Regions South and South East Asia

Survey Articles (Regional)

• Burma

  By Michael W. Charney

  

  Burma’s participation in World War I was limited mainly to the provision of troops and engineering units to the Palestine and Mesopotamian Fronts as well as labourers to the Western Front and … READ MORE

  Regional

• Indochina

  By Claire Thi Liên Trân

  

  Indochina contributed significantly to the French war effort in terms of funds, products and human resources. Around 93,000 volunteers, soldiers and workers went to France on the home front and the … READ MORE

  Regional

• Philippines

  By Ricardo Jose

  World War I seemed distant to most Filipinos, who were focused on fighting for independence. The passage of the Jones Law in 1916 made independence a distinct possibility, and led many Filipinos to … READ MORE

  Regional

• Siam

  By Stefan Hell

  Siam (Thailand) declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary in mid-1917. In 1918 it sent a small expeditionary force to France, the only troops of an independent Southeast Asian country to … READ MORE

  Regional

Regional Thematic Articles

• Between Acceptance and Refusal - Soldiers' Attitudes Towards War (Indochina)

  By Kimloan Vu-Hill

  

  This paper provides a brief account of the experiences of the Vietnamese who went to Europe as soldiers during World War I. It shows that, contrary to a common belief among many historians that they … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Centenary (Singapore)

  By Kevin Blackburn

  

  Between 2014 and 2018, there were no state-organized events to mark the centenary of the First World War in Singapore. This contrasts with the state-sanctioned commemoration of the Second World War, … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Centenary (Thailand)

  By Bhawan Ruangsilp and Din Buadaeng

  

  On 22 July 1917, King Vajiravudh of Siam declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. In the following year, the royal government sent the expeditionary force of 1,284 Siamese volunteers to assist … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Colonial Society (Indochina)

  By Pierre Brocheux

  

  When World War I broke out, the military conquest of the countries located between China, Siam and the South China Sea had been over for two decades. Nonetheless, French rule in Indochina was not … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Commemoration, Cult of the Fallen (India)

  By Rana Chhina and Adil Chhina

  

  The betrayal of popular political aspirations by the colonial state, followed by severe repression, resulted in the “Punjab Uprising” and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919. Unfolding … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Commemoration, Cult of the Fallen (Indochina)

  By Eric Thomas Jennings

  

  Memorials designed to commemorate Indochina’s war dead were generally spearheaded by French agencies and commissions. The act of commemoration was laden with a variety of meanings. The question of … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Food and Nutrition (Indochina)

  By Erica J. Peters

  

  The diet of most people in Indochina during World War I was influenced more by climate and crop yields than by the war itself. Due to increased trade within Asia, the French colony did not suffer … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Health and Medicine (India)

  By Samiksha Sehrawat

  

  Initially, medical arrangements for Indian troops in France and England were poorly organized, but in 1915, Indian war hospitals in England became cornerstones of British imperial war propaganda. The … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Historiography 1918-Today (India)

  By Florian Stadtler

  This article details the historiography of South Asian involvement in the First World War. It traces the process from early examples, such as the battle histories written by J.W.B. Merewether and … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Indochinese Workers in France (Indochina)

  By Kimloan Vu-Hill

  

  About 49,000 Vietnamese workers went to France during World War I. Although their jobs and their working experiences varied, they shared some common experiences which changed their outlook on life … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Labour (India)

  By Radhika Singha

  

  Of the 1.4 million Indians recruited for the First World War, some 563,369 were non-combatants, or “followers”, though their particular kind of war-work is rarely mentioned in the literature. Yet … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Literature (India)

  By Santanu Das

  

  In spite of the global turn in First World War historiography, the colour of the Great War and modern ''literary'' memory remains predominantly white. This article challenges such Eurocentrism and … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Making Sense of the War (India)

  By Claude Markovits

  Although India was not a theatre of war, World War I produced a major inflexion in a historical trajectory that had been marked since 1815 by a certain degree of insulation from the ebb and flow of … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Military Planning and Wartime Recruitment (India)

  By David Omissi

  

  In 1914, the Indian army was a modest colonial force of 159,134 serving Indian troops (officers and men), alongside 2,333 British officers. The Indian army proved to be unprepared for a major war. … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Post-war Societies (India)

  By Sumit Sarkar

  

  The decades between the two world wars seethed with tumultuous and momentous events. A complex pattern of opportunities and crises in the aftermath of the First World War inspired diverse agitations … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Press/Journalism (India)

  By Andrew Tait Jarboe

  

  India hosted a vibrant and active wartime press: one that while generally supportive of the war and of recruiting efforts, nonetheless agitated for a host of reforms as the war went on. Subjected to … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Prisoners of War (India)

  By Heike Liebau

  

  During the First World War South Asian combatants and non-combatants were taken prisoner in France, Belgium, Mesopotamia, East Africa and other theatres of war. The conditions under which POWs were … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Religious Missionaries and the Colonial State (Indochina)

  By Charles Keith

  

  The Great War helped to ease the Church-state tensions that had shaped French politics and society during the preceding generation. However, the very different context of the French colonial empire … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Responses to the War (India)

