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The World's War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire looks at the entry of the Ottomon Empire into World War I and how the colonial empires of Europe drew manpower from their colonies to fight their enemies throughout the world. It looks at German efforts to instigate rebellion in the Muslim colonies of the Allies and examines Mir Mast expedition of Afghanistan. It also looks at the role of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's African Askari in German East Africa. It examines European reactions of Indian and Chinese troops and workers in Dikkebus, Belgium. It also looks at how African American soldiers were used in segregated labor units, but later saw action as part of the French army.
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00:08In early November 1914 in Istanbul the capital of the Turkish Ottoman Empire a
00:15new weapon was unveiled. It would spread the First World War far beyond the
00:22borders of Europe. Inside the Fatih Mosque Sultan Mehmet V recognized by many
00:32Muslims as the leader of the Islamic world was presented with the sword of
00:36the Prophet symbolizing his authority to call the Muslim world to arms.
00:45This was how the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War not just with a
00:50declaration of war but with a declaration of jihad holy war against the powers it
00:56now described as the enemies of Islam Britain France and Russia. The
01:04declaration of jihad was a vivid signal that the war between the nations of
01:08Europe would become a global war between empires. A war that would spread to lands
01:16far beyond the mud and the trenches of the Western Front and its savagery would
01:21draw in millions from across the world. In Africa a rogue German general would
01:29lead his army of Africans on a bloody odyssey leaving a trail of death
01:34starvation and disease.
01:40In Libya and in Darfur tribal rebellions would be sparked in the name of
01:45religion. While on the borders of mighty empires plots would be laid for
01:51insurrection and invasion and all the while on the Western Front itself the pace and
01:59the scale of industrialized warfare would intensify. More and more men from all over
02:05the world would be pulled in to service the machinery of mass slaughter.
02:11This was a place where Senegalese and Vietnamese soldiers fought in the same trenches.
02:20Chinese laborers supplied Indian cavalrymen. And black American troops served under white French
02:28officers. As the war spread it drew in millions of diverse people of every race every color and
02:35every religion and from all over the world. They fought alongside their European comrades and they
02:41died in terrible numbers and now all of them have a claim to be remembered as the heroes and the
02:49victims of the world's war.
03:20In the autumn of 1914, the attention of the world was focused on northern France and Belgium.
03:28The first battle of Ypres was grinding to a halt and the Western Front was forming a
03:34quagmire of blood and mud. For the next four years success would be measured in yards and disaster in millions.
03:49But thousands of miles away, in Istanbul, it was possible to see the war as fluid, expansive.
03:57Germany and her new ally, Ottoman Turkey, were exploring the intriguing possibility of taking
04:03the fight to the enemy by turning their imperial assets against them.
04:14Germany and her new ally.
04:15After the declaration of jihad in the Fatih Mosque, a holy war procession began to march towards the
04:21European quarter of the city.
04:29As the demonstrators surged through these streets, they began to attack, to loot and even to set fire
04:35to British and French owned businesses. And European residents of the city began to flee in fear.
04:43Behind the scenes of riot and disorder, some observers sensed a controlling hand choreographing the action.
04:53One of those pulling the strings was Max von Oppenheim, maverick archaeologist and self-styled Orientalist.
05:03Before the war, Oppenheim had spent years studying and traveling in the Islamic world.
05:09He'd been shunned by the inner circles of the German establishment.
05:13But with the outbreak of hostilities, his unusual private passions suddenly took on global significance.
05:24In August 1914, the German foreign office asked Oppenheim to draw up plans for a holy war.
05:30The memorandum he produced was entitled On Revolutionising the Islamic Territories of our
05:36Enemies. And it was basically a blueprint for what he assured everybody would be a global revolution.
05:42His central recommendation was that an intelligence bureau for the east be established, a sort of
05:48German jihad bureau. It was to be headed by Oppenheim himself. And its task was to spread propaganda
05:54across the world and dispatch secret missions to enemy territories.
06:01Historian Sean McMeekin has studied the evolution of Oppenheim's cloak and dagger plans.
06:08He was really quite an enthusiast for all things Islam, up to and including the idea which appealed
06:16to him when he lived in Cairo of having his own harem. In his vision though, the potential of Islam
06:23was lethal. That is, he really thought it could destroy the British Empire. It really would be a global
06:30jihad, a global holy war against the British Empire, where the Ottoman Sultan would play possibly the most
06:36important role, but obviously not the only one. So in 1914, there's the scheme that could destroy the
06:42British and French empires? Well, that's right. Britain in particular had a great Achilles heel.
06:47In the Indian subcontinent, in the Gulf states, in Egypt, Britain ruled over, depending on which
06:52estimate you trust, upwards of a hundred million Muslim subjects. By some reckoning, Britain was actually
06:57the greatest Muslim power in the world, and you simply judge by numbers. The French also ruled over
07:03a Muslim empire in North Africa. So all of Germany's potential enemies in a great power war
07:09had this potential Achilles heel of Muslim subjects.
07:16With the Ottomans as their junior partners, and with a jihad unleashed against their enemies,
07:21the Kaiser and his followers dreamed of spreading German power, of driving the British out of India,
07:26Africa, and of redrafting the map of Africa, to create a vast German colony in the center of that
07:32continent. For those who wanted to believe it, this whole intoxicating vision suddenly seemed possible.
07:42Oppenheim had worked hard behind the scenes to secure the declaration of jihad at the Fatih mosque.
