ABSTRACT First World War scholars more or less agree on the limitations imposed by archival sources on the study of North African and Indian troops. Conventional methods to find ‘the voice’ of the soldier do not apply in this case and the scarcity of records partly explains why so little is written. So, what opportunities are there in such an endeavour? This article argues for the need to decolonise military archives from the Great War era. That is to say, to use information that was originally gathered to serve narrow military interests as a means to understand the war experiences of the colonial soldiers. These sources, largely official records, bearing stamps of the past regimes, cannot be separated from the context or intent of their production. Nonetheless, they must not be overlooked as new historiographical demands make it necessary to read colonial archives for evidence of their context. Failing to draw from, and reflect upon, colonial era records on the Great War, despite their shortcomings, is tantamount to condemning valuable aspects of global history to oblivion. In turn, acknowledging these shortcomings, paradoxically, lends greater value to such sources as the colonial context in which they were produced becomes observable.

中文翻译：

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第一次世界大战的档案和踪迹：重新利用 1917-1923 年在巴勒斯坦和叙利亚的北非和印度士兵的帝国记录

摘要 第一次世界大战的学者或多或少同意档案资料对北非和印度军队的研究施加的限制。寻找士兵“声音”的传统方法不适用于这种情况，记录的稀缺部分解释了为什么写得如此之少。那么，在这样的努力中有哪些机会？本文认为有必要对一战时期的军事档案进行非殖民化。也就是说，利用原本为狭隘军事利益而收集的信息，作为了解殖民地士兵战争经历的手段。这些来源，主要是官方记录，带有过去政权的印记，不能与其制作的背景或意图分开。尽管如此，不能忽视它们，因为新的史学要求使得有必要阅读殖民地档案以证明其背景。尽管有缺点，但未能借鉴和反思关于第一次世界大战的殖民时代记录，无异于谴责全球历史的宝贵方面被遗忘。反过来，自相矛盾的是，承认这些缺点会为这些来源带来更大的价值，因为它们产生的殖民背景变得显而易见。