In this updated edition of his acclaimed study of the black presence in Britain during the First World War, Stephen Bourne illuminates yet more stories of servicemen of colour. The accounts of black servicemen fighting for their ‘Mother Country’ are charted from the outbreak of war in 1914 to the conflict’s aftermath in 1919, when black communities up and down Great Britain were faced with the anti-black ‘race riots’ in spite of their dedicated services to their country at home and abroad.Bourne has also been given access to personal correspondence written during the war by the Jamaican siblings Vera, Norman and Douglas Manley. These bring to light the day to day trials, tribulations and tragedies of life on the battlefields as well as Vera Manley’s eyewitness account of the 1917 Russian revolution. Informative and accessible, with first-hand accounts and original photographs, Black Poppies is the essential guide to the military and civilian wartime experiences of black men and women, from the trenches to the music halls.