The Chinese Labour Corps that served on the Western Front during the First World War was the greatest influx of Chinese ever into Europe.Through the confrontation with the European ‘Other', the Chinese realised what they had in common,and we see a development of acertain ‘groupness' between intellectualsand illiterate labourers inthe Chinese Labour Corps, which had the capacity to devolve in some kind of (proto)nationalism,while exalting the value of Labour. It can be argued that in the cultural transformation of Chinese society of the first half of the 20#century the Chinese labourers and interpreters of the First World War played a hidden, and by consequence, indirect role: they were instrumental in jeopardising the idea that the West was the leading light for intellectuals,and in transforming the way the ‘white’ man was looked upon. Besides “a new national consciousness”, the members of the Chinese Labour Corps had also returned home with the determination to improve themselves and their country.