In Black Tommies: British Soldiers of African Descent in the First World War, Ray Costello recovers the little-known history of British-born or domiciled black men who served in the British military during the First World War. Costello begins by explaining that black soldiers and sailors had been part of the British military since at least the late eighteenth century and often originated from Britain's long-established black communities such as those in London, Bristol, Liverpool, and Cardiff. That said, and as Costello makes very clear, finding specific historical evidence relating to the experience of black British servicemen during the Great War is at best difficult, as British records of the time (particularly the census) did not usually indicate race and Britons of African descent had commonly adopted names that blended into the wider and mostly white population. This means that identifying hitherto historically invisible black servicemen is difficult and is often the result of an individual having called attention to himself through a notable wartime action (whether positive or negative) or some type of celebrity, such as involvement in popular sports or entertainment.

Although British Army regulations for most of the First World War period officially restricted black service to racially segregated noncombat units such as the Royal Engineers Coloured Section, local recruiters sometimes overlooked these rules and enlisted individual blacks into regular and supposedly all-white regiments. As Costello maintains, this pragmatic situation characterized the experience of black recruits and servicemen until the arrival in Britain of the British West Indies Regiment, a white-officered but primarily black unit from Britain's Caribbean colonies, to which most black British recruits were then posted in an effort to enforce racial segregation. This segregationist atmosphere was heightened by the appearance of other primarily black colonial units such as the uniformed laborers of the South African Native Labour Contingent and Canada's “Black Battalion.” Despite the official lifting of Britain's military “Colour Bar” in 1918 that had been prompted by wartime manpower demands, the existing racial recruiting practices continued until the end of the conflict.

While British Army rules specified that officers had to be of “pure European descent,” Costello identifies a number of black officers for whom exceptions were made or who were very light-skinned, which meant that they were tolerated or could pass as white. Racial ambiguities and situational context are highlighted by the case of George Edward Kingsley Bemand, a mixed-race man from a well-to-do Jamaican family who was eventually killed on the Western Front. Bemand was listed as “African” on the records of a passenger ship that brought him to the strictly segregationist United States, but he then indicated that he was of “pure European descent” when successfully applying for a commission in the British Army. The imposition of conscription in Britain in 1916 produced other contradictions, as some black men who had volunteered for the military but who had been rejected on account of their race in the early days of the war were now pursued by authorities and forced into military service within black units. Despite having fought for Britain, British black veterans became victims of racism. During the riots of 1919, demobilized black servicemen in places like Cardiff, Liverpool, and Glasgow became the subject of violence from poor whites who wrongly saw them as foreigners illegitimately competing for scarce jobs.

Costello's book reveals an important aspect of Britain's First World War history, but at the same time it seems unable to transcend the limitations of the available evidence that it identifies. Not much more is said about the experience of British-born or domiciled black servicemen than that they existed and suffered discrimination, and at times the book seems to consist of a random series of names and tantalizingly brief biographical notes on a few black military personnel. Indeed, in a few places the distinct military history and life experience of British-born and domiciled blacks gets lost amid detailed discussions of Caribbean, South African, and Canadian black troops who arrived in Britain and about whom there are already a number of excellent scholarly studies. However, perhaps the weakest aspect of an otherwise significant book is that it ignores much of the available academic literature on race and military service in the First World War. For example, it is a shame that the work of Richard Fogarty on France's military employment of colonial subjects during the war (Race and War in France [2009]) is not integrated into the discussion. Indeed, many other important scholarly works relating to the First World War experience of Africans and African Americans have been overlooked. This complaint aside, Costello has produced a well-written, interesting, and pioneering book that will undoubtedly serve as a base for future research on Britain's black servicemen of the First World War and, one hopes, beyond.