07:49But his most significant contribution was a piece of political theater that took place on the other
07:55side of town. Here at the German embassy, in front of a crowd of demonstrators, 14 Muslim soldiers,
08:03men from the French colonies in North Africa, were theatrically paraded out onto that balcony,
08:09by the German ambassador himself. These men were prisoners of war who had been captured on the
08:14Western Front in the first battles of the First World War. The Germans had then recruited them,
08:20and transported them secretly right across Europe on the Orient Express. The German cover story was
08:26that these men were acrobats in a traveling circus. And now here at the embassy, with the crowd looking
08:32up at them, they were made to shout slogans, in Arabic and Turkish, in praise of the Ottoman Sultan.
08:39And they declared oaths, promising that they would personally take part in the jihad against their former colonial masters.
08:49And Istanbul was just the start. Oppenheim had plans for something on a global scale.
08:59A special camp designed to turn prisoners of war into jihadists.
09:05It was located 1,000 miles away, in Germany.
09:21Zossen, a small town just outside Berlin, had a busy 20th century.
09:30Until the mid-1990s, it was home to the largest Soviet army base in East Germany.
09:37Before that, secret Nazi bunkers had been built, disguised as village houses.
09:44And Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, was planned from here.
09:51But buried beneath these layers of history lies an even stranger story.
09:59During the First World War, Zossen was home to a prisoner of war camp called the Halkmundlager.
10:06The Half Moon, or Crescent Camp.
10:12Historian Heike Liebau has studied the history of this unusual place.
10:18The camp was meant for basically prisoners from North African countries and from India,
10:26so prisoners from the French and the British colonial army.
10:31And the number of prisoners who were kept there is about 4,000 to 5,000 at one time.
10:38And it's called the Half Moon Camp, because the Half Moon is the symbol of Islam.
10:43It's called the Half Moon Camp, because this prisoner of war camp was meant for Muslim prisoners,
10:48and it was part of the German jihad strategy.
10:53German propaganda railed against its enemy's deployment of colonial soldiers,
10:59what it called savages.
11:02But at the Half Moon Camp, these same soldiers were being recruited for a war against their imperial masters.
11:13When they were captured, they may have thought that their war was over.
11:18Instead, they were entering a new theatre of conflict, where they were bombarded with jihadist propaganda.
11:28So these officers, these propaganda intelligence officers, what are they doing?
11:33How are they getting their message across to the prisoners?
11:35One idea was to have a camp newspaper.
11:39It was called Al Jihad, and the idea was to convince as many prisoners as possible to become so-called
11:47jihadists.
11:49Oppenheim took a personal interest in the day-to-day running of the Half Moon Camp,
11:55ensuring that the dietary and religious sensitivities of the camp inmates were catered for.
12:01But Oppenheim wanted to do something that would prove beyond doubt that Germany was the true friend of Islam.
12:10In the beginning of 1915, they started to discuss the idea to build a mosque for the prisoners of war
12:17in the Half Moon Camp.
12:19It was not built just out of religious ideas, it was built out of political ideas, and it was built
12:28out of the expectation that it would serve the propaganda purposes which Germany had.
12:41This Half Moon Camp was a show camp, and we had lots of postcards showing the mosque in the camp,
12:49showing the prisoners doing sport games, doing religious festivities which were sent around the world.
12:58But despite the mosque, despite the special treatment and the daily indoctrination,
13:04volunteers for jihad from the Half Moon Camp would be counted in tens, not thousands.
13:14After the horrors of trench warfare, most prisoners of war were more interested in surviving than fighting new wars.
13:23And even those who did volunteer sometimes had their own private motivations.
13:32That seems to be the case with one of the most intriguing characters to emerge from the shadows of the
13:39world's war.
13:43Mia Mast was a Muslim from a small mountain village on the border of Afghanistan and India.
13:50He was a Jemadar, a platoon commander in the 58th Vaughan's Rifles, part of the India Corps, who had been
13:57sent to fight in France at the start of the war.
14:02By the spring of 1915, Mia Mast had already endured a bitter winter in the trenches.
14:10He'd seen fierce fighting and been awarded the Indian Distinguished Service Medal for gallantry and devotion to duty.
14:20One rainy night in early March, a week before the start of the Battle of Neuve-Chapelle,
14:25he crept out of his trench and led 20 of his men silently across no man's land.
14:32Not to attack the enemy, but to desert.
14:38This was the first leg of an incredible journey.
14:42One canny soldier with a strong instinct for survival was about to be pitched into a world of intrigue and
14:49conspiracy.
14:53What I've got here arranged in front of me is the paper trail, the documents left behind by Mia Mast
15:00in archives in London and Delhi and Berlin.
15:04In the London Gazette is the formal announcement of Mia Mast's Indian Distinguished Service Medal.
15:11But by the time his award was announced, this gallant officer was already being debriefed by German officials.
15:21These are the notes from the interrogation of Mia Mast by a German official on the 7th of March 1915
15:29in Lille in France.
15:30So this is just a few days after he's defected and brought other soldiers with him over to the German
15:36lines at Neuve-Chapelle.
15:38The most important page is this one.
15:41This is a map of the Khyber Pass, perhaps drawn by Mia Mast himself.
15:46It certainly comes out of his interrogation and it lists the numbers and the locations, the dispositions of the British
15:53and Indian troops on the Khyber Pass,
15:55the critical route between Afghanistan and British India.
15:59So clearly, having deserted to the Germans, Mia Mast was determined to prove to them just how useful he could
16:05be.
16:08From Lille, Mia Mast was taken to the half-moon camp.
16:11Where his cooperation would have brought him to the attention of agents of the Jihad Bureau.
16:18They were on the lookout for volunteers for one of the most audacious and dangerous missions of the war.