  By Santanu Das

  

  Responses to the war in British India (comprising today’s India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma), like the war experiences of the 1 million Indians who served abroad, were neither monolithic nor … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Revolutionary Networks (India)

  By Gajendra Singh

  

  Revolutionary movements in India haunted the imagination of post-war British officialdom. They were used in the aftermath of the First World War to justify everything from colonial massacres to the … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Sepoy Letters (India)

  By David Omissi

  

  Indian soldiers were sent to Europe in 1914, and some of them were to serve there until 1918. Throughout their stay in Europe, Indian soldiers wrote and received letters. Translated excerpts from … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Social Conflict and Control, Protest and Repression (Indochina)

  By Patrice Morlat

  

  Vietnamese resistance to French colonial rule had begun before the war and continued throughout it. The Duy Tan League, founded in 1904, was the most significant of the revolutionary resistance … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Warfare 1914-1918 (India)

  By George Morton-Jack

  This article reconsiders the military role and performance of the British Empire’s Indian Army overseas in the First World War. It argues that the Indian soldiers were adaptive within a global … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• War Losses (India)

  By Andrew Tait Jarboe

  

  Some 1.5 million Indians served in the Indian Army during World War I and, of those, slightly more than one million deployed to battlefronts spanning Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. At the … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Women's Mobilization for War (India)

  By Santanu Das

  

  This article recovers the wartime experiences, writings, and songs of women from undivided India. To do so, the article argues for a shift in the very understanding of war from “combat” to … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

Encyclopedic Entries

• Amritsar, Massacre of

  By Gajendra Singh

  

  This entry explains the Amritsar Massacre of 13 April 1919. It charts the events of the Massacre itself and the colonialist and nationalist imaginings of the Massacre that … READ MORE

  Entry

• Berlin Indian Independence Committee

  By Heike Liebau

  During the First World War, Berlin became an organisational hub for Indian nationalist and revolutionary activities. By September 1914, a group of South Asian emigrants had organized – with … READ MORE

  Entry

• Besant, Annie

  By Maria Framke

  

  Annie Besant (1847-1933) was a British supporter of Indian nationalism. During World War I she propagated self-government for India and set up the All-India Home Rule League. Her political work … READ MORE

  Entry

• Chattopadhyaya, Virendranath

  By Heike Liebau

  Virendranath Chattopadhyaya belonged to the transnational networks of Indian political activists who, during the first decades of the 20^th century, carried out anti-imperial and … READ MORE

  Entry

• Dayal, Har

  By Sunit Singh

  

  Har Dayal was one of the chief architects of a quixotically sketched blueprint to effect a republican-socialist revolution in British India during the First World … READ MORE

  Entry

• Empire

  By Erez Manela

  

  World War I was not simply a conflict among European states but a global war of empires. The fighting took place not only in Europe, but also in Africa, Asia, and across the Middle East, and it … READ MORE

  Entry

• Ghadar Conspiracy

  By Sunit Singh

  

  Although sometimes characterized as a quixotically hatched scheme to overthrow British rule in India, the Ghadar “conspiracy” is best understood as a failed bid to foment a democratic revolution … READ MORE

  Entry

• Gurkha

  By Gajendra Singh

  

  This entry historicizes myths of the ''Gurkha'' in contemporary Britain, India and Nepal. It charts the invention of the ''Gurkha'' through British colonial fantasies of the martial race, the … READ MORE

  Entry

• Hindostan (newspaper)

  By Heike Liebau

  ''Hindostan'' was a propaganda periodical for South Asian prisoners of war in the so-called ''Inderlager'' (Camp of Indians), a segregated area within the ''Halbmondlager'' (Half Moon Camp) in … READ MORE

  Entry

• Hồ Chí Minh

  By Pierre Brocheux

  

  The Great War had a decisive influence on Hồ Chí Minh. In France, his acquaintance with the history of the 1789 French Revolution drove him to socialism, then to the 1917 Russian Revolution in its … READ MORE

  Entry

• Howell, Evelyn Berkeley, Sir

  By Gajendra Singh

  

  Evelyn Berkeley Howell was appointed Chief Censor of Indian military correspondence in France in the winter of 1914. The thousands of letters that he and his staff translated and transcribed … READ MORE

  Entry

• Indian Expeditionary Force

  By Claude Markovits

  

  An Indian Expeditionary Force was sent to France and Belgium in September 1914 and held part of the frontline against the German army until October 1915, sustaining 22,000 casualties. Although its … READ MORE

  Entry

• Indian Labour Corps

  By Radhika Singha

  

  By December 1919, India had raised a total of 877,068 combatants and 563,369 non-combatants for the Great War. The latter included the Indian Labour and Porter Corps whose particular war experience, … READ MORE

  Entry

• Khilafat Movement

  By Gail Minault

  

  The Khilafat movement was an agitation by Indian Muslims, allied with Indian nationalists, to pressure the British government to preserve the authority of the Ottoman Sultan as Caliph of Islam after … READ MORE

