Strangers on the Western Front

Chinese Workers in the Great War

Guoqi Xu

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780674049994
• eBook ISBN: 9780674060555
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

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.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Note on Romanization
• Introduction
• 1. Great War and Great Crisis: China, Britain, France, and the “Laborers as Soldiers” Strategy
• 2. The Recruitment and Europe an Odyssey of the Men for Britain and France
• 3. The Hidden History of the Secret Canadian Path
• 4. Work
• 5. Treatment and Perceptions
• 6. Strangers in a Strange World: Chinese Lives in Europe
• 7. American Soldiers and Chinese Laborers
• 8. The Association Men and Chinese Laborers
• 9. The Fusion of Teaching and Learning: Students as Teachers and Vice Versa
• 10. A Fusion of Civilizations
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1: Huimin Contract with the French Government
• Appendix 2: British Contract
• Notes
• Selected Glossary
• Selected Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• Index