The Child Soldiers of WWI

The Child Soldiers of WWI

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.


If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Avsnitt(1500)

Globalisation in 1000 AD

Globalisation in 1000 AD

Globalisation. It's a word we often associate with the politics, society and economics of our own lifetimes. But Valerie Hansen, an esteemed professor of History at Yale, has argued that globalisation...

27 Apr 202021min

Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale

For soldiers of the Crimean War, perhaps the greatest adversary they faced was the Selimiye Barracks in Scutari, a makeshift hospital for wounded men. A lack of hygiene, medicine and compassion made t...

26 Apr 202017min

Australia, Anzac and History

Australia, Anzac and History

I was thrilled to have Mat McLachlan on the pod, one of Australia's foremost history presenters and writers. Using his encyclopaedic knowledge of Australian battlefields, Mat and I chatted about Austr...

25 Apr 202027min

The Death of Hitler

The Death of Hitler

Did Hitler shoot himself in the Führerbunker, or did he slip past the Soviets and escape to South America? There have been innumerable documentaries, newspaper articles and twitter threads written by ...

24 Apr 202020min

The Black Death

The Black Death

In this podcast, Dan Snow is joined by Professor Mark Bailey, High Master of St Paul's School, London and Professor of Later Medieval History at the University of East Anglia to delve into the topic o...

22 Apr 202026min

A Curious History of Sex

A Curious History of Sex

Sex. There's a lot of it about. We talk about war, chaos and atrocities on this podcast a lot although, thankfully, few of us have first hand experience of them. Yet we rarely talk sex. Which is odd. ...

21 Apr 202018min

Criminal Subculture in the Gulag

Criminal Subculture in the Gulag

I was thrilled to be joined by Mark Vincent, an expert in criminal subculture and prisoner society in Stalinist Labour camps. Mark has looked at thousands of journals, song collections, tattoo drawing...

19 Apr 202020min

Working Motherhood

Working Motherhood

Dr Helen McCarthy, lecturer in modern British history at the University of Cambridge, joins Dan to discuss the complicated past of working motherhood. They consider how women have been excluded from t...

16 Apr 202020min

Populärt inom Historia

massmordarpodden
p3-historia
historiska-brott
kod-katastrof
motiv
olosta-mord
historiepodden-se
rss-historien-om
rss-seriemordarpodden
historianu-med-urban-lindstedt
rss-brottsligt
rss-massmordarpodden
krigshistoriepodden
rss-historiska-brottslingar
harrisons-dramatiska-historia
militarhistoriepodden
rss-arkiv-stieg
nu-blir-det-historia
palmemordet
rss-borgvattnets-hemligheter