Military Labour During The First

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No Labour, No Battle

The culmination of over fifteen years research by Ivor Lee and John Starling the book is based on documents held by the National Archives, Imperial War Museum and Commonwealth War Graves Commission, on contemporary newspapers and reports from officers and men who served in Labour units.

The story of Military Labour during the First World War is a complex one that did not follow a neat chronological pattern. It also developed in different ways in different theatres of war

Professor Richard Holmes describes the book as “the first proper history of military labour in the First World War. It charts the fortunes of the many types of unit involved, from Home Service Labour Companies though Docks Battalions, Pioneer Battalions to companies charged with the exhumation and reburial of the dead, using War Office files in the National Archives to explain the administrative details which illuminate the complex twists and turns of units’ organisational lives. It also examines the controversial issue of overseas labour units like the Cape Coloured Labour Battalion, the Fijian Labour Corps and the Chinese Labour Companies.”

The book is in six separate yet inter-linked sections:

The first three sections look at the development and use of military labour both in Britain and the various theatres of war. The next two sections provide more detailed information about the British, Dominion and foreign labour units and the final section is an aid to researching individual soldiers.

Whether you are tracing the career of a relative who served in the Labour Corps, interested in military history or a collector of WW1 Medals “No Labour, No Battle” will be helpful and informative. As Richard Holmes says “this painstakingly-researched book will appeal to far more readers than those who are tracing the war record of a great-uncle, for you cannot really understand the way the British Army went about its business during the war without understanding how it used the labour upon which so much depended.”