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 on tiptoes to bluff their way into a war of unforeseen horror. How and why so many under-aged boys were able to get to the battlefields is a complex mystery of World War I, and until Richard van Emden's classic account, largely unexplored. Boy Soldiers of the Great War tells for the first time the incredible stories of the boys who went to fight for their country. Richard van Emden, having amassed a unique collection of personal testimonies and hitherto unpublished diaries and letters, brings to life their stories of heroism and sacrifice. This edition has been completely revised and updated.
Richard van Emden has interviewed over 270 veterans of the Great War and has written twelve books on the subject including The Trench, and The Last Fighting Tommy (both top ten bestsellers). He has also worked on more than a dozen television programmes on the First World War, including Prisoners of the Kaiser, Veterans, Britain's Last Tommies, the award winning Roses of No Man's Land, Britain's Boy Soldiers and A Poem for Harry and most recently, War Horse: The Real Story.
Title: Boy Soldiers of the Great War
Author: van Emden, Richard
ISBN: 9781408824726
Binding:
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publication Date: 2012-11-08
Number of Pages: 416
Weight: 0.3221 kg
Should this have been allowed to happen? Richard van Emden's fascinating and distressing account ... shows how difficult it is to provide a simple answer. * Sunday Times *
Engaging, well-written and balanced. * The Times *
Excellent and even-handed. * Daily Telegraph *