16:26An expedition to Kabul to persuade the Emir of Afghanistan to switch sides and join a holy war against British
16:34India.
16:37The mission was made up of German and Turkish diplomats, Indian nationalists and volunteers from the half-moon camp, whose
16:45local knowledge would be invaluable.
16:51The expedition would set off from Istanbul, heading first towards Baghdad.
17:01From there, they'd cross the salt deserts and mountains of Persia, before dropping onto the dusty plains of Afghanistan.
17:19The most intriguing piece of evidence in this whole story is this photograph.
17:25We know it was taken by the Germans, and it shows six Indian soldiers wearing what looked like Turkish uniforms.
17:32On the back of the original photograph was the title, Six Patans, along with four names, one of which is
17:38Mia Mast.
17:40He's the guy on the far left, a guy who set himself slightly away from the others, but it's his
17:46face.
17:47This guy has the face of a man who's lived the life of Mia Mast, who's lived between empires, who's
17:54lived a life of intrigue.
17:55It's the face of a born survivor.
18:05The mission set off in May 1915, dodging Russian and British patrols, running short of water and supplies.
18:13More than half of the expedition were lost to exhaustion, disease and defection.
18:22But a core group did reach Kabul.
18:25They were eventually granted official audiences with the Emir.
18:30He weighed up his options, calculating which imperial power was likely to come out on top.
18:38But the British were past masters of the great game, and were able to undermine all the inspiring talk of
18:45holy war.
18:47Well, the British are quite aware, of course, of what the Germans are up to.
18:50They know that the Germans are there, and they know what the Germans are trying to do.
18:55And so all the British really have to do is make it clear to the Emir that it's worth his
19:00while
19:01not to switch sides, to increase his subsidy somewhat.
19:06In the end, a lot of gold was kind of flying around in all directions in the war.
19:12In the end, the Emir decided to stick with the devils he knew, and the Jihad Bureau's schemes unraveled in
19:20the cold Afghan winter.
19:22There were limited uprisings in Libya, where Senussi tribesmen marched on the Suez Canal, and in Darfur.
19:30But Kabul was to be the swan song for Oppenheim's much-vaunted strategy of revolutionising the Muslim subjects of the
19:39enemy.
19:43Failure for the elaborate strategies of nations doesn't necessarily mean failure for the more modest strategies of individuals.
19:57This document is the final piece in the jigsaw in the remarkable life of Mia Maast.
20:03This is a secret British report into the nominal role of Indian prisoners of war suspected of having deserted to
20:10the enemy.
20:10It's from October 1918, near the end of the war.
20:15As well as giving the regiments and the names of these soldiers, this document critically also gives us the latest
20:22information that the British have received on what happened to them.
20:25And for Mia Maast and two of his colleagues, what it says is these three accompanied the Turco-German mission
20:31to Afghanistan,
20:32and are reported to have returned to their homes in June 1915.
20:37So there you have it, evidence that the British, at least, are convinced that Mia Maast made it all the
20:43way from the Western Front back to his home.
20:55The north-west frontier wasn't the only potential flashpoint on the imperial map.
21:03Africa, with its patchwork of imperial holdings stitched together during the so-called scramble for Africa at the end of
21:11the 19th century, was also ripe for conflict.
21:16Here in German East Africa, present-day Tanzania, the sparks from Europe's war would start a conflagration that would ultimately
21:24consume the lives of millions of Africans.
21:30In the decades before the war, German East Africa was booming.
21:35Gold had recently been discovered, and vast coffee and rubber plantations fuelled the engine of imperial commerce.
21:44The capital, Dar es Salaam, bustled with shipping, and was held up as a model of what a colonial city
21:50should be.
21:53German East Africa had only got to this point, because the Germans had brutally enforced their will over the local
21:59African people.
22:00And they'd achieved that through the creation of an army of local African recruits.
22:06The Asghari, the key Swahili word for soldier, had been recruited from those tribes who had fought most effectively against
22:13the Germans in the early years of the colony.
22:15So it was, if you like, a sort of backhanded compliment.
22:19They were well paid, they were highly disciplined, and they were extremely well trained.
22:27When the war came, German East Africa was cut off, surrounded by the colonies of Belgium, Portugal, and Britain.
22:39Military resistance appeared futile.
22:43This was the view held by the colony's civilian governor, Dr. Heinrich Schnee.
22:50As a colonial administrator, Schnee wanted to protect German East Africa from the destruction of war,
22:56so that once the fighting was over, it could quickly get back to making money.
23:02But the colony's military commander had other priorities.
23:07Paul von Lettow-Faubeck was one of Germany's colonial hard men.
23:12With the fatherland at war in Europe, he believed the colonies had a duty to fight,
23:18if only to divert resources away from the Western Front.
23:24According to all accounts, Lettow-Faubeck was cultured and personally charming.
23:29But by the time he arrived here, in East Africa, it was clear that he was also a man with
23:34a streak of ruthlessness.
23:36A character trait that was to prove disastrous for literally millions of people on this continent.
23:44The first major action in this disastrous war came in November 1914,
23:50when a British flotilla approached the coast of German East Africa.
23:57On board was an 8,000-strong expeditionary force, drawn from the British army in India.
24:05Their destination was the busy German port of Tanga.
24:10They expected little, if any, resistance.
24:13Word had reached them that Governor Schnee was willing to discuss a neutrality pact.
24:20But that news was out of date.
24:23When Lettow-Faubeck heard about the invasion force,
24:27he immediately dispatched Ascari units to Tanga, with orders to dig in and resist.
24:34The stage was set for the first major offensive of the war in East Africa.
24:41It's difficult to think of a battle that better illustrates just how strange things can get
24:46when global empires go to war in other people's countries.
