The Chinese Labour Corps was a force of workers recruited by the British government in the First World War to free troops for front line duty by performing support work and manual labour. The French government also recruited a significant number of Chinese labourers, and although those labourers working for the French were recruited separately and not part of the CLC, the term is often used to encompass both groups. In all, some 140,000 men served for both British and French forces before the war ended and most of the men were repatriated to China between 1918 and 1920.
Men of the Chinese Labour Corps load sacks of oats onto a lorry at Boulogne while supervised by a British officer (12 August 1917)
Members of the Chinese Labour Corps and British soldiers working at a timber yard, Caëstre, July 1917.
CLC men load 9.2-inch shells onto a railway wagon at Boulogne for transport to the front line, August 1917
Labour Corps men and a British soldier cannibalise a wrecked Mark IV tank for spare parts at the central stores of the Tank Corps, Teneur, spring 1918.
The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was about 40 million: estimates range from around 15 to 22 million deaths and about 23 million wounded military personnel, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history.
British and German wounded, Bernafay Wood, 19 July 1916. Photo by Ernest Brooks.
Douaumont French Army cemetery seen from Douaumont ossuary, which contains remains of French and German soldiers who died during the Battle of Verdun in 1916
Austrian memorial commemorating soldiers from the village of Obermillstatt who died in World War I
Dying Soldier in a Trench (1915) by Willy Jaeckel
