West Indian Soldiers and the Mediated, Imagined Landscapes of the First World War

Using artist Wyndham Lewis’ work as a point of departure, this chapter explores the dispersed traces of West Indian participation in the war through the sites of memory in both the physical landscape and the objects and images through which that participation may be remembered and imagined. Lewis’ account highlights how, for white European participants, the presence of West Indian, and other non-white troops, often underscored the uncanny aspects of the war; the shattering of old categories which merged with the alien as the war bridged the familiar and unfamiliar. But what of uncanniness from West Indian perspectives, a framing that has received scant attention? This chapter therefore also considers the role of landscape in West Indian soldiers’ memories of the war—particularly the dissonance experienced between home and the combat zones of the Western Front and the Middle East. Furthermore, the discussion will reflect on how West Indian soldiers’ uncanny encounters may have contributed to commemoration processes and new national imaginaries in the post-war period, particularly in relation to landownership and settlement.