24:50On paper, the battle here at Tanga was a fight between the British and the Germans.
24:56But the army that Britain landed on these beaches was mainly made up of Indians,
25:01men from Kashmir, men from Bangalore and the princely states of the Raj.
25:05While the defenders of German East Africa, the army dug in around the town of Tanga over there,
25:10they were mainly Africans, Ascari's from across East Africa.
25:16The situation on the ground was complicated by a set of racial theories
25:20in the heads of those in charge of the battle.
25:24The British commander, Major General Aitken,
25:27was a man who knew little about this continent and little about its people.
25:31But what he did know about was the idea of racial hierarchies,
25:35one of those theories that underpinned imperialism.
25:38And he was convinced that British-trained Indians were far superior to German-trained Africans.
25:45The Indian troops landed without opposition.
25:49But waiting for them on the outskirts of town were the Ascari.
25:55Outnumbered, but well-armed.
25:59As the Indian and British soldiers got within 600 yards of the town of Tanga,
26:03the German machine guns opened up.
26:08Whole units were mowed down.
26:12In two days of fighting, more than 800 Indian and British troops were killed or wounded.
26:19German casualties numbered 150 men.
26:24The British were forced to accept that the invasion had failed.
26:33They sent a party of officers to negotiate with the Germans here at Tanga's hospital.
26:40According to one eyewitness, they discussed the battle as if it had been a football match.
26:47The unexpected victory of Letov Vorbeck and his Ascari marked the birth of a myth
26:53that was to live on in Germany for decades.
27:00After Tanga, the German public became fascinated by every detail of the war in Africa.
27:06The Kaiser sent personal commendations to the East African army.
27:10And the German press and the German propaganda machine
27:13set about transforming a little-known colonial hard man
27:17into a living legend and a Teutonic hero.
27:36But set-piece battles, like Tanga, would be the exception.
27:43Cut off from regular supply lines, Letov Vorbeck's tactics were, for the most part,
27:49to avoid major engagements.
27:51Instead, he launched hit-and-run raids over as wide an area as possible.
27:59Letov Vorbeck and his Ascari troops set off on a thousand-mile journey.
28:04Armies from South Africa and the British, Belgian and Portuguese colonies
28:08all set off in pursuit.
28:10And he drew them deeper and deeper into eastern-central Africa.
28:18This was a war of endless marches,
28:21where the deadliest enemies were climate, exhaustion and disease.
28:28Of the 20,000 South African troops sent after Letov Vorbeck,
28:33half were invalided home due to illness.
28:39For all its well-documented horrors,
28:42the Western Front was, at least, a narrowly defined killing zone.
28:49But the war in Africa passed directly through countless villages,
28:53like a plague of locusts.
28:55And for the civilians, caught in its chaotic path,
28:59there was nothing romantic about this blood-stained safari.
29:05Many were press-gowned as porters,
29:08forced to carry the war forward on their backs.
29:14British alone recruited about a million Africans into the carrier corps.
29:18These were men who were made to march alongside the armies,
29:21carrying great 60-pound loads of food and ammunition.
29:24They were overworked and underfed, and about 20% of them died.
29:29Now, that's a casualty rate that compares to anything on the Western Front.
29:34One British official had no doubt that their treatment would have been considered a scandal
29:38had they not been merely Africans.
29:40After all, he said,
29:41Who cares about native carriers?
29:45The Germans behaved of anything even worse.
29:48When they swept into villages like this,
29:51they simply kidnapped the men.
29:53Leto Vorbeck sometimes had men tied together with ropes,
29:56and those who tried to escape were simply shot dead.
30:06Before the war, the fertile hinterlands of German East Africa
30:10had provided a surplus of food.
30:14Robbed of men to work the fields and tend the cattle,
30:18food stocks now waned, and harvests failed.
30:29Leto Vorbeck's war of choice brought nothing but disaster.
30:33Up to a third of a million African civilians
30:35are believed to have perished in the famines caused directly by his campaign.
30:41Ludwig Depper was a German doctor who served alongside Leto Vorbeck.
30:49Behind us, we leave destroyed fields, ransacked food stores,
30:54and for the immediate future, starvation.
31:00We are no longer the agents of culture.
31:03Our path is marked by death, plundering, and abandoned villages.
31:13But that's not the way the story was told in Germany.
31:16The legend of Leto Vorbeck and his loyal Ascari's
31:20carried on decades after the war.
31:25The myth was reinforced by the German general's own memoirs.
31:29The title, Higher Safari, was the name of the Ascari marching song.
31:34And the memoirs gave the impression
31:37that Leto Vorbeck was a swashbuckling hero
31:39leading a life of daring do in East Africa.
31:51But I was born on this continent, and it's been my home,
31:54and I just can't see it that way.
31:56To me, Leto Vorbeck was an obsessive, a fanatic.
32:01He became famous as the man who was determined to fight on,
32:04no matter what the cost.
32:05But it wasn't him who paid that cost.
32:07That was paid by hundreds of thousands of Africans
32:10who died in his war.
32:12A war that, in the end, achieved nothing.
32:15Because Leto Vorbeck didn't draw British soldiers
32:18away from the Western Front,
32:19and he didn't manage to keep hold of German East Africa.
32:22What he and his mercenary army did succeed in doing
32:25was leaving behind them a trail of famine, disease, and death.
32:37The military cemetery in Dar es Salaam
32:40is, for me, a more fitting monument to the war in East Africa
32:43than the dubious legend of a rogue German general.
32:50This is the West African Frontier Force,
32:53the Gold Coast Regiment, and their list of casualties.
