Forgotten Faces of the Great War: The Chinese Labour Corps (2017)
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At the outbreak of World War I, China was still a neutral country. However, near on a century of foreign incursion and occupation would make the government explore ways in which it could join the Western Allies in order to regain control of Shandong Province from Imperial Germany. Offers of military and ancillary support were made and rejected and it was not until casualties within the first week of the Battle of Somme had reached such staggering numbers that the Allies were forced to reconsider their position. Finally, on 19th April 1917, after a three-month journey over land and sea, a thousand Chinese men arrived in Le Havre, France, weary and bewildered. This was the first batch of the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC), recruited by the British to provide logistical help at the Front. They would be followed by several tens of thousands, mainly from Shandong, thus forming one of the largest labour corps involved in World War I. At the end of the war, many stayed on to clear the land of ordnance and restore it to agricultural fields. They dug up the dead and buried them in the cemeteries that dot the rural landscapes of northern France and Belgium. Yet their contribution to the Allied cause is little mentioned and has never been officially acknowledged. - Genres:
- Documentary