The Chinese Labour Corps - China’s doomed effort to regain territorial integrity during World War 1

Please join us for this fascinating online talk on an often under reported part of WW1 history, the Chinese Labour Corps.

About the speaker:

Peng Wenlan is a documentary filmmaker specialising in China with particular focus on modern history and social issues. She headed a three-year project on the Chinese Labour Corps on behalf of The Meridian Society, a London-based charitable organisation committed to the promotion of Chinese culture, and of which she is a founding member. The oral history film ‘Forgotten Faces of the Great War’ was one of the outcomes of the project.

About the talk:

In 1916, when Britain realised with horror that the war would last much longer than expected and was taking its toll on their soldiers at the Western Front, she looked east to China to recruit labourers who could provide logistical support behind the lines. Near on 100,000 men were shipped over from Shandong Province to the battlefields of France and Flanders. This was the Chinese Labour Corps and, together with a further 40,000 employed by the French, they would become the largest foreign labour corps to serve the Western Allies during WWI. China’s prize for its contribution to the Allied effort would be, it hoped, the return of Shandong Province from German hands. Yet this was not to be. Political machinations between France, Britain and Japan would ensure that China’s subjugation by Western powers would continue for another three decades.

During the talk, Peng Wenlan will discuss this work and the recent efforts to recognise the contribution of the Chinese Labour Corps during WW1. Clips from the oral history film ' Forgotten Faces of the Great War will be shown during the talk.

Please register here on Eventbrite to attend the talk. The talk will be held online via Zoom and the link will be sent out to those who have registered prior to the talk.

*Update 14/12/23*

Please see below for the recording from the talk. The transcript is available here. You can also watch the film referenced in the talk - The Forgotten Faces of the Great War: The Chinese Labour Corps