Chinese participation on Western Front not just as labourers

OK, just read another HISTORY TODAY article last wk bout the Chinese Labour Corps in France during 1916-18, and the virtually forgotten memorial to them- compared to all the national memorials of the Britisih & Dominion forces. Is there any way that Chinese involvement in Europe during WWI could've entailed a combat contribution, as opposed to just labourers ? Could there have been say Chinese soldiers using similar methods to the Boxer Rebellion goin over the top similarly to the British Indian or French African colonial troops ? With what effect on China's status at Versailles & other post-war developments ?
 

Hendryk

Banned
Indeed, some 140,000 Chinese workers were sent to France to help with the war effort. Many were affected to such tasks as trench-digging, body-collecting and mine-clearing, the last assignment causing thousands of deaths in their ranks. It would certainly have been possible to give them minimal training and use them in the same capacity as colonial troops. However, this would need changing the contracts they signed before coming, since those specifically ruled out their being used in a combat capacity.

I'm not sure, however, whether this would have made a difference at Versailles. By then China was in the throes of warlordism and the other belligerents did not consider its demands worthy of serious consideration.
 
Can't see the motive. If China wanted to fight the Germans they could do it at Tsingtao where they could recover the territory. Fighting in Europe for a promise of Tsingtao's return at the end of the war would make no sense at all. Besides, the European intervention in 1900 was still fresh in people's minds, why would they want to die for Europeans?

Suppose the Entente Powers make it worth China's while, you'll probably need somebody like Duan Qirui in power instead of Yuan Shikai. Chinese troops would certainly not be fighting like the Boxers which was a popular uprising, not an army.
 

Hendryk

Banned
Besides, the European intervention in 1900 was still fresh in people's minds, why would they want to die for Europeans?
At that time in Chinese history, soldiers were dying because Warlord A had decided to make Warlord B his enemy of the week. I don't think it would make all that much of a difference for them to go fighting in Europe rather than China--soldier was a considered the lowest of all jobs, something you did when you were too dumb to become a highway robber (in fact the difference between soldiering and highway robbery had practically become moot by then). However controversial the idea would have been to the politically aware urban elites, there would have been no shortage of destitute men willing to put on a uniform and go fight in the very trenches that their fellow coolies were digging in Flanders.

And even then I don't think the intellectual class would have framed the issue in terms of "dying for Europe", but rather in terms of showing that the Chinese were ready to pay the price of blood to be taken seriously at the negotiating table.

Suppose the Entente Powers make it worth China's while, you'll probably need somebody like Duan Qirui in power instead of Yuan Shikai.
It could happen in my TL. It's not something I've focused on so far since it wouldn't make much of a difference either way, just a few extra divisions of suppletive infantry for the French and British to expend on the battlefield.

Chinese troops would certainly not be fighting like the Boxers which was a popular uprising, not an army.
Quite right. Not sure why the OP mentioned the Boxers at all, they aren't a relevant comparison.
 
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