The Great War was indeed a world war. Imperial powers like Great Britain drew on their far-flung empires not only for resources but also for manpower. This essay examines one important (though still inadequately studied) aspect of British wartime exigency, the voluntary and coerced participation of the British Empire's coloured subjects and allies in military operations on the Western Front. With the exception of the Indian Army in the first year of the war, that participation did not include combat. Instead coloured troops, later joined by contract labourers, played major roles behind the lines. From 1916 onwards, well over a quarter million Chinese, Egyptians, Indians, South Africans, West Indians, New Zealand Maoris, Black Canadians, and Pacific Islanders worked the docks, built roads and railways, maintained equipment, produced munitions, dug trenches, and even buried the dead. Only in recent years has the magnitude of their contribution to Allied victory begun to be more fully acknowledged. Yet the greatest impact of British labour policies in France might lie elsewhere entirely. Chinese workers seem likely to have carried the virus that caused the Great Flu pandemic of 1918-19, which may have killed more people around the world than the war itself.

White Man's War, Coloured Man's Labour. Working for the British Army on the Western Front

In this insightful and revealing study, Justin Fantauzzo uses a wide range of documentary and visual sources to explore the experience and memory of British and Dominion soldiers who fought in the Middle East and Macedonia during the First World War. He shows that not only was the experience of these campaigns markedly different to their counter-parts on the Western Front, but so too were the memories and portrayals of these campaigns in the inter-war period. Fantauzzo's analysis highlights the disparities and contradictions that exist in the experience and memory of war and helps us to rethink what the war meant to the soldiers who fought in this region, how soldiers understood the war itself and how it was remembered.

The Other Wars: The Experience and Memory of the First World War in the Middle East and Macedonia

By the time the campaign ended in Palestine in October 1918, the majority of Britain's imperial army, known as the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF), was made up of units drawn from the Indian Army. In order to analyze fully the process of Indianization it is necessary to examine how it operated at lower levels of organization within the EEF. To prevent the Indianization process impacting on the combat effectiveness of the division, the new Indian battalions were slowly integrated into the front line. The ultimate test of the sepoys came in September 1918 when Allenby decided to launch his assault on the Turkish defences. The 10th Division did not begin its attack on the enemy line until late on 19 September, after the 20th Corps had already decimated the Turkish formations to their left on the coastal plain. The initial assault was planned and broke through the first line trenches. Keywords:Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF); Indianization; Palestine; Turkish defences

5. The Indianization of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force: Palestine 1918

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5. The Indianization of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force: Palestine 1918