32:55These are men from what's today Ghana,
32:57and there's lots of Ashanti and Fanti names here,
33:00Kofi and Kobli.
33:01There's a Musa Grunchi.
33:03The Grunchi people also come from Ghana,
33:05but also from Burkina Faso.
33:07Here's a group of names that you can tell are Yoruba,
33:10Adegon, Adiola.
33:11These are men from Nigeria.
33:13The Yoruba is my own ethnic group.
33:15And these are men who might have come from Lagos,
33:17where I was born.
33:18But over here is a list of casualties,
33:20a long list of casualties,
33:22from the king's African rifles.
33:24This is by far the biggest force
33:25the British cobbled together
33:27to fight the Germans in East Africa.
33:29And they came from across British colonial Africa,
33:32from Malawi, from Kenya, from Zimbabwe.
33:34But it's not just Africans fighting for the British,
33:37remembered here.
33:38Here are three Asghari who are from the Congo,
33:41and they're fighting for the Belgium army.
33:43And there's even one Asghari Palawi,
33:45who's fighting for the Portuguese.
33:47He's from Mozambique.
33:54These are men of the British West Indies Regiment.
33:57These are men from Jamaica and Barbados
33:59and the other islands,
34:00who volunteer to fight,
34:01but were never allowed to serve on the Western Front.
34:06So in one of those bizarre twists of imperial history,
34:09they find themselves in Africa,
34:11fighting for the empire,
34:13that took their ancestors from this continent
34:15and into slavery.
34:31And all the while,
34:32far away in Europe,
34:34the armies on the Western Front
34:35had been perfecting the techniques
34:37of industrial-scale slaughter.
34:40By 1917,
34:42they developed a sophisticated killing machine.
34:46All it required
34:47was an infinite number of men
34:49to keep it turning.
34:50Some supplying the blood,
34:53others the sweat and the tears.
34:56There had never been anything like it
34:59on the face of the planet.
35:04A few years ago,
35:06I asked one of the last veterans
35:07of the First World War
35:08what he'd felt,
35:09what his emotions had been
35:10when he'd arrived here
35:11on the Western Front.
35:13And what he said was this.
35:14He said it was clear
35:15that he was entering into
35:16the biggest man-made structure on Earth.
35:19And I've never forgotten that description,
35:21because that's what the Western Front was,
35:23a vast 20th-century military city
35:26of encampments and trenches
35:27and dugouts and barbed wire.
35:31With its complex infrastructure
35:33of roads, railways,
35:35ammunition dumps,
35:36factories, hospitals,
35:38brothels, and morgues,
35:39the Western Front was a linear city,
35:42extending 450 miles
35:44from the Swiss frontier
35:46to the English Channel,
35:48and with a population to match.
35:51By 1917,
35:53this was the most culturally
35:55and ethnically diverse place on Earth.
36:01near the city of Nancy,
36:03American soldiers trained
36:04for their debut in the war.
36:08At Verdun,
36:10Algerians,
36:11Moroccans,
36:11and Tunisians
36:12manned machine guns
36:13as the French
36:14struggled to control
36:15this strategic citadel.
36:21At Chemin des Dames,
36:22men from Senegal and Vietnam
36:24fought side by side.
36:32At Cambrai,
36:33Inuit snipers and scouts
36:35fought a war of stealth
36:36while Indian cavalrymen
36:38charged into battle.
36:44At Arras,
36:46Maori and Pacific Island
36:47sappers dug tunnels
36:48under enemy trenches
36:50and planted mines.
36:55while Canadian Indians
36:56prayed to the sun
36:58near Vimy Ridge
36:59before going over the top.
37:04And West Indian,
37:06African,
37:06and Egyptian laborers
37:07resupplied Australians,
37:09New Zealanders,
37:10South Africans,
37:11and Canadians
37:11as they entered the carnage
37:13of the third battle for Ypres.
37:19This was the moment
37:20when we can truly call
37:22the conflict
37:22the world's war.
37:27nięs of the world's war.
37:42I'm not sure
37:43that our friends
37:43the sea
37:43of the night
37:43as they were
37:43war.
37:43And the sun
37:49had a little bit
37:51and they didn't
37:51the one
37:51that they could
37:52as they said.
37:53So we can
38:03This is an ornate doorway carved in an Arab style
38:07in a concrete shelter in the middle of a cow field in Belgium.
38:13There's an inscription here in Arabic that reads, I'm told,
38:17there is no God but Allah.
38:19If you believe in Allah, you will be victorious.
38:22We don't know anything really about the men who carved their prayer into this doorway.
38:28We know that they were Muslim soldiers and that they were here in the First World War,
38:32and that's it.
38:34There's something poignant, there's something almost tragic.
38:37You can imagine men huddling under bombardments in here,
38:41turning to their faith and writing in Arabic a prayer in the middle of a war,
38:45not knowing whether they'll ever survive.
38:50To me, this is as much a memorial to unknown soldiers
38:53as any of the others on the Western Front.
39:06Before the war, in the rural backwaters of Belgium and France,
39:10non-white faces would have been seen only on the pages of books and magazines.
39:19Suddenly, towns and villages filled with strange faces,
39:23speaking unknown languages and eating exotic foods.
39:29Watching over this transformation in the Belgium town of Dicobus
39:33was a young parish priest, Father Achille van Wallinghem.
39:43Historian and curator Dominic den Daufen
39:46has studied Father van Wallinghem's remarkable diary of those strange times.
39:54What you seem to get from him is a view of the First World War from behind net curtains.
