Getting the "Chinese War Participation Army" to deploy to the Western Front

Color-Copycat

With the aid of foreign loans and Japanese instructors, the warlord Tuan Ch'i Jui built up a (by Chinese standards) pretty formidable army with the intended goal of sending it to assist the Allies on the Western Front. The war ended before anyone could even consider to the remote possibility of sending the Chinese War Participation Army to Europe, but what does everyone here make of the idea?

Is it possible they might be used to garrison a quieter section of the front to free up troops for the big Allied offensives in '18, or would they have been used like American black units and employed as stevedores at the docks or perform other rear echelon supply/logistics/construction roles like the Chinese civilian laborers that the British and French shipped to the Western Front IOTL
 

profxyz

Probably as laborers and garrison troops. Racism was pretty fantastically prevalent back in the period and it's likely that there would have been a perception that the Chinese would flee before any German offensive - after all, the (popular) history of Chinese military prowess in the 19thC is overwhelmingly negative.

Of course, it's not likely that Duan Qirui's Chinese army would have actually managed to move to Western Europe anyway since by 1919, Duan's Anhui Clique was rapidly being eclipsed by the Zhili clique made up of Hebei and Manchurian warlords, and he definitely needed the forces to combat them for control of the Beiyang Government (which he lost in 1920 OTL).
 
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