  Entry

• Lascar

  By Florian Stadtler and Rozina Visram

  Lascar seamen and other sailors from the British Empire were deployed on vessels of the merchant marine and ocean liners to transport goods and passengers across the world. Hired predominantly by … READ MORE

  Entry

• Martial Races, Theory of

  By Heike Liebau

  

  The notion of “martial races” was formally developed and codified in the wake of the Indian Uprising of 1857 and became an important basis for the recruitment policy of the Indian Army. … READ MORE

  Entry

• Portuguese India

  By Célia Reis

  Although not directly involved in military operations, Portuguese India was linked to World War I through the capture of German and Austrian ships and the imprisonment of their crewmen. This period … READ MORE

  Entry

• Portuguese Timor

  By Célia Reis

  The Portuguese territory of Timor was affected by the war mainly because of its proximity to the Dutch colony, the Dutch East Indies. Furthermore, without lines of transportation and communication, … READ MORE

  Entry

• Punjab Disturbances 1919

  By Ahmad Azhar

  This entry revisits the political upheavals that swept across several towns and cities of Punjab in April 1919, in protest against the passage of the Rowlatt Act in the Imperial Legislative Council. … READ MORE

  Entry

• Townshend, Charles Vere Ferrers, Sir

  By Justin Fantauzzo

  

  Sir Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend commanded the 6^th (Poona) Division in Mesopotamia between April 1915 and April … READ MORE

  Entry

• War Poetry

  By Jane Potter

  

  This article examines the concept of war poetry and considers the range of poetic responses generated by the Great War from an international … READ MORE

  Entry

• Wilsonian Moment

  By Erez Manela

  

  The wake of the Great War saw mobilizations against empire across the world, with many adopting the language of self-determination popularized by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. While Wilson and the … READ MORE

  Entry

See also

• Alliance System 1914

  By Günther Kronenbitter

  

  Alliances were an important feature of the international system on the eve of World War I. The formation of rival blocs of Great Powers has previously considered a major cause of the outbreak of war … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Bereavement and Mourning

  By Manfred Hettling and Tino Schölz

  

  In the modern era, new forms of mourning and meaning-making for fallen soldiers emerged. The human losses of the First World War were largely mourned, honoured and remembered within … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Colonial Empires after the War/Decolonization

  By James E. Kitchen

  

  The First World War saw the colonial empires of France and Britain mobilised to aid European and imperial war efforts. This mobilisation and the difficulties of demobilisation placed considerable … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Commemoration, Cult of the Fallen

  By Stéphane Tison

  

  The First World War ushered in an unprecedented wave of commemorations. Mass death elicited a construction spree in memorial objects and sites across all countries and territories involved in the … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Demobilization

  By Gearóid Barry

  

  The end of fighting in 1918 raised hopes for swift and equitable military demobilization amongst soldiers and civilians. The timing and nature of demobilization varied greatly, though, due to … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Destruction of the Ecosystem

  By Tait Keller

  

  This article examines the First World War’s ecological impact and shows that protracted environmental transformations resulted more from expanded industrial modes of production than heavy combat. … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Extra-European Theatres of War

  By Michelle Moyd

  

  The extra-European theatres of World War I have received far less scholarly attention than the war in Europe. This state of affairs is hardly surprising given the sheer magnitude of the Western Front … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Health, Disease, Mortality; Demographic Effects

  By Doina Anca Cretu

  The rapid spread of epidemics ravaged military personnel and civilians in and outside Europe’s warzones during the Great War. Further, the great influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 became a global … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Influenza Pandemic

  By Howard Phillips

  

  By examining the origins, pathways, demographic impact and consequences for the public, the medical profession and governments, of the so-called “Spanish” influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, this … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Non-European Soldiers

  By Richard Fogarty and Andrew Tait Jarboe

  

  This article examines the use by Great Britain and France of colonial subjects from their empires to fight during the First World War. Other Great War soldiers hailed from locations outside of … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Post-war Economies

  By Dietmar Rothermund

  

  Post-war economies were beset with problems, ultimately leading to the Great Depression that ruined the world economy and resulted in “beggar-thy-neighbour” national policies. Roosevelt’s … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Raw Materials

  By Pierre Chancerel

  

  Raw materials were vital during the First World War. Due to the armaments production, the belligerents’ needs increased significantly, while the available resources fell. Each country intended both … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Rural Society

  By Matteo Ermacora

  

  The paper describes the impact of war on peasantry and its mobilisation in the war effort. While observers portrayed the countryside as rich and callous towards urban shortages or waging war, the … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Sea Transport and Supply

  By Michael B. Miller

  

  Allied capacity at sea to sustain global transport and supply determined their ability to prevail in the First World War. The deployment of convoys to triumph over submarine warfare was an important … READ MORE

  Thematic

• The Paris Peace Conference and its Consequences

  By Alan Sharp

  

  This article offers an overview of peacemaking after the First World War from the armistices of 1918 until 1923. It considers the outcomes of the five Parisian treaties (Versailles, Saint-Germain and … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Women’s Mobilization for War

  By Susan R. Grayzel

  

  This article explores women’s economic, social, and political responses to the First World War. It addresses their mobilization including their engagement with the war effort as well as their … READ MORE

  Thematic