From 1916 to 1918 some 140,000 Chinese labourers headed for Europe, where they provided urgently needed manpower for a continent at war. The labourers worked in ammunition factories, constructed roads and worked as dockers. After the war the labourers cleared the battlefield and buried the dead.

The labourers were employed on three- or five-year contracts. Most of them returned to China after the war. About 2,000 died in Europe and are still at rest in the military cemeteries of Belgium and Northern France.

Picture: Chinese labourers passing through the Belgian village of Vlamertinghe on their way to Ypres after the war.