I.

Asia in World War I

Nearly 2 million Asians came to the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East during the First
World War. From soldiers to factory workers and labourers—some tasked with cleaning the
trenches from the horrors of war—their lives were forever changed and would eventually help
trigger the onset of decolonisation. An overview with the historian Claire Tran.
While the commemorations of the First World War offer an occasion to remember the
hardships endured by the “Poilus” (French infantrymen) in the trenches, little is known about
the vicissitudes suffered by nearly 2.5 million fighters and workers from Africa and Asia,
71% of whom were from Asia—mostly India, China and Vietnam. Who indeed were the
1,723,000 Asians who came to the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East between 1914
and 1919, to be plunged into the inferno of all-out war?

At a time when the governments and societies of Asia were facing an onslaught of Western
imperialism and the imposition of “unequal treaties”, World War I shifted large Asian
populations in the opposite direction for more than five years.
 
Unprecedented mobility between Asia and Europe
Colonial propaganda promised good wages to Asians who joined the colonial forces, an offer
that drew many farmers from the poor regions of Punjab, Vietnam’s Red River Delta and the
French concession of Guangzhouwan, who lived in fear of famine. But certain members of
the Indian elite also heeded the call, like the aristocrat Rajput Amar Singh and Sir Pertab
Singh, Regent of Jodhpur and a friend of Queen Victoria. The same was true in Vietnam,
where the well-educated nationalist and reformist Phan Chu Trinh (1872-1926) called on his
countrymen to support France’s war effort, in the hope of benefiting, in return, from a policy
of assimilation that would help forge a modern elite in his country, and political
representation worthy of what one would expect of French democracy.

But what are the sources for writing a history from their point of view, for describing their
first encounter with Europe and Europeans in an unfamiliar cultural environment and a
difficult context, whether in the trenches or the munitions factories? Beyond the locals’
curiosity for these newly-arrived “exotic” populations, letters seized by military censors,
diaries and written and visual archives offer insights into the experience of these Asians in
Europe. These sources make it possible to trace the individual stories of soldiers, workers,
diplomats and students, revealing their discoveries and amazements, hopes and
disappointments, day by day.

Newfound mobility and opportunities

Beyond the Eurocentric vision of them as mere subordinate auxiliary forces serving the
colonial powers, these workers and soldiers were also men of action, who took an
exceptional opportunity to travel very long distances. In the colonies, any movement,
especially to the ruling countries, was closely regulated. Under these circumstances,
 transcontinental mobility could change their individual—and perhaps even collective—
destiny. Discovering the everyday life of the societies that colonised them, witnessing their
political and social movements, and seeing the colonial powers weakened by warfare among
themselves had an impact on these men once they returned to their homeland

After an arduous journey, often under abject sanitary conditions and without adequate clothing
for the European climate, the Asian troops landing in European ports discovered a totally new
cultural and social reality, including people of all socioeconomic backgrounds, many of whom
much different from the colonial masters they had known. The arrival of Indian troops in
Marseille (southeastern France) in 1914 sparked the curiosity of the locals, who were impressed
by the appearance of the Sikhs, who in turn were amazed by everything they saw of the French
cities and their inhabitants. They also aroused suspicion among French workers, who already
saw Vietnamese and Chinese labourers, requisitioned because of their military status, as
competitors or strikebreakers.

Sepoys on the Western Front

The India Gate, a war memorial on Rajpath Boulevard in central New Delhi, stands as a
reminder of the sacrifice made by the 74,000 soldiers who died in the war, out of a total of 1.3 to
1.5 million Indian fighters and workers: “To the dead of the Indian Armies who fell and are
honoured in France and Flanders, Mesopotamia and Persia, East Africa, Gallipoli and elsewhere
in the Near and the Far-East…” It was Indian troops who halted the German advance in Ypres
(Belgium) in the autumn of 1914. Hundreds of sepoys (Indian soldiers) fell in Neuve Chapelle
(northern France), and more than a thousand, including many Muslims, in Gallipoli in the
Dardanelles between February 1915 and January 1916, fighting against Germany’s Ottoman ally.

