[
    {
        "id": 214981,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 77,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "33\n\nTHE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS IN FRANCE\n\n1917-1921\n\nBRIAN C FAWCETT\n\n\"What were the Chinese doing in France during the First World War?\"\n\nThe above is a frequent question, not only posed by people in the UK but also, as we found, by amazed French people in their own country.\n\nTo answer this, and also as a possibility for a visit by a larger group of Friends of the RAS [Hong Kong Branch] in the UK, a small group under the guidance of Keith Stevens, accompanied by Jenny Welch, Paul Bolding, John Tamplin, David Mahoney, my French wife, Claudine and myself, decided to investigate. Claudine and I have also made separate visits, but more of our findings later.\n\nIntroduction\n\nBriefly the reasons as to why the Chinese were in France may be stated as follows:\n\nAs China was not a belligerent nation, her nationals were not allowed by their government to participate in the fighting. The recruiting for labourers was launched by the War Committee in London, in 1916, to form a Labour Corps of labourers from China to serve in France and to be known as the Chinese Labour Corps [CLC]. This was because, as the war progressed, Great Britain and her allies required more manpower for their Forces, so releasing those men who were assisting at the docks unloading necessary supplies and war material. The Allies regarded such recruitment of labour in market and business terms rather than as politically significant Chinese participation in the war. The Chinese did declare war against Germany and Austria-Hungary on 14th August 1917, for reasons of domestic policy and also to ingratiate themselves with the Powers and win resources from them which would support a military campaign to reunify the country under Beijing's rule.\n\nThe scheme to supply men was originated in June 1915 by Liang",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215022,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 118,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "74\n\nOffice, Kew, London, to ascertain details from their records. This I leave to more qualified people. I thank the staff of the Reading Room at the Imperial War Museum for their help and assistance in locating and providing material in their archives from which I obtained some details for this article and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Maidenhead, for information supplied by them. To David Mahoney thanks are due for the various tit-bits sent to me. I also thank Mr. D. Fletcher, of the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset, and the Imperial War Museum, London, and also others listed for their permission to reproduce photographs from their archives. All other photographs were taken by myself. I would especially like to thank Keith Stevens for being my mentor and for all his assistance in deciphering the Chinese characters on the gravestones, translating the notebooks held at the Imperial War Museum in London, together with his invaluable comments and suggestions for this article. Without his encouragement and pressure this article would not have been written! Finally, I thank my wife, Claudine, for her patience, companionship and for acting as interpreter on our many visits and also for translating various articles written in her native French.\n\nAny errors or omissions are my responsibility.\n\n\"What, indeed, were the Chinese doing in France during the First World War?\n\nNoyelles and Tungkang\n\nAs far as we were concerned the story began when we were touring the British military cemeteries in northern France where Chinese Labour Corps members had been buried during or immediately after the First World War. In one small village, Noyelles-sur-Mer, we were surprised to see a pair of Chinese white stone lions mounted on small plinths within the small village square - albeit it was close to what is known as the Chinese Cemetery in which the largest number of Chinese had been buried - and so we sought an explanation.\n\nThe immediate response was, as far as we could make out, that in 1994 the pair of Lions had arrived unannounced, borne by four Chinese who proclaimed that they were bringing them from the town of Tungkang in recognition of their twinning with the village of Noyelles on the Somme. Again, as far as we could understand, once the lions",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215028,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 124,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "80\n\nAppendix B to CLC in France\n\nI am indebted to Claudine, my wife, for translating a booklet I received from Noyelles-sur-Mer, in which there are some personal reminiscences and a few facts, these from a French point of view, concerning life at that time and the CLC.\n\nI quote:\n\nWork conditions were sometimes extremely dangerous. Deaths also occurred from epidemics such as \"Spanish flu\" at the end of the war and poor hygienic living conditions, with many dying at Camp No. 3 at Noyelles-sur-Mer.\n\nUniform of the CLC appeared [to the French] bizarre in being blue padded jacket, with funny hats, but not as funny as the kepi.\n\nThe Chinese adored to eat apples and so the French locals, as usual, exploited this in charging high prices.\n\nThe hospital in the Camp appeared to resemble a park for madmen. On the night of 23 May 1918, when the munitions dump at Saigneville was bombed, this unsettled some members of the CLC who destroyed the barbed wire surrounding their camp and escaped, being found after a few days.\n\nMme Nataly Salle [born 1900] remembers the Chinese and said that, due to bad treatment meted out to them, no one wished to speak.\n\nThe grandparents of Mme Félicienne Bruvy, stated that they were savages, mad and dangerous. They were lazy, greasy, stupid and ugly. They also apparently murdered her grandparents.\n\nMme Salle said that many Chinese died from bad treatment. 'The Gestapo never invented anything like this 25 years later'. But Mme Salle, whose husband, Valery, worked in the cemetery for 15 years said “It was the war”. 'They would be beaten like dogs by the guards and the English police. They removed their shoes, undressed them and told them to lie on tables where they were whipped until they bled. And then they would be scrubbed with a brush and hot water to cover...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    }
]