Nearly 250,000 child soldiers volunteered to fight for England in World War I. This happened despite the official recruitment age of nineteen. Regardless, when the War began in 1914, boys as young as fourteen were routinely admitted. The youngest soldier to fight was twelve years old and boys as young as sixteen sometimes served as junior officers.
Child Soldiers and Volunteers Did Not Understand the Horrors of War
Boys volunteered because of patriotism, adventure, and the age-old call for young men to prove their manhood. Recruiters earned bonuses to sign up as many soldiers as possible. Boys claimed to be old enough as there were no documents to disprove their age. Volunteers were only disqualified for height, weight, or lack of fitness.
Men of all ages rushed into the War, which may speak to the naivety of the age. Ancient military tactics of charging in an open field against the enemy were still employed. This was the case despite the new technology of machine guns and artillery shells. Trench warfare hardships and the brutality of battle was not known to most people. Realtime news media, video, and even photographs of realistic combat did not convey the horrors, or randomness of death and casualties.
Nations Needed Recruits to Win
Modern nations mobilized media, which encouraged men to sign up. Additionally, War was glorified as the ultimate demonstration of patriotism and manhood. Propaganda, poetry, pulp fiction, literature, and enthusiastic pronouncements, speeches and radio addresses, encouraged the great sacrifice for king and country. Furthermore, failing to fulfill combat duty, or escaping such duty, could be grounds for imprisonment or execution. Women’s White Feather Societies shamed young men into joining the effort. They handed young men, not in military uniform, white feathers to imply they were cowards.
Recruiting child soldiers in World War I was banned in 1917, after which boys were sent home in most circumstances, although many remained. In January 1916 the English government passed a conscription law, which required all single fit men from 18-41 to sign up. This extended to married men six months afterward. They needed fresh recruits to fill the ranks due to the large numbers killed and wounded.
Fallen soldiers had to be backfilled, as it was thought essential to defeat the Germans, who employed a similar mobilization. Some 880,000 British troops were killed, or about 12% of the country’s men sent to fight. It was 6% of the population. Over 1.5 million men were wounded.