39:59We actually have, through him, first-hand accounts,
40:03but first-hand accounts not from one of the parties involved,
40:07but from a bystander,
40:09which is, it's very nice,
40:11because that's information
40:12that, first of all, you would never think about.
40:15And secondly,
40:17you would never, ever encounter
40:19in official reports.
40:23We've got the entry for the 6th of June,
40:26a Sunday.
40:28Several Indian troops have arrived on the parish,
40:32black of skin,
40:34dressed as English soldiers,
40:36with the exception of the head,
40:38which is draped artfully in a towel.
40:42Artfully?
40:43Artfully.
40:44So that's a turban, isn't it?
40:45Yeah.
40:46They speak English,
40:48and some a bit of French.
40:51In general,
40:52they are very friendly and polite,
40:54though their curiosity has the upper hand,
40:58and they especially like to see
41:00through the windows of our houses.
41:03They bake a kind of pancake,
41:04and they eat a kind of seed
41:06which has a very strong taste.
41:09They stay here for several weeks.
41:11So this is going to be chapatis?
41:13Oh, yeah, they're eating chapatis.
41:15And flavoured with a very strong tasting spice.
41:17Oh, yeah, yeah, he says,
41:18they're eating a kind of seed
41:19which is very strong.
41:20So he must have tasted it,
41:21because otherwise he wouldn't have known
41:23that it has a strong taste.
41:25So he's one of the first people
41:26in Rueville, Belgium,
41:27to try Indian food.
41:28Oh, that's very much so.
41:30Because local people normally tend to be
41:33chauvinistic regarding food,
41:35but he's definitely someone
41:36who's open to taste other things.
41:42One group in particular
41:43caught the attention of the inquisitive priest.
41:46They travelled from the other side of the world
41:49to play their part in the war.
41:55In the area now,
41:57many Chinese have arrived.
41:58And they are employed by the English,
42:01so the British Army,
42:03to work.
42:05Yellow of colour,
42:06with a flat nose and slanted eyes,
42:10they always have
42:11a foolish grin on their face.
42:16So it happened
42:17that I passed them
42:19shortly before noon,
42:22and constantly they were saying,
42:24watch, watch,
42:25because they wanted to know
42:27how late it was.
42:28And I believe
42:30they were getting hungry,
42:31because when I showed them
42:32it was only five minutes to twelve,
42:35they were nodding
42:36constantly.
42:37Because they know
42:38that they're going to get their dinner.
42:39And then he writes indeed,
42:41then he wrote,
42:41it was nearly time
42:42to fill their bellies
42:44with their beloved rice.
42:46Their beloved rice?
42:47Their beloved rice,
42:48the Liefden Reist.
42:54Recruitment
42:54of the Chinese Labour Corps
42:56began in 1916,
42:58a desperate attempt
42:59to fill the gaping void
43:01in British manpower
43:02left by the Battle of the Somme.
43:05Impoverished Chinese peasants
43:07were recruited
43:08in their thousands
43:09from the country's
43:10north-eastern provinces.
43:12They spent months
43:14on a journey
43:14that took them
43:15across oceans
43:15and continents
43:16and arrived in Europe
43:18exhausted
43:19and disorientated.
43:21And they were assigned
43:23the war's dirty jobs,
43:25digging trenches,
43:26lugging ammo,
43:27burying bodies.
43:31But as the war continued,
43:33many found themselves
43:34propelled into new
43:35unexpected roles
43:37as skilled mechanics
43:38on a military technology
43:40that was making
43:41its debut in the war.
43:53This is Deborah,
43:55a British D-51 tank.
43:58In the winter of 1917,
44:01she was one of more
44:02than 300
44:03of these strange new beasts
44:05that lumbered
44:06towards the German lines.
44:11Deborah was dug up
44:12and recovered
44:1380 years later
44:14by her proud owner,
44:16Philippe Gozinski.
44:17For the French,
44:18it was an amazing scene.
44:20For him,
44:20the story of the tank
44:22and the story
44:22of the Chinese Labour Corps
44:24are inseparable.
44:26So in the First World War,
44:27this is the most high-tech,
44:29most complicated piece
44:30of machinery
44:31on the battlefield.
44:31Yes, it was like
44:32a Formula One.
44:34It was a new design,
44:36modern equipment
44:37with an engine.
44:38It was the new technology
44:42of the beginning
44:43of the century.
44:48The tanks were submitted
44:49to a very hard condition
44:51of driving
44:52but also of fighting.
44:54So when the tanks
44:55went into action,
44:56you have to imagine
44:57that those who are inside
44:58sometimes ask
44:59the maximum
45:00of their engine,
45:02of their tank.
45:03So as soon as
45:05the action was finished,
45:06the tank has to be
45:07completely repaired,
45:09re-put into
45:09a fighting condition.
45:11So for most of its time,
45:13a tank wasn't in the hands
45:14of soldiers
45:15and tank crews.
45:16It was with engineers
45:17behind the line
45:18being repaired
45:18and rebuilt.
45:20Yes, because I think
45:21that every tank
45:23went into
45:24the Chinese hands.
45:26In fact,
45:26they were crucial
45:27in the involvement
45:28of the tank
45:29into the First World War.
45:32This was hard work
45:34and it was dangerous work
45:35but it was also
45:36skilled mechanical work.
45:37Yes, because it needs
45:38very careful attention
45:39just for the engine,
45:41just for the gearbox
45:43of the tanks,
45:44just for all these
45:45kind of adjustments.
45:47So it needs people
45:48who are very careful
45:49and very meticulous.
45:51And that was also
45:52surprisingly,
45:53they have to work
45:54on both sides,
45:55very heavy
45:56and difficult tasks
45:57and also very meticulous work.
