Colonial Encounters in a Time of Global Conflict, 1914–1918 PDF
Preview Colonial Encounters in a Time of Global Conflict, 1914–1918
Colonial Encounters in a Time of Global Conflict, 1914–1918 This volume gathers an international cast of scholars to examine the unprecedented range of colonial encounters during the First World War. More than four million men of colour, and an even greater number of white Europeans and Americans, crisscrossed the globe. Others, in occupied areas, behind the warzone or in neutral countries, were nonetheless swept into the maelstrom. From local encounters in New Zealand, Britain and East Africa to army camps and hospitals in France and Mesopotamia, from cafes and clubs in Salonika and London, to anti-colonial networks in Germany, the USA and the Dutch East Indies, this volume examines the actions and experiences of a varied company of soldiers, medics, writers, photographers and revolutionaries to reconceptualise this conflict as a turning point in the history of global encounters. How did people interact across uneven intersections of nationality, race, gender, class, religion and language? How did encounters – direct and mediated, forced and unforced – shape issues from cross-racial intimacy and identity formation to anti-colonial networks, civil rights movements and visions of a post-war future? The 12 chapters delve into spaces and processes of encounter to explore how the conjoined realities of war, race and empire were experienced, recorded and instrumentalised. Santanu Das is Professor of English and Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Anna Maguire is a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. Daniel Steinbach is a historian of European colonial history and teaches at the University of Copenhagen. Routledge Studies in First World War History Series Editor John Bourne The University of Birmingham, UK The First World War is a subject of perennial interest to historians and is often regarded as a watershed event, marking the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the ‘modern’ industrial world. The sheer scale of the conflict and massive loss of life means that it is constantly being assessed and reassessed to examine its lasting military, political, sociological, industrial, cultural and economic impact. Reflecting the latest international scholarly research, the Routledge Studies in First World War History series provides a unique platform for the publication of monographs on all aspects of the Great War. Whilst the main thrust of the series is on the military aspects of the conflict, other related areas (including cultural, visual, literary, political and social) are also addressed. Books published are aimed primarily at a post-graduate academic audience, furthering exciting recent interpretations of the war, whilst still being accessible enough to appeal to a wider audience of educated lay readers. Spain and Argentina in the First World War Transnational Neutralities Maximiliano Fuentes Codera The Global First World War African, East Asian, Latin American and Iberian Mediators Edited by Ana Paula Pires, Jan Schmidt, and María Inés Tato After the Armistice Empire, Endgame and Aftermath Edited by Michael J.K. Walsh and Andrekos Varnava Colonial Encounters in a Time of Global Conflict, 1914–1918 Edited by Santanu Das, Anna Maguire and Daniel Steinbach For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ history/series/WWI Colonial Encounters in a Time of Global Conflict, 1914–1918 Edited by Santanu Das, Anna Maguire and Daniel Steinbach First published 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Santanu Das, Anna Maguire and Daniel Steinbach; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Santanu Das, Anna Maguire and Daniel Steinbach to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-08210-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-07210-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-11267-1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781315112671 Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents List of figures vii Acknowledgements ix Colonial encounters in a time of global conflict: an introduction 1 SANTANU DAS, ANNA MAGUIRE AND DANIEL STEINBACH PART I Spaces: camp, city, colony 35 1 ‘A pageant of empire?’: untangling colonial encounters in military camps 37 ANNA MAGUIRE 2 Urban spaces of cultural encounters: the Greek city of Salonika in the First World War 57 NICOLE IMMIG 3 The British military occupation of Jerusalem, 1917–1920: soldiers as tourists and pilgrims 79 MAHON MURPHY 4 Between intimacy and violence: imperial encounters in East Africa during the First World War 98 DANIEL STEINBACH vi Contents PART II Process: experience, commonalities and politicisation 123 5 Precarious encounters: South Asia, the war and anti-colonial cosmopolitanism 125 SANTANU DAS 6 Songs of war and dissent: Maori anti-war activism and its cultural legacy 149 RACHEL GILLETT 7 Blues in the trenches: John Jacob Niles’ Singing Soldiers 170 MICHAEL HAMMOND 8 The YMCA and West Indian pan-African encounters during the First World War: the Drury Lane Club for ‘Coloured Sailors and Soldiers’ 190 RICHARD SMITH PART III Instrumentality: propaganda, resistance and the post-war world 215 9 African American soldiers in a black world: the politics of cultural interactions 217 JENNIFER D. KEENE 10 Influencing the Muslim world: the British propaganda newspaper Al-Haqīqah 238 SADIA McEVOY 11 ‘Neutral colonials’ and the global war: the role of the neutral Dutch East Indies and Indonesian intellectuals in the German ‘Programme for Revolution’ 262 TESSA LOBBES 12 Germany’s Global East: worldmaking in The New Orient 287 JENNIFER JENKINS List of contributors 310 Index 314 Figures 0.1 Two soldiers of the South African Native Labour Corps seen during a ‘war dance’ and sports day. © Imperial War Museum (Q 2382). 