Boy Soldiers of the Great War: Their Own Stories for the First Time

by Richard van Emden

Book Overview

The youngest soldier who fought in the Great War is believed to have been just twelve years old. Many thousands of other boys are known to have faked eye tests, inflated their small chests and stood... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0755313038
• ISBN13: 9780755313037
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Headline
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.7" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Insight on a Little Known Episode.

During the time of slaughter in the trenches of World War I, all participating countries reached out to the older and younder to provide the manpower they needed. This book started out as part of the oral history being compiled by historian Van Emden. He found that the people still alive to interview were getting younger and younger at the time they served. Many were fifteen or sixteen when they were on the front line, some were as young as thirteen. Perhaps a quarter of a million men were underage when they served in the Army. This was a time when birth certificates, indeed any identity papers at all were not needed to enlist. It continues the tradition of earlier wars, Waterloo, the American Civil War where the recruiting people were so desparate for men that they took any they could find. And it reminds one of the pictures of Hitler and the young soldiers he met during the end of World War II. These young soldiers did not do badly. Many received awards for heroic deads. Some became officers. When captured by the Germans, the 'Boy Soldiers' were segregated and sent to school. This book presents a side to World War I that hasn't been seen before.

A brilliant history

Boy Soldiers of the Great War is how history ought to be written. It's a riveting, deeply moving account of the tens of thousands of boys and young men who not only served their country, but, as van Emden shows, quite probably saved it. van Emden has done his homework and it shows on every page. While other oral histories simply collect and present first-person accounts, van Emden has discovered many previously untold stories, then puts them in social, political, personal and historical context. Once started, the book won't be put down. Once finished, it won't be forgotten.