The Chinese labor force on the Western Front
Reporter: Jack Barton 丨 CCTV.com
07-28-2014 18:12 BJT During the First World War, China had the largest of the non-European workforces on the Western Front. CCTV’s Jack Barton visited the battlefields to explore the legacy of the Chinese Labour Corps who would help set the course of history, in Europe and at home.
“There were some 140,000 Chinese laborers sent from China, from Mainland China, to France and the Western Front,”historian from Flanders Fields Museum said.
Historians say the allied armies soon ran short of manpower with tens of thousands of Europeans dying in the trenches… sometimes on a single day.
“At that very same moment the new Chinese republic offers to join the allies. Not by sending troops, but by sending laborers,”Dominiek Dendooven said.
... “About 3000 were killed, of which about 1,800 have known graves,”Dr. Philip Vanhaelemeersch, Director of Confucius Institute, said.
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