7.4: The World at War

The World at War 

Traditional pop-cultural depictions of the First World War tend to whitewash the proceedings. In reality, this was a war between empires and each, to a greater or lesser extent, exploited their colonies to prosecute the war. As a result, huge numbers of people from the colonized and semi-colonized world took part in World War I. This included nearly 4 million colonial troops who would serve directly in the fighting and hundreds of thousands of others who contributed to the war effort as auxiliaries – collecting bodies, laying railroad tracks, digging trenches, or transporting materials – or filled vital roles on the homefront by filling in gaps in the workforce created by conscription. A testament to the diversity of fighting forces is a piece of German propaganda (image 7.4.1) that collected photographs of men in prisoners of-war camps with a focus on people of color According to Santanu Das, "These pictures intended to show German readers the face of the enemy and convey the message that Germany had the capacity to take on the entire world. The intentional and xenophobic portrayal of the prisoners frames them as 'strangers' who threaten Germany." As ugly as this propaganda is, it nevertheless speaks to a greater presence of Black and brown people in the war than is often conceded. 

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): "Our Enemies. 96 Character Heads German Prisoner of War Camps, 1916," British Library, in the Public Domain.

As the largest imperial power, the British made use of the empire and its subjects most intensively. In doing so, they made a distinction between their colonies, on the one hand, and the self-ruled “White Dominions” of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, on the other. The latter were included in the war declaration but could choose whether to send troops. For the former, however, their participation in the war was assumed as was the fact that they would provide soldiers and manpower. Nor were they treated the same once they arrived in Europe. White citizens of the dominions fought as equals beside their English cousins, while for non-white colonial subjects race was often the determinant of where, when, and how they were allowed to take part in the fighting. Using colonial troops in the colonies against colonial people was one thing, but using them in Europe against whites made many British uncomfortable. Ultimately, Indian troops were the only colonial soldiers allowed to fight for the British on the Western Front and even this was more out of necessity than any racial progressivism. As the single largest colony in the world, and with the largest standing army in the British Empire, India would play a vital role in the war effort. By the end, approximately 1.3 million Indians had served, offering invaluable help to British forces on the Western Front, while providing them with the manpower needed to attack German colonial possessions in East Africa and, more importantly, fight the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, and Arabia. Over 700,000 Indians served in those latter campaigns. By the end of the war Indian troops had suffered more than 130,000 casualties including 74,000 deaths.

The French also made use of their colonial holdings, bringing in roughly 500,000 troops from throughout their immense empire to help. The largest contingent came from French West Africa, followed by Algerians, Indochinese, Tunisians, Madagascans, and Moroccans. The French were less reluctant to make use of colonial soldiers than the British. Yet, race was no less important to their deployment of colonial troops than it was for the British. Like the British, French military planners divided their subjects into warlike and non-warlike races (races guerriéres and races non-guerriéres) based on gendered assumptions of the inherent “manliness” of the races. One of France’s greatest concerns before the war was the country’s demographic disadvantage relative to Germany. The French general Charles Mangin argued in 1910 that only by creating a French colonial army, a “force noire”, could the French make up for this disadvantage. His key insight was to dispel the notion that Africans were inherently poor soldiers. In dispelling one racist assumption, however, he substituted a new one. Using the scientific racism of the age, Mangin argued that West Africans were “natural warriors,” whose very primitiveness made them ideal for the battlefield: “[their] young blood flows so ardently, as if avid to be shed.” Where the British felt it improper  and even dangerous to “employ coloured troops against a white enemy,” Mangin argued a colonial army was necessary for French survival and furthermore should be embraced as part of the “real French army.” This is not to say that French colonial soldiers were treated as equals or to deny that French interest in the assimilation of the “darker races'' was based on racist assumptions itself. Instead, it served as a reminder that we must understand racism as a generalized concept while also exploring the particular ways it functioned in different times and places.

In addition to military service, many hundreds of thousands of migrants served in crucial auxiliary roles. Although officially neutral, China contributed 140,000 laborers to the French and British war efforts through the auspices of the Chinese Labor Corps (CLC). Xu Gouqi describes their labor as, "painstaking, but also dangerous. The CLC often worked within military zones, under constant threat from shelling and gas attacks. Living conditions did not ease the strain of the work. The British Army accommodated labourers in barbed wire enclosures, where disease was rife and the diet poor…members of the Chinese Labour Corps were [also] subjected to racism, cultural misunderstanding, and ignorance." At least 3,000 CLC members died throughout the war and even after the fighting ended the work continued. As late as 1920, the CLC was still being used to engrave tombstones for fallen soldiers (bottom right image in 7.4.2). The fact that France and Britain could rely on troops, supplies, and labor from their colonies and beyond was crucial to their ability to eventually win the war.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): "Images of the Chinese Labor Corps in France, 1914-1920," Imperial War Museum, licensed under CC By-NC-SA.

Review Questions

• Does seeing the faces of German POWs change the way you think about WWI?
• How did race inform the use of colonial peoples in the war effort?