Continuing my efforts to improve my knowledge of China, I'm finding the China Specials from Penguin very interesting...

From the Tsar's Railway to the Red Army: The Experience of Chinese Labourers in Russia during the First World War and Bolshevik Revolution by Mark O'Neill reveals aspects of WW1 history that link Tsarist Russia with the fledgling Republic of China through the use of Chinese labourers to prop up Russia's industrial shortcomings. Wikipedia has nothing to say about this, claiming only that:

China participated in World War I from 1917 to 1918 in an alliance with the Entente Powers. Although China never sent troops overseas, 140,000 Chinese labourers (as a part of the British Army, the Chinese Labour Corps) served for both British and French forces before the end of the war. (Wikipedia 'China during World War I' lightly edited to remove unnecessary links, viewed 7/1/24).

But the blurb for Mark O'Neill's book says otherwise...
People pity the fate of the Romanovs and rightly so, but it should not be forgotten that the Tsar's refusal to reform meant that he presided over an economy that was a basket case. Militarily and economically, Russia was the weakest of the great powers and its industries were too backward to equip its army for a mechanised war.

In 1914, 85 per cent of the Russian population were peasants living at a subsistence level, and the national literacy rate of those over the age of nine was 40 per cent. While the country grew enormous quantities of food, with grain accounting for 90 per cent of arable farming, it produced few manufactured goods and imported 70 per cent of its machinery; even agricultural implements such as axes, sickles and scythes were brought into the country. During the war, 20 per cent of its bullets, 40 per cent of its rifles and 60 per cent of its machine guns, airplanes and motor vehicles were imported. Russia borrowed US$4.5 billion, nearly all of it from Britain and France – a debt that the new Soviet government would repudiate in 1918; it was the largest default in history, and a major reason why the Western powers would oppose the new regime and try to overthrow it. (Loc 142-3)

The war in the east was different to the trench warfare in France and Belgium.

The war was fought over a distance of more than 1600 kilometres, stretching from St Petersburg in the north to the Black Sea in the south, from the Baltic Sea in the west to Minsk in the east. The density of soldiers was lower and the lines were easier to break. Once a line was broken, the large distances and weak communication networks made it hard for the defender to bring reinforcements, which resulted in an enormous number of Russian soldiers being taken prisoner by the German and Austro-Hungarian forces. Historian Nik Cornish put the figure at five million, more than three times the total of 1.3 million British, French and German soldiers taken prisoner during the war. A war of attrition set in on this vast Eastern Front. (Loc 156)

Desperately short of manpower, and (unlike Britain and France who could recruit from their colonies) Russia turned to China. Beijing supported recruitment provided China's neutrality would be maintained, and diplomats in China set up model contracts outlining 'reasonable' working conditions. But in a chapter titled 'The mountains are high and the emperor is far away' O'Neill shows just how badly these labourers fared...

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/01/07/from-the-tsars-railway-to-the-red-army-2014-... ( )