Although relatively few of the Asian soldiers were literate, many left behind personal accounts.
According to the Bengali writer Amitav Ghosh, Sisir Sarbadhikari’s book Abhi Le Baghdad (On
to Baghdad) (1958) is one of the most remarkable wartime memoirs of the 20th century. Based
on his own diary, which he hid in his boots, the book describes the tribulations of the British
Indian forces in Mesopotamia, Syria, Turkey and the Levant. Another book, At ‘Home and the
World’ in Iraq 1915-17 Kalyan Pradeep, by the Bengali author Mokkhoda Debi, published in
1928, recounts the life of her grandson Kalyan Mukherji. After studying medicine in Calcutta
and in Liverpool, he enlisted as a doctor in the Medical Service of the British Indian Army and
joined the Expeditionary Corps in Mesopotamia in March 1915. He died two years later at the
age of 34, interned as a prisoner of war in a Turkish camp in Ras El Ain. The book reproduces
the letters that he sent to his family, many describing the disastrous Mesopotamian campaign
(1915-16). 

The memoirs of Sainghinga are another example. A veteran of the Labour Corps from the Lushai
Hills of northeastern India (now Mizo Hills, part of the state of Mizoram), he was one of the first
to master Roman character writing in Mizo, a Tibeto-Burmese language spoken by fewer than
700,000 people today. Recruited as an interpreter, he recounts his war experience in Indopui
(The Great War), published shortly before World War II.
Chinese workers: the exploitation of the coolies
Chinese workers formed the second largest group of Asians who arrived in Europe en masse to
alleviate the Allies’ labour shortage, and because the Chinese authorities were hoping to protect
their country against Japanese imperialist ambitions by aligning themselves with the Allied
Forces. The French and British both drew upon their concessions in China and brought 140,000
recruits to France, divided into two groups: the Chinese Labour Corps, under British authority,
was assigned to logistical projects in northern France, while some 37,000 Chinese arrived in
Marseille in mid-August 1916, to serve as military workers under the auspices of the Colonial
Labour Organisation Service (SOTC). Most were unskilled peasants from the province of
Shandong, many of them illiterate. They were mainly used for maintaining factory equipment
and repairing communication routes.

Forced to cope with wartime shortages and employers who had no qualms about ignoring
agreements on equal pay, they were packed into special camps, housed in tents and crude
barracks even in the middle of winter, with inadequate clothing and shoes. They lived in
isolation among themselves, any contact with the locals being theoretically forbidden. Working
conditions were harsh and the late payment of salaries was a frequent complaint, leading to
strikes and riots in Boulogne (near Paris), for example. They also faced hostility from local
workers, who saw them as unfair competition. In some northern French regions, including the
Somme, the Marne and the Oise, they were suspected of assault, murder and thefts. After the
armistice, many Chinese were deployed to the battlefields to recover the corpses, clear artillery
shells and refill the trenches. About 2,000 stayed in France. Of those who returned to China,
some became labour movement leaders in the 1920s, at a time when young students like Deng
Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai were coming to France as student workers. Even less well-known are
the 160,000 Chinese recruited by Russia between 1915 and 1917, who mined coal in the Urals,
built railways in the polar regions, or worked as lumberjacks in Siberia or dockers in the ports of
the Baltic Sea.

The Vietnamese: from Verdun to the assembly line

Of the 93,000 Indochinese soldiers and workers who came to Europe, most were from the
poorest parts of the Tongkin and Annam regions, which had been badly hit by famine and
cholera, and—to a lesser degree—from Cambodia (1,150). Some 44,000 Vietnamese soldiers
served in combat battalions on the front in Verdun, in the Vosges (both in northeastern France)
and on the Eastern Front in the Balkans. In logistics battalions they were used as drivers
transporting troops to the front, stretcher-bearers or road crews. They were also in charge of
“sanitising” the battlefields, mostly at the end of the war, working in mid-winter without warm
clothing to allow French soldiers to return home sooner.

In addition, 49,000 Vietnamese were hired as workers under military authority between 1916 and
1919. Despite many women having taken over, there was still a labour shortage in the munitions
factories, and these Vietnamese farmers were assigned to production sites in southern and
southwestern France, like the Arsenal of Tarbes and the Bergerac gunpowder works. They were
housed in makeshift camps overseen by gendarmes, forced to work at a furious pace on the
assembly lines, at night, handling hazardous materials like explosives and gas… While the
French government chose not to industrialise Indochina in order to avoid competing with
companies in France, World War I contributed to the emergence of a Vietnamese proletariat of
skilled workers. While serving in French factories, they discovered labour unions, city life and,
last but not least, the experience of socialising with French women, which would have been
unthinkable in Indochina. 

