Introduction: writing the history of colonial veterans of the Great War

Abstract

ABSTRACTRecent years have seen an ‘imperial turn’ in the study of the Great War, with historians increasingly focusing on the colonial contribution to the conflict. One key set of historical actors has, however, yet to receive the attention they merit: colonial war veterans. This special issue asks what this overlooked figure can tell us about the global nature of the First World War and its impact on both politics and daily life in colonial societies. Bringing together scholars working on a range of different colonial spaces and a variety of aspects of the veteran experience, it offers a nuanced view of the many legacies, personal and political, of participation in the Great War for the subject-soldiers of the belligerent Empires. Covering topics such as post-war provision for veterans in the colonies, colonial veteran activism and the commemoration of colonial veterans, it highlights the contrasts and commonalities between post-war experiences of veterans in the Empire and that of their European equivalents. In doing so, it explores the fundamental tension between the stated commitment of post-war societies to the primacy of the veteran and their unyielding dedication to European racial primacy that underpinned the colonial project. Moreover, it examines how colonial veterans themselves seized on this tension and sought, with varying degrees of success, to exploit it to further their own financial, social and even political interests. The colonial veteran is considered here not only as a figure of historical interest in and of his own right but also as a prism through which we can reassess the complex intersections between race, citizenship, military service and welfare that shaped the post-war order in both colony and metropole.