46:01They have to work
46:03seven days a week
46:04and sometimes
46:05more than 10 hours
46:07and many of them
46:10suffer from wounds.
46:11Some were killed.
46:14So it was really
46:15hard treatment
46:17and always in the middle
46:19of the mud,
46:19always in the middle
46:20of the grease.
46:22It was also
46:25a kind of hell.
46:34The story
46:35of the Chinese labor corps
46:37did not end
46:38with the end of the war.
46:40Many stayed on afterwards
46:41to clear up the mess.
46:43They filled in the trenches,
46:46recovered bodies,
46:47dug cemeteries,
46:49carved headstones.
46:52And many succumbed
46:54to the Spanish flu epidemic
46:55that raged after the war.
46:59There is, I think,
47:01something especially tragic
47:03about this place,
47:04a Chinese cemetery
47:05in the middle
47:06of a French farm.
47:07And most of these men
47:09were themselves just farmers
47:10from tiny villages.
47:11And all they wanted to do
47:13was to earn some money
47:14and see a little bit
47:15of the world.
47:16But 2,000 of them
47:17never made it home.
47:21It was their muscle
47:23and their ingenuity
47:24that kept the wheels
47:25of industrial warfare turning.
47:29But all of that,
47:30everything they'd done,
47:32everything they'd been through,
47:33quickly slipped from memory.
47:35Of all the many peoples
47:37who came to the Western Front
47:38in the First World War,
47:40the Chinese laborers
47:41are probably
47:42the most forgotten
47:43of the forgotten.
47:59In April 1917,
48:02the United States
48:03declared war on Germany.
48:05By the end of the year,
48:07tens of thousands
48:08of fresh troops
48:09were arriving in France
48:10to reinforce
48:11the weary Allied ranks.
48:18This is the grave
48:19of Freddy Stowers,
48:20an American corporal
48:21who was killed in action
48:23in September 1918,
48:24taking part
48:25in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive,
48:26one of the key turning points
48:28in the whole
48:28of the First World War.
48:30What's different
48:31about Corporal Stowers
48:32from most of the men
48:33buried in this
48:34American cemetery
48:35was that he fought his war
48:36in a French helmet.
48:38He carried a French rifle,
48:40he took orders
48:41from officers
48:41who were Frenchmen.
48:42And the reason for that,
48:45Freddy Stowers
48:45was an African-American.
48:49The commander
48:50of the American Expeditionary Force,
48:52General John Pershing,
48:53had refused to lead
48:54black soldiers into battle.
48:57Most of the third
48:58of a million African-Americans
48:59drafted into the U.S. Army
49:01had been sent to work
49:02behind the lines
49:03in segregated
49:04labor battalions.
49:10There were a handful
49:11of black combat units
49:13and General Pershing's
49:14refusal to lead them
49:15turned them into
49:16an orphaned army.
49:17The French called them
49:18les enfants perdu,
49:19the lost children.
49:21First, the British
49:22were asked to train them
49:23in the arts of trench warfare,
49:24but they said no.
49:25But the French army
49:26welcomed them
49:27into their ranks,
49:28ranks that, after all,
49:29were full already
49:30of black soldiers
49:31from the French Empire.
49:35Most of the black
49:36American soldiers
49:37who came to France
49:38were from the South.
49:39And what they encountered
49:40here was a society
49:42that had its own prejudices,
49:43but that was still
49:44radically more tolerant
49:46and integrated
49:47than segregation-era America.
49:53in 1914, 54 black men
49:55had been lynched
49:56in the States.
49:57And in the South,
49:58black people lived
49:58under a set of racial laws
50:00that were really
50:00not that dissimilar
50:01from the laws
50:02of apartheid
50:03U.S. South Africa.
50:05What astonished
50:06the black troops
50:06when they got here
50:07were the simple things,
50:08that they could go out
50:09to the cafes,
50:10that they could travel
50:11in the same railway carriages
50:12as whites,
50:13that they could talk
50:14to white women
50:15on the street.
50:15And that's something
50:16that could get you killed
50:17in the American South.
50:19One soldier wrote home
50:20to his mother,
50:21saying the only time
50:22he was ever reminded
50:23in France
50:23that he was black
50:24was when he looked
50:25at his own face
50:26in the mirror.
50:30Something of a love affair
50:31developed between France
50:33and black America.
50:34Unlike France's
50:35own black troops,
50:36recruited from West Africa
50:38and regarded by many
50:39French civilians
50:40as uncultured
50:41and primitive,
50:43America's black troops
50:44were seen as sophisticated,
50:46urbane,
50:46and as irresistible
50:47as their new style of music.
50:50Behind the lines parties
50:52would sow the seeds
50:53for the post-war passion
50:55for le jazz.
50:58But the American military
51:00viewed this love affair
51:01with mounting horror.
51:03French acceptance
51:04of black Americans
51:05as equals
51:06threatened to undermine
51:07the foundations
51:08of segregated America.
51:13The music had to stop.
51:17This is a copy
51:18of The Crisis,
51:20which was the magazine
51:21of the National Association
51:23for the Advancement
51:24of Coloured People,
51:24the NAACP,
51:26which is an American
51:27civil rights movement
51:28that still exists today.
51:29And this edition,
51:31from May 1919,
51:33is a celebration
51:35of what it calls
51:35the American Negroes'
51:37record in the Great World War,
51:39a record of loyalty,
51:41valour,
51:42and achievement.
51:43But on page 16,
51:45there's a section
51:46called Documents of the War.
51:48And the most important document
51:50is this one,
51:51Secret Information
51:52Concerning Black American Troops.
