Teenagers At War: Ages of Soldiers Throughout History
While stereotype of ancient and medieval soldiers are the big, burly bearded men swinging massive weapons, in reality, soldiers could be quite young.
Few datapoints:
- Tombstones at Chester indicate that soldiers could be quite young when joining Roman legions. Two legionaires had been only fourteen when they had joined.
- Legally, minimum age for joining Roman legions was 17 years. As noted above however, this was not always respected.
- Edward, Prince of Wales, was sixteen years old when he commanded part of English army at Crecy.
And of course, training could begin even earlier than that. Spartan boys were wrenched from home at age of seven. It should be noted that, Spartan society being what it was, Spartan agoge involved a lot of indoctrination; young Spartiates were only judged to be battle-ready at age of 20. This was likely due to excessive weight of the hoplite equipment.
Medieval pages were sent from home to serve at another aristocratâs home at age of seven. In return for their service, they received education and military training. They mainly performed minor auxilliary roles such as dressing and arming their lord, but in the event of the siege they were expected to help in defense by using crossbow â a weapon that even a child could handle. Otherwise however they did not fight, and it was considered bad form to target pages in battle.
When he reached age of fourteen however, page would become a squire. And squires, in addition to performing the same auxilliary duties as pages, were also expected to fight. As noted earlier, Edward, Prince of Wales, fought at Crecy when he was 16 years old. And on 12 October 1347, he was one of the first inductees into the newly established Order of the Garter, meant to honor the participants of warfare in France. He was also by far the youngest.
Of course, this doesnât mean majority of soldiers were teenagers. Most of the medieval soldiers were professionals who served for life, and there were no hard age limits. Excavation of 32 bodies from the Battle of Towtown in 1461 showed they were on average 29,2 years old. Out of 32 corpses, only 11 were between 16 and 25 years of age. Even the âChildrenâs Crusadeâ of 1212 wasnât really done by âchildrenâ â rather, the terms puer, puella, puelle seem to be used to indicate that they were poor. Indeed, Marbach annalist claims that they were adults and married âchildrenâ, and puer was indeed often used in the Middle Ages to denote an agricultural laborer or wage-earner.
Ottomans kidnapped Christian boys aged 7 â 18 from the families as a form of âblood taxâ, devshirme. Upon capture, children were dressed