The Child Soldiers of WWI

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2022

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After the outbreak of the First World War, boys as young as twelve were caught up in a national wave of patriotism and, in huge numbers, volunteered to serve. The press, recruiting offices and the Government all contributed to the enlistment of hundreds of thousands of underage soldiers in both Britain and the Empire. Having falsified their ages upon joining up, many broke down under the strain and were returned home, while others fought on and were even awarded medals for gallantry.

Richard van Emden, who has interviewed over 270 veterans of the Great War and has written twelve books on the subject, joins Dan on the podcast. They discuss the unknown stories of boys who served in the bloodiest battles of the war, fighting at Ypres, the Somme and on Gallipoli.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi buddy welcome to Dance No Sistria.
0:02.5	It's great to have Richard Van Emden back on the podcast.
0:05.2	He's one of my favorite great war historians.
0:06.7	He's talked to hundreds of veterans about the First War on the course of a long career
0:12.2	and he continues to write wonderful stories that he discovers in the archives about the
0:16.5	First World War.
0:17.7	This one is no exception.
0:18.7	He's dealing with the issue of child soldiers.
0:21.1	Richard has for the first time fully identified the youngest known soldier in the British
0:25.2	Army.
0:26.2	During the First World War, his private Sydney Lewis, he served on the Somme and the machine
0:29.8	gun corps and he also identifies the youngest soldier killed in the war, private Aubrey
0:35.1	Hudson who went to the war, aged 14 and was wounded before his 15th birthday.
0:41.3	In this episode I ask him why these young boys signed up, how they were allowed into the
0:46.1	forces or whether there was any difference from unit to unit or as things got more difficult
0:52.6	towards the end of the war.
0:55.1	And Richard's also got new figures out from his research about numbers of very young
0:59.5	boys serving in the forces during 1915 in particular.
1:02.9	It's quite extraordinary.
1:04.1	You can listen to other podcasts that we have recorded and some that we've filmed with
1:08.1	Richard Van Emden at HistoryHitTV.
1:10.2	It's like Netflix for history.
	...

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