 Welcome to the Brunei-Galloway's exhibition Western Front Eastern Promises Photography, Trench art and iconography of the Chinese labour corps in the Great War. On the 1st of January 1912 after more than 2,000 years of Imperial rule the Republic of China was born ending a century of unrest under the decaying dynasty that had lasted since 1644. The war that erupted in Europe in 1914 was uniquely catastrophic, a total war incorporating massive citizen armies and modern weapons with industrial killing power. After their initial advance was halted Germany sought to build an impenetrable wall that the French and British armies would be repeatedly forced to assault in order to remove the invaders from the occupied territory. By the summer of 1916 the Battle of the Somme had been launched. The tally of British casualties by the end of August 1916 had reached 800,000 men and the pressing need for men at the front was draining the back areas. The forecasts for the manpower necessary for the planned offensives in 1917 finally persuaded Britain to follow France's lead and approach the Chinese nation. By October 1916 arrangements were being made to recruit 50,000 men in the British Least Territory of Weihaiwei. With the Mediterranean route deemed too dangerous and the passage around Africa being too long the British began transporting their labourers via Canada taking them by ship to Vancouver then by train across to Halifax Nova Scotia where they would board steamers for the last leg of their passage across the Atlantic. As the labourers began to arrive in France on the 21st of February 1917 the British Army's Chinese Labour Corps was officially formed. The CLC took responsibility for many logistical tasks unloading ships at the French ports and loading and unloading trains and lorries with stores and equipment at depots around France and Belgium. More skilled groups of Chinese men soon began to work as aircraft and tank engineers maintaining and repairing these critical elements of the offensive and defensive roles of the British expeditionary force in France. The first Chinese arrived at the central tank workshops in Errin in August 1917. After the failure of the Third Battle of Ypres to provide the breakthrough that had been hoped for the planned Battle of Cambrai with the first use of mass tanks placed a huge burden on the men at Errin. At the end of October orders came through for the men to create 450 facines. These were huge 1.8 ton bundles of brushwood 3 meters long and over 3 meters in diameter used by the tanks to fill German trenches and allowed tanks to cross them. Also during these fevered preparations 127 damaged tanks mainly recovered from the fighting around Ypres were transported to the Errin workshops for overhaul and repair ready for future use. The Battle of Cambrai finally gave the British some positive results with the Germans seemingly impregnable Hindenburg line being breached for the first time. Major General John Fuller recalled that the central workshops were working 22 and a half hours out of every 24 without a break and had it not been for the grit to spade by all ranks the Battle of Cambrai could not have been fought and without this battle the whole course of the war might have been changed. While the Chinese labor status as non military meant officially that they should be working well away from the front line the increasing range of aircraft, airships and artillery meant that by 1917 when they arrived nowhere in northern France or Belgium was immune from danger. During the first world fury of the last German offensive in lower Piccadilly when a break was so nearly made in the English lines a detachment of Chinese demolishing a bridge were caught face to face with the onrushing Huns instead of surrendering they fought stubbornly with picks and shovels against the bayonets of their foes some of them picked up the rifles of dead men and fired them in the faces of the Germans after a number of Chinese have been killed the detachment was rescued by the British while their contracts required the men to work every day with only a few days off for Chinese New Year and other national holidays weekly time off was later introduced and the men had free time to engage in other activities the Chinese were great fans of theatrical performances not only to watch but also eager to perform and help to prepare for great preparations were also made for the New Year celebrations themselves with dragon costumes stilt walkers and all manner of performance art on show the Chinese were renowned for their love of gambling this was a key reason why their wages were separated with a portion being given to the men each week while the remainder was paid directly to their family in China despite being banned gambling was rife and they would gamble on everything and anything one commander noted that they gambled on the amount of the fine for gambling I would award a prisoner a dedicated hospital opened at Noyalseumir eventually becoming a 1500 bed hospital including surgical wards an x-ray unit laboratories and even a large kitchen garden supplying fresh vegetables to the patients knowing how fond