This letter appeared in The Guardian in response to Maev Kennedy’s coverage of our launch.

Your account understated how horrendously these 95,000 Chinese were treated, as were 40,000 under French control. As Xu Guoqi revealed in his book Strangers on the Western Front: Chinese Workers in the Great War, members of the Chinese Labour Corps who survived the journey from China were in effect held as forced labour – mostly used for trench digging, and so exposed to direct enemy fire. When not working, they were held in barbed-wire compounds, frequently beaten, and addressed not by name but by a “coolie number”.

After the war, the 80,000 or so CLC personnel still alive were engaged in mine clearance – often fatal. In 1919 CLC survivors, ordered to leave Belgium, were interned in France. Some were killed when groups of British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealander troops threw grenades into CLC camps; others are said to have been shot to avoid repatriation costs. All this is a reminder of how dehumanising and brutalising violent conflict is for all drawn into it.

Bruce Ross-Smith

The following is a response from Steve Lau, Chair of the Strategic Partnership Board. Although sent to the Guardian it was never published.

Sadly the attitudes and actions described by Bruce Ross-Smith in his recent letter concerning the treatment of the Chinese Labour Corps are accurate. If we take 3,000 as a fair estimate of the number who died, that is a high figure for a non-combatant force whose contract stated they would be nowhere near the fighting!

There are quite horrendous accounts of cruelty, and a local Belgian priest, in his diary, tells of how he and his parishioners feel sorry for the Chinese and the cruel way they are treated. The men of the Chinese Labour Corps had no option but to stay until the British gave them passage home – and for many, this was not until 1920. I am sure they so desperately wanted to go home, and in this sense they were very much forced labour. The incidence of insanity among the Chinese was noted at the time as being “inexplicably high”.

But there is another story to tell. We should in no way assume all British officers were cruel task masters. Many of the events Mr Ross-Smith describes were as a result of policy decisions made far from the front line officer ranks. Some officers were undeniably cruel, but many won the affection and loyalty of their Chinese charges, often giving them some improvised gift – a Chinese cultural practice which would not be afforded to someone whom they disliked. Professor Gregory James, in his excellent book, The Chinese Labour Corps (1916-1920), cites numerous examples of heroic acts by Chinese Labourers on behalf of their British officers. The most notable, perhaps, being at the Battle of Picardy where a group of Chinese Labourers and their British officer were overrun by the sudden German advance. Having been gassed, the officer was unable to move, “The Labourers stood around him and fought the Germans with all sorts of weapons. The officer was finally saved by the relief forces, but all except a few of the Chinese died around him.”  This is perhaps an extreme example, but many British officers won the affection and loyalty of the Chinese workers.

We should not forget that the British Officers of the Chinese Labour Corps are as much the victims of the Corps being forgotten as the Chinese workers, and we intend to ensure that we remember them too.

Steve Lau
Chair
Strategic Partnership Board
Ensuring We Remember Campaign