight for the Red Army and many were left stranded in Russia, unemployed and destitute. Their plight has been described as the most tragic episode in 400 years of Chinese emigration. The men had crossed the border into Russia with dreams of earning enough money to build a house or business for their family at home. None could have imagined the hell that awaited them.