51:55This was written
51:56by the French military mission
51:57on the orders
51:58of the Americans.
52:00And what this is,
52:01is a list of instructions,
52:02of demands
52:03placed on the French
52:05by the Americans
52:05on how they were expected
52:07to treat
52:08black American soldiers.
52:10It begins,
52:11although a citizen
52:13of the United States,
52:14the black man is regarded
52:15by white Americans
52:16as an inferior being,
52:18with whom relations
52:20of business
52:21or service only
52:22are possible.
52:23The black is constantly
52:24being censored
52:25for his want of intelligence
52:27and discretion,
52:28for his lack of civic
52:29and professional conscience,
52:31and for his tendency
52:32towards undue familiarity.
52:38We must prevent,
52:40it says,
52:40the rise of any
52:41pronounced degree
52:42of intimacy
52:43between French officers
52:45and black officers.
52:46We must not eat with them,
52:48must not shake hands,
52:49or seek to meet
52:50or talk with them
52:51outside of the requirements
52:53of military service.
52:56We must not commend
52:58too highly
52:58the black American troops,
53:00particularly in the presence
53:02of white Americans.
53:04We must make the point
53:05of keeping the native population,
53:07they mean the white
53:08French population,
53:09from spoiling the Negroes.
53:11White Americans
53:12become greatly incensed
53:14by any expression
53:15of intimacy
53:16between white women
53:18and black men.
53:22But French officers
53:23had more pressing concerns
53:25than shoring up
53:26America's race barrier,
53:28and the so-called
53:29French directive
53:30was suppressed.
53:33By September 1918,
53:35they and their
53:36black American troops
53:37were involved
53:38in what became known
53:39as the 100 Days Offensive,
53:42the final bloody push
53:43to drive the Germans
53:45back to the Rhine.
53:48Early on the morning
53:49of the 26th of September,
53:51Freddy Stowers
53:52and his company
53:52received orders
53:53to take a heavily
53:55defended hill
53:55infested with
53:57German machine gun nests.
54:01When the German troops
54:02appeared to surrender,
54:03Stowers led his men forward.
54:05But it was a trap.
54:06The machine guns opened up
54:07and he was hit twice.
54:09But somehow,
54:10he managed to lead his men
54:11and take the German positions.
54:14He died on the battle
54:16field,
54:16an American soldier
54:18in a French helmet.
54:22Stowers was recommended
54:23for the highest
54:24U.S. military accolade,
54:26the Medal of Honor.
54:27But it would be
54:28more than 70 years
54:29before the recommendation
54:31was processed.
54:33His sisters
54:35finally received the medal
54:36on his behalf
54:37in 1991.
54:45The 100 days' offensive
54:47ended with a crippled
54:48Germany signing an armistice
54:50on the 11th of November.
54:58With the fighting over,
55:00the black regiments
55:01returned to the United States,
55:03many with French medals
55:04pinned to their chests.
55:08Some march down
55:09New York's Fifth Avenue
55:11as proud heroes.
55:14But the American South
55:16marked their homecoming
55:17in other ways.
55:21Within a year,
55:22eight black veterans
55:23who had survived
55:24the horrors of the Western Front
55:25were hanged
55:26by white lynch mobs.
55:29Two others
55:30were burnt alive.
55:31In one case,
55:32the victim's only offense
55:34was to refuse to take off
55:36his army uniform.
55:39During four years of fighting,
55:42Europe's imperial powers
55:43had broken all the rules
55:45of the game of empire.
55:47They'd armed
55:48their colonial subjects,
55:50brought them
55:51to the heart of Europe
55:52and ordered them
55:53to kill whites.
55:58The carefully constructed myth
56:00of white superiority
56:01had been dismembered
56:03in the carnage
56:04of the fighting.
56:06But the war didn't lead
56:08to the disintegration
56:09of empire.
56:13In the years after 1918,
56:15the genies
56:16were put back
56:17in their bottles.
56:19The victorious empires
56:21of Europe
56:22continued to grow.
56:27Colonial soldiers
56:28were told,
56:28thanks very much,
56:30now back to your villages,
56:32back to inequality,
56:33back to how things were.
56:35Let's forget
56:36it ever happened.
56:39A history was constructed
56:41which quietly eclipsed
56:43their contributions
56:44and left a collective memory
56:46of an almost exclusively
56:48white conflict.
56:55If you want to see
56:56a fitting memorial
56:57to the world's war,
56:59you have to travel
57:00to present-day Zambia,
57:01deep in the bush
57:03near the Chambizi River.
57:07It was here
57:08that General
57:09Paul von Letov-Vorbeck
57:11and the ragged remnants
57:12of his Ascari army
57:13were persuaded
57:14to lay down their arms
57:16by a British bureaucrat.
57:18He told them
57:20that the guns
57:20of the Western Front
57:21had finally fallen silent,
57:25three days early.
57:30The world's war
57:31was fought
57:31by African Ascari's,
57:33the men who took part
57:34in the very last
57:35engagements of the conflict
57:36in these fields.
57:38It was fought
57:38by the Indians
57:39who'd held back
57:40the German advance
57:40of 1914,
57:42by French TIAs
57:44who took part
57:44in the recapture
57:45of Fort Duomont
57:46of Verdun,
57:47by the Chinese labourers
57:49who dug the trenches
57:50and repaired the tanks,
57:52and by the men
57:53of the Crescent Camp
57:53who found themselves
57:54recruited into the Kaiser's
57:56strange jihad.
57:57And now,
57:58a century later,
58:00we are just beginning,
58:02perhaps,
58:03to write them
58:03back into the history
58:05of the First World War.
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