The more egalitarian social relations they found in France contrasted sharply with the racial
hierarchy imposed in the colonies. The postal censorship that was soon implemented placed the
colonial contingents under the closest scrutiny. Letters and photos sent to their families provide a
glimpse of their everyday life. Their return home after the war was not easy, as the sacrifices
they had made were repaid with nothing but promises. Some of the Vietnamese who came to
France during World War I—like Nguyen Ai Quôc, the future Hô Chi Minh—converted to
communism, the only party that supported the right to self-determination. Some became active in
political journalism while others joined the Vietnamese nationalist parties, demanding self-rule.

The Siamese engagement is still commemorated…

On September 22, 1917, Siam entered the war on the Allied side upon the initiative of King
Vajiravudh (Rama VI, 1880-1925), who was educated in Britain for nine years. After the United
States joined the conflict earlier that year, the king saw an opportunity to revise the unequal
treaties signed with the Western powers in the 19th century, and show the world that the Siamese
were “free and civilised”. A 1,284-strong force of volunteers, aviators, drivers and doctors
enlisted, but did not reach Marseille until late July 1918. Although they were sent to flight and
driving school, only one small Siamese automobile corps was deployed to the front, in
September 1918, not far from Verdun. After the armistice, the Siamese contingent was put in
charge of occupying the city of Neustadt in the Palatinate, and later participated in victory
parades in Paris, Brussels and London. The last Siamese soldiers returned home in late 1919, and
a celebration in their honour was held in Bangkok. A war memorial in the form of a pagoda still
stands in Sanam Luang in the city-centre of Bangkok, not far from the old royal palace. It is the
scene of a yearly Armistice Day commemoration, attended by the descendants of those
volunteers, as well as representatives of the king and the Allied countries.

What impact did the war experience have on the lives of the Siamese volunteers after their
return? It is difficult to generalise, but some of them joined forces to demand a change from
absolute monarchy to a parliamentary system. Tua Lapanugrom and Jaroon Singhaseni, two of
the seven founders of the Khana Ratsadon party, created in Paris in the 1920s, who succeeded in
overthrowing the absolute power of the king in 1932, were former World War I volunteers.
Several veterans played an active role in forging Siam’s new government and electoral policy
between the two wars and during World War II. Chot Khumpan, a former volunteer and the
founder of the Democrat Party, the oldest political party in Thailand still in operation, is one of
them.
The 1920s and 1930s are widely considered the golden age of the colonies in Asia, overlooking
the impact this circulation of people—and therefore of ideas—between Asia, Europe and Africa
had on the colonial systems. After these soldiers and workers returned home, how did their
involvement in the war affect their individual destinies, as well as the political, economic, social
and cultural future of their people? Some developed personal strategies for benefiting from their
experience in Europe, while others founded political parties. The war and the principles of self-
determination staunchly defended by both Lenin (The Right of Nations to Self-Determination,
1914) and the US president Wilson (Fourteen Points, 1918) had far-reaching consequences on
the political evolution of Asian countries during the interwar period. The circulation of these
men contributed to that of ideas and techniques, introducing new socio-professional roles in
Asia: skilled workers, pilots, drivers, mechanics, draftsmen, lawyers, journalists, physicians and
political activists, all demanding the right to be “Masters of Their Own Destiny.”
 II. Asia in World War II
Most historians date the beginning of World War II to September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany
invaded Poland. Others claim the war began on July 7, 1937, when the Japanese Empire invaded
China. From the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 7 to the eventual surrender of Japan on
August 15, 1945, the Second World War ravaged Asia and Europe alike, with bloodshed and
bombardment spreading as far as Hawaii.
1937: Japan Invades China
On July 7, 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War began with a conflict known as the Marco Polo
Bridge Incident. Japan was attacked by Chinese troops while carrying out military training—they
didn't warn the Chinese they would be shooting gunpowder rounds at the bridge that led to
Beijing. This amplified already tense relations in the region, leading to an all-out declaration of
war.

In July of that year, the Japanese launched their first assault with the Battle of Beijing at Tianjin,
before marching to the Battle of Shanghai on August 13. The Japanese won huge victories and
claimed both cities for Japan, but they suffered heavy losses in the process. Meanwhile, in
August of that year, the Soviets invaded Xinjiang in western China to put down the Uighur
uprising.

Japan launched another military assault at the Battle of Taiyuan, claiming the capital of Shanxi
Province and China's arsenal of weapons. From December 9–13, the Battle of Nanking resulted
in the Chinese provisional capital falling to the Japanese and the Republic of China government
fleeing to Wuhan.

From the middle of December 1937 to the end of January 1938, Japan furthered tensions in the
region by taking part in a month-long siege of Nanjing, killing approximately 300,000 civilians
in an event that came to be known as the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanking (after the
raping, looting, and murder the Japanese troops committed).
1938: Increased Japan-China Hostilities

The Japanese Imperial Army had begun to take on its own doctrine by this point, ignoring orders
from Tokyo to halt southward expansion in the winter and spring of 1938. On February 18 of
that year, they launched the Bombing of Chongqing, a years-long firebombing against the
Chinese provisional capital that killed 10,000 civilians.

Fought from March 24 to May 1, 1938, the Battle of Xuzhou resulted in Japan capturing the city
but losing the Chinese troops, who would later become guerrilla fighters against them—breaking
dams along the Yellow River in June of that year and halting Japanese advances, while also
drowning Chinese civilians.
In Wuhan, where the ROC government had relocated the year before, China defended its new
capital at the Battle of Wuhan but lost to 350,000 Japanese troops, who lost 100,000 of their
men. In February, Japan seized the strategic Hainan Island and launched the Battle of Nanchang
—which broke Chinese National Revolutionary Army's supply lines and threatened all of
southeast China—as part of an effort to stop foreign aid to China.

However, when they attempted to take on the Mongols and Soviet forces in the Battle of Lake
Khasan in Manchuria and the Battle of Khalkhyn Gol along the border of Mongolia and
Manchuria in 1939, Japan suffered losses.
1939 to 1940: Turning of the Tide

China celebrated its first victory on October 8, 1939. At the First Battle of Changsha, Japan
attacked the capital of the Hunan Province, but the Chinese army cut Japanese supply lines and
defeated the Imperial Army.

Still, Japan captured the Nanning and Guangxi coast and stopped foreign aid by sea to China
after winning the Battle of South Guangxi. China wouldn't go down easy, though. It launched the
Winter Offensive in November 1939, a country-wide counteroffensive against Japanese troops.
Japan held in most places, but it realized then it would not be easy to win against China's sheer
size.

Although China held onto the critical Kunlun Pass in Guangxi that same winter, keeping a
supply flow from French Indochina to the Chinese army, the Battle of Zoayang-Yichang saw
Japan's success in driving toward the provisional new capital of China at Chongqing.

Firing back, Communist Chinese troops in northern China blew up rail-lines, disrupted Japanese
coal supplies, and even made a frontal assault on Imperial Army troops, resulting in a strategic
Chinese victory in December 1940.

As a result, on December 27, 1940, Imperial Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, which aligned the
nation with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy as part of the Axis Powers.

1941: Axis vs. Allies

As early as April 1941, volunteer American pilots called the Flying Tigers begin to fly supplies
to Chinese forces from Burma over "the Hump"—the eastern end of the Himalayas. In June of
that year, troops from Great Britain, India, Australia, and France invaded Syria and Lebanon,
held by pro-German Vichy French. The Vichy French surrendered on July 14.

In August 1941, the United States, which had supplied 80% of Japan's oil, initiated a total oil
embargo, forcing Japan to seek new sources to fuel its war effort. The September 17 Anglo-
Soviet Invasion of Iran complicated the matter by deposing the pro-Axis Shah Reza Pahlavi and
replacing him with his 22-year-old son to ensure the Allies' access to Iranian oil.

The end of 1941 saw an implosion of the Second World War, starting with the December 7
Japanese attack on the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii—which killed 2,400 American
service members and sank four battleships. Simultaneously, Japan initiated the Southern
Expansion, launching a massive invasion aimed at the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, Malaya,
Hong Kong, Thailand, and Midway Island.

In response, the United States and the United Kingdom formally declared war on Japan on
December 8, 1941. Two days later, Japan sank the British warships HMS Repulse and
HMS Prince of Wales off the coast of Malaya, and the U.S. base at Guam surrendered to Japan.

Japan forced British colonial forces in Malaya to withdraw up to the Perak River a week later
and from December 22–23, it launched a major invasion of Luzon in the Phillippines, forcing
American and Filipino troops to withdraw to Bataan.