the Chinese were of birds the commanding officer at the hospital managed to acquire enough canaries to have one in a cage in each ward outside a 15 foot wooden pagoda was built painstakingly painted in the bright colors of a pagoda back home in China the Chinese cemetery at Noyalseumir contains 841 graves with almost a thousand other CLC men buried in cemeteries elsewhere in France while the original burials were marked with wooden crosses painted by their fellow laborers eventually these were replaced with the Portland stone headstones common to all those who fell in the war maintaining the close companionship with their fallen comrades but also to ensure the Chinese text was correct men of the CLC were used by the War Graves Commission to carve the headstones for the Chinese labor corps graves across France once the Armistice had been signed and the armies began to return home the CLC became the main labor force clear in the battlefields filling in hundreds of miles of trenches dugouts and craters clearing acres of rusting and tangled barbed wire removing all the surface debris the unexploded shells the wreckage and of course the bodies a key role was a dismantling of thousands of tons of ammunition left in France by the departed armies of all nations everything from rifle bullets to colossal artillery shells and mortars had to be carefully broken down into their component parts to be recycled or destroyed as French and Belgian residents returned to their shattered villages to begin their lives again the presence of the Chinese laborers increasingly became a point of friction with the Chinese being blamed often unfairly for the crimes and misfortunes that befell the locals but there were many examples of the Chinese showing their caring side to the impoverished population at Versailles the new Republic of China had high expectations for their role over the previous three years on the global stage unfortunately under a secret agreement already reached before the conference all German possessions in the Pacific north of the equator were given to Japan in protest at the decisions of the conference the May the 4th movement was founded when 4,000 students gathered at Tiananmen in Beijing on that day in 1919 the following day students in cities across China went on strike and a movement quickly snowballed with unions and workers aligning to the cause it was upon this wave of disaffection and feelings have been deceived by the rest of the world that the foundations of communism in China were laid despite their disappointment at Versailles the men of the CLC remained in France finishing off their vital work and slowly winding down as battlefield tourism began the artisans of the Chinese labor corps saw new opportunities as evidenced by the objects in this exhibition Chinese laborers turn their hands to making souvenirs from the material they were collecting when clearing the battlefields there are some cultural icons that hold a uniquely powerful position with the Chinese the dragon is by some margin first among these super icons the founder of the Han people who make up the vast majority of Chinese population is said to be yandi whose mother was human and father was a dragon through the dragons primary position in Chinese history and cultural development it has come to symbolize China wise and compassionate they watch over the people they symbolize nobility solemnness holiness good fortune and an unrelenting and indomitable spirit this case depicts Liu Hai Chan as a child dancing on rocky ground with a string of Chinese coins sitting in the stream beside her is Liu's permanent companion Jin Chan a three-legged toad you was a 10th century Taoist immortal thought to be an embodiment of Kai Shen the god of wealth in Chinese folk religion use flowing robes are covered in plum blossom symbolizing hope the three-legged toad is a moon symbol counterpart to the Sun symbol of a three-legged crow and is sometimes known as a golden or money toad this impressive case has been intricately decorated with thousands of precise dots the series of four oblong cartouches in the lower half of the design depict the four treasures of the study used by gentlemen scholars to produce calligraphy considered the highest and most noble artistic expression could calligraphy require the artist to have a pure spirit and by including the four treasures here alongside the title panel salute an accolade is clearly being made to the fallen that this shell salutes this intricately engraved case shows rats scaling a vine to feast on the grapes while below a cat sits watching them the rat is a key animal in Chinese culture and said to have begun all life on earth their reputation for procreation means that the rat symbolizes fertility this is also the case with grapes with bunches of grapes containing many seeds for new vines the combination therefore tells the story of hope for new beginnings the thwarted cat below highlights a rat's heightened survival instincts versatility and ability to overcome dangers and outwit of the creatures the artist yin Qing would have hoped for all of those traits during his time in war-torn France