- from 'the War Illustrated', 15th December, 1917
- The Army Behind the Army
- New Impressions of the Western Front
White, Black, Brown, and Yellow Workers in the War Area
foreign laborors with the Allied armies
There is a reverse to that picture of ruin and ruthless devastation which is before you in the districts of Artois and Picardy over which the Hun has trampled. On the one hand you see the traces of wanton and barbarous destruction, on the other the business of restoration .going quietly and steadily on right up to the line where the battle still rages and the guns thunder. Roads are being restored or reconstructed, railways rebuilt, towns and villages rendered habitable again, the horrid vestiges of war removed from the seared and stricken fields. All this is one part of the task of that disciplined industrial force, the Army Labour Corps, which is now an integral part of the British military establishment.
The Labour Corps in France and the "Works Companies" at home are made up of men not young enough, or not quite strong and active enough, for the trenches and the batteries, supplemented by certain aliens from the allied or neutral countries, and German prisoners. But all these are not nearly sufficient. The labour reservoirs of the outer Empire and the outer world have been tapped, with the result that there are now tens of thousands of black men, brown men, and yellow men, Asiatics and Africans, Mongolians, Negroes, Indians, and Egyptians, working under British officers and British military discipline at the wharves, railway sidings, roads, and transport centres of Northern France.
Cheery "Celestials"
Their presence is borne in, upon you oddly and unexpectedly all over that strangely transformed triangle of French territory, which will surely be classic ground for Britons through all time. It was on one of the great arterial highways, which is a main avenue from the base to the front, that I came upon them first. The road was humming with traffic and action. Huge lorries, laden with ammunition and heavy stores, ploughed through the mud ; motor-cycles splashed by, coughing and spitting ; an infantry battalion, down from the front, trench-stained and weary, trudged grimly under its burden of kit and weapons; a party of Boche prisoners were repairing the causeway, watched by a bored guard with rifles and fixed bayonets. It was a dull afternoon of mist and drizzle, and everybody was inclined to be depressed and silent.
No; not everybody. There was a sound of many voices, chattering and twittering in an unfamiliar tongue, and presently there lappeared a procession of short, sturdy men in terra-cotta cloaks, with smooth yellow faces under dripping tarpaulin hats. I gazed at them with astonishment, and they threw friendly grins in response, and called out remarks which were obviously jocular. They were a Chinese labour squad going back to their camp for rest and dinner, having been at work since the dawn unloading logs and planks from a timber train. They were damp and muddy, and might well have been tired, but they were invincibly cheerful. Later I visited them in their compound, and saw them settled down for the night. They had changed their wet boots and puttees — the officers see to that — consumed a big meal of rice and stew and tea, and were lying about comfortably on the floor of their huts. They are well-fed and well-paid, and steady, capable workers, the most efficient, their officers maintain, of all the labour companies in this field.
Kaffirs and Zulus
But then every officer holds that opinion about his own special contingent. When I visited a South African company the commandant declared that there is no better labourer than the African native when properly handled. He is stronger than any Asiatic, or than most white men, and he gives no trouble if he gets his rations and wages regularly, and is kept away from drink and female society, which is the case in the war zone, where the Kaffir, under military discipline, is strictly restrained from intercourse with the European population. When not at work he is in his camp, where he eats, sleeps, rests, and amuses himself after his fashion. Sometimes he sings, and dances the native dances ; now and again he shows a tendency to indulge in a tribal fight, which may demand the intervention of the white officers and non-coms. These natives have come here under strict regulations laid down by the Governments of the South African 'Union and the Portuguese colonies, and arrangements are made for them to receive occasional visits from their own chiefs. The men are genial, good-tempered, and generally willing to conform to the restrictions imposed upon them. Some of these concern sanitation and cleanliness, in which matters something like the British Army standard is enforced. The Kaffirs and Mashonas and Zulus will go back to their kraals and villages with novel and salutary ideas on the rudiments of civilisation.
It was in a belt of woodland, where the trees were being cut and sawn to make railway sleepers, that I happened upon a company of Indian labourers. On the instant one- breathed the atmosphere of Asia, and recalled distant scenes and half-forgotten memories.
"From India's Coral Strand"
Here were tall Pathans from the frontier, hook-nosed and keen-eyed, Hindus, Punjab Mohammedans, swarthy squat men of the South. There were groups sitting on their heels, as Indians will sit for hours, round the fires on which their chupatties were baking ; there were men in loose gowns and khaki turbans carrying water in soda-water bottles and kerosene tins, even as they do all over India ; and there was wafted to one's nostrils that unmistakable, savour of the East, that scent compounded of wood-smoke, food fried in liquid butter, and warm humanity which haunts you from Suez to Rangoon. There were fierce old whiskered Sikhs, who had once served in the Army of the Emperor, and were very soldierly and warlike still; and an English- speaking babu clerk or two ; and English sahibs in command, civil servants and police-officers who had left their bungalows and offices to look after their people in a far country. Hindus and Mohammedans followed their own customs, lived apart, and of course ate and prepared their food separately.'
Not all of the Indian labourers belong to the two great Oriental religions. Some are Christians, some what we are pleased to call pagans. The Christians are Santals and Ranchis, aboriginal tribesmen whom the missionaries have converted to become devout Catholics and zealous Protestants. Some of the missionaries have come over with their flocks as labour officers or chaplains ; and these Indian hillmen are probably the only contingents among all the millions in the war area who begin and end the day regularly with prayers and hymns. Needless to say, these children of the mission schools are exceedingly well-behaved and obedient. But there are other Indian companies who know nothing of priests or padres. These are the Nagas, who are "animists," with no belief in anything in particular except ghosts. They are wild-looking little fellows, with shocks of long black hair, and big knives in their girdles, with which, it is said, in their native hills they may do a little head-hunting when the humour takes them. Also they have no castes, and no prejudices about diet, and will, if allowed, eat anything in the nature of animal food, from bully beef to dead ammunition mules. Here in France they are quite good-tempered and jolly, and their quaint ways and broad grins have endeared them to the inhabitants.
Egyptians and Fijiara
There are other labour companies of whom much might be said, like the Egyptians, who have left their delving and sluicing in the Nile mud for the sometimes scarcely less muddy fields and roads of France. They are not so easy to handle as some of the others, for they know a little more about Europe and the manners and customs of the European ; but they can dig and haul with the best. I confess that my own favourites among all this motley multitude of coloured workers arc the Fijians. They are very few in numbers, but remarkably fine in quality and appearance. They come from their sun-lit Southern seas to load trucks and pile stores on French wharves, out of loyalty to the King, and the High Commissioner, and their Chiefs, and the British Empire, for which they would gladly fight as well as work if they were given the chance.
Much might be written of the officers who direct the work and see to the welfare of this great labour army. Some are soldiers, wounded, or over the military age ; most were in civil life before the war, and their occupations were varied. They have been country squires and sportsmen, engineers, barristers, university professors, novelists, architects, builders' foremen, merchants, importers, and officials from China, India, the Argentine, South Africa, and all the Seven Seas. The Empire owes much to this zealous, unobtrusive body of hard-working, self-denying men, who make the onward movement of the fighting force possible, and tidy up in its wake.
see also : Chinese Labor Batallions on the British Front
foreign laborors with the Allied armies