1942: More Allies and More Enemies

By the end of February 1942, Japan had continued its assault on Asia, invading the Dutch East
Indies (Indonesia), capturing Kuala Lumpur (Malaya), the islands of Java and Bali, and British
Singapore. It also attacked Burma, Sumatra, and Darwin (Australia), which began Australia's
involvement in the war.

In March and April, the Japanese pushed into central Burma—a "crown jewel" of British India—
and raided the British colony of Ceylon in modern-day Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, American and
Filipino troops surrendered at Bataan, resulting in Japan's Bataan Death March. At the same
time, the United States launched the Doolittle Raid, the first bombing raid against Tokyo and
other parts of the Japanese home islands.

From May 4 to 8, 1942, Australian and American naval forces fended off the Japanese invasion
of New Guinea at the Battle of the Coral Sea. At the battle of Corregidor, however, the Japanese
took the island in Manila Bay, completing its conquest of the Philippines. On May 20, the British
finished withdrawing from Burma, handing Japan another victory.

At the pivotal June 4–7 Battle of Midway, American troops maneuvered a huge naval victory
over Japan at Midway Atoll, west of Hawaii. Japan quickly fired back by invading Alaska's
Aleutian Island chain. In August of that same year, the Battle of Savo Island saw the United
States' first major naval action and the Battle of the Eastern Solomon Islands, an Allied naval
victory, in the Guadalcanal campaign.
1943: A Shift in the Allies' Favor

From December 1942 to February 1943, the Axis powers and the Allies played a constant tug-of-
war, but supplies and munitions were running low for Japan's already thinly spread troops. The
United Kingdom capitalized on this weakness and launched a counter-offensive against the
Japanese in Burma.

In May 1943, China's National Revolutionary Army made a resurgence, launching an offensive
along the Yangtze River. In September, Australian troops captured Lae, New Guinea, claiming
the region back for Allied powers—and shifting the tide for all of its forces to begin the counter-
offensive that would shape the rest of the war.
By 1944, the tide of war was turning and the Axis Powers, including Japan, were at a stalemate
or even on the defensive in many places. The Japanese military found itself over-extended and
out-gunned, but many Japanese soldiers and ordinary citizens believed they were destined to
win. Any other outcome was unthinkable.

1944: Allied Domination

Continuing on its success along the Yangtze River, China launched another major offensive in
northern Burma in January 1944 in an attempt to reclaim its supply line along the Ledo Road
into China. The next month, Japan launched the Second Arakan Offensive in Burma, attempting
to drive the Chinese forces back—but it failed.

The United States took Truk Atoll, Micronesia, and Eniwetok in February and halted Japanese
advancement at Tamu, India, in March. After suffering a defeat at the Battle of Kohima, the
Japanese forces retreated back into Burma, also losing the Battle of Saipan in the Marian Islands
later that month.

The biggest blows, though, were yet to come. Starting with the Battle of the Philippine Sea in
July 1944, a key naval battle that effectively wiped out the Japanese Imperial Navy's carrier fleet,
the United States began to push back against Japan in the Philippines. By December 31,
Americans had mostly succeeded in liberating the Philippines from Japanese occupation.
Late 1944 to 1945: The Nuclear Option and Japan's Surrender

After suffering many losses, Japan refused to surrender to Allied parties—and thus the bombings
started to intensify. With the advent of the nuclear bomb looming overhead and tensions
continuing to mount between the rival armies of the Axis powers and the Allied forces, the
Second World War came to its climax.

Japan upped its aerial forces in October 1944, launching its first kamikaze pilot attack against the
U.S. Naval fleet at Leyte, and the United States answered back on November 24 with the first B-
29 bombing raid against Tokyo.

In the first months of 1945, the United States continued to push into Japanese-controlled
territories, landing on Luzon Island in the Philippines in January and winning the Battle of Iwo
Jima in March. Meanwhile, the Allies reopened the Burma Road in February and forced the last
Japanese to surrender in Manila on March 3.

When U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt died on April 12 and was succeeded by Harry S

Truman, the bloody war ravaging Europe and Asia was already at its boiling point—but Japan
refused to surrender.

On August 6, 1945, the American government decided to use the nuclear option,
conducting atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, the first nuclear strike of that size against any
major city in any nation in the world. On August 9, just three days later, another atomic bombing
was carried out against Nagasaki, Japan. Meanwhile, the Soviet Red Army invaded Japanese-
held Manchuria.
Less than a week later, on August 15, 1945, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito formally surrendered
to Allied troops, ending the Second World War.