2 0.2 A page from the Gallipoli diary of Private Charles Stinson, where an Indian had signed his name in English, Urdu and Gurmukhi. Australian War Memorial, Canberra, PR 84/066. 7 0.3 A Maori lumber worker talking to a Frenchwoman. Forest de Nieppe, March 1917. © Imperial War Museum (Q 4740). 8 0.4 Official photograph of the Dardanelles Expedition: French Senegalese soldier giving a drink to a wounded French soldier. No 2728, 1915. HAMILTON 7/12/168. King’s College London Archives. 9 2.1 French colonial cavalry from Morocco on parade in Salonika. © Imperial War Museum (Q 32800). 62 2.2 Allied and Greek officers entering a decorated hut for a concert given by a French colonial regiment at their camp near Salonika in March 1916. © Imperial War Museum (Q 31856). 63 2.3 Framework of the Zeppelin LZ 85 set-up for public exhibition near the White Tower, Salonika, May 1916. © Imperial War Museum (Q 32031). 66 4.1 A cosmopolitan group: England, India, Africa, China. © Imperial War Museum, A.F. Bowden, Documents.10049. 99 4.2 Anonymous photograph, Kigoma. Special Collections & Galleries, Leeds University Library, AFE 02. 113 6.1 Te Puea. © Emily Johns, with thanks to Peace News. 150 8.1 The YMCA hut at Seaford. By permission of YMCA England and Wales/Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham, YMCA/K/1/21/125. 198 8.2 Two white women YMCA workers pose with black soldiers and sailors outside the Coloured Men’s Club, London. Australian War Memorial, H01356. 203 viii Figures 8.3 American and British soldiers and sailors outside the YMCA Coloured Men’s Club buying badges from black women volunteer workers, London 1919. Australian War Memorial, H01350. 204 10.1 ‘This cannon throws its great shells in an arch trajectory over mountains and forests hitting enemy installations,’ Al-Haqīqah. © British Library Board, Or.Mic.10535. (Digitized as B20192–26). 244 10.2 ‘Indian askari guarding some wells in Palestine so they are not damaged by Ottoman spies,’ Al-Haqīqah. © British Library Board, Or.Mic.10535. (Digitized as B20192–27). 245 10.3 ‘Indian soldiers fighting with the English army in Arab Iraq,’ Al-Haqīqah. © British Library Board, Or.Mic.10535. (Digitized as B20192–28). 246 10.4 Feisal and Ronald Storrs (top), The Hashemite flag designed by Mark Sykes and carried by Arab soldiers (bottom), Al-Haqīqah. © British Library Board, Or.Mic.10535. (Digitized as B20192–29). 248 10.5 Distribution of Satya Vani and Jangi Akbar from a houseboat at the Hindu Mela Festival in India, 1918. © British Library Board, IOR L/PS/10/581/567. (Image taken by author). 254 Acknowledgements We would like to thank, above all, the contributors for their patience, enthu- siasm, good humour and commitment to this volume. We would also like to thank Routledge and particularly Max Novick and Rob Langham for their warm support and encouragement. This volume is one of the outcomes of a three-year, collaborative research project Cultural Exchange in a Time of Global Conflict: Colonials, Neutrals and Belligerents During the First World War (CEGC) that ran from 2013 until 2016 and was funded by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area). Throughout the three years of the CEGC project’s duration, we were fortunate to work alongside our wonderful co-investigators at Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznań), Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (Berlin) and Utrecht University. It was a very intense but thrilling period. Our special gratitude goes to Natasha Awais-Dean, our project manager, whose tremendous work with us at King’s College London, overseeing all the project’s strands, was vital to its success. We thank Jan Brauburger, Geert Buelens, Tessa Lobbes, Martyna Kliks, Heike Liebau, Larissa Schmid, Natalia Stachura, Hubert van den Berg and Jennifer Wellington. We thank the project’s associate partner organisations and collaborators, especially Suzanne Bardgett (Imperial War Museum), Dominiek Dendooven (In Flanders Fields Museum) and Elisabeth Tietmeyer (Museum of European Cultures) for their invaluable help. We are grateful to all of the contributors to the project’s digital sourcebook (http://sourcebook.cegcproject.eu): this book mobilises ideas and content which first found a home there. The book originated at a conference held at King’s College London in January 2016 in conjunction with the German Historical Institute. We would particularly like to thank Andreas Gestrich, then director of the GHI, for his support facilitating the conference and the generous funding. It was a memorable conference and we warmly remember all those who took part and gave papers for their intellectual curiosity and generosity, which stimu- lated many of our ideas for this volume. Thank you to the Australian War Memorial, the British Library, the C adbury Research Library, the Special Collections at the University of Birmingham, the Imperial War Museum, the King’s College London Archives and the Leeds University Library for granting permission to reproduce images in this book. All efforts have been made to contact the copyright holders.
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