So after watching the trailer of the new Battlefield 1 expansion (the world's most accurate WWI simulator /s), I saw a lot of comments despising the inclusion of minorities in the trailer, but this motivated me to look up the actual demographic numbers. However, a quick Google search yielded nothing.
What were the demographics (race is what I'm mostly after, but other criteria too) of the armies in World War I, and where can I find this kind of information for other periods of time? Why were some of a certain population more likely to be part of the war?
Maybe I was too hasty in my search but I'd appreciate some info on this. Thanks :D
Do you mean on the Western Front or generally?
The Mesopotamian battles in BF1 are not nearly Indian enough, as the armies that were deployed to Mesopotamia were sent from India. They should be almost entirely Indian.
On the Western Front, and in regards to African colonies, the British did not send sub-Saharan African troops to the Western Front, while the French did (which I assume is the "controversy" of the trailer). The French sent some 150,000 West African troops to the Western front (of whom 30,000 would die) in addition to tens of thousands more from their North African colonies. These were brought together into racially mixed units upon arrival in Europe.
The British did however bring 130,000 Indian troops to France, while the French also recruited about 50,000 Vietnamese soldiers and another 50,000 Vietnamese workers. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers were also recruited for the war effort under military command, notably the digging of trenches, by the British and French.
So while this would be a relatively small proportion of the 13.5 million some-odd troops that served with the British and the French on the Western front, it must take some seriously eagle-eyed racists to be able to "despise" the inclusion of the two black characters I spotted in the trailer. Their inclusion is entirely realistic.
Sourcewise: the chapter on "Africa" in The Cambridge History of the First World War Volume I.