Strangers on the Western Front – Chinese Labour Corp Examined
Posted: March 28th, 2012 | No Comments »I’ve heard about a whole bunch of books about the Chinese Labour Corps (the “Coolie Corps”), both the British and French corps, being released imminently. I suspect it’s a combination of this being a generally fascinating but overlooked subject as well as the centenary of the Great War approaching. The story of those Chinese hired and brought over to help ship armaments, clear the battlefields etc etc is compelling. Xu Guoqi’s book Strangers on the Western Front appears to have its flaws – not looking at the lives of these men is a serious omission as is not considering what became of them when they returned to China (many became the backbone of the warlord armies) or stayed on (forming part of the nascent Chinatowns of London and Paris). There appear to be a lot of unsubstantiated comments about the corps, its overseers and the war – I’ll get into all sorts of trouble but it has to be said that a lack of rigorous fact checking, rather sweeping generalisations and a tenancy to never criticize anything Chinese but find blame elsewhere is, all too often, the hallmarks of Chinese historians schooled in a highly politicised environment that sees getting the “line” correct more important than accuracy frequently. Still, any nuggets on the Corps are most welcome all the same.
There’s a more thorough review here on The China Beat
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