In British regular regiments on the Western Front, the black soldiers you would have encountered there would not likely have been from British Africa. In fact, most of them would never have set their foot on their African continent since they were born and raised in Great Britain. Although scholars are not yet certain of the total amount of black British soldiers in the British Armed Forces during the First World War, their presence on the Western Front is indisputable. They are depicted in photographs taken during the war, mentioned in the memoirs and the memories of white veterans and in the remaining military and government records. Thanks to local and community historians, scholars are uncovering more and more names each year to add to the growing collection of black British soldiers in regular British regiments. I've touched on this subject in this previous post, focusing mostly on black British officers, but a lot of applies to regular black British soldiers as well.

If you have any specific questions concerning black British soldiers in the First World War, I would be more than happy to answer them.