Vietnam's forgotten soldiers from World War I

While the world remembers the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, Vietnam's contribution to the allied cause is forgotten - in Vietnam and around the world. Almost one hundred thousand Vietnamese served in combat and support roles in France and suffered terrible casualties. Some estimates put the number of deaths as high as 30,000. During a recent visit to the Flanders and Somme battlefields, I saw memorials to Indian servicemen (60,000 plus killed) but no mention of the Vietnamese. Most accounts suggest the men were conscripts - forced to fight for the colonial master. The Vietnamese have largely forgotten this fragment of their blood-drenched twentieth century history. Unsurprisingly, the service of the reviled colonial rulers has never been regarded well by the country's communist rulers. After the war in 1920, when Hue was the royal capital of French colonial Vietnam, Emperor Khai Dinh inaugurated this memorial to those of his countrymen who perished. It sits anonymously in ruin at a picturesque spot on the banks for the Perfume River, opposite the prestigious National School that counts Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap and Ngo Dinh Diem among its alumni. The locals that gather at the imposing memorial each summer afternoon to cool off by the river, have no idea what it remembers. The names of the deceased, mostly from central and northern provinces, are covered in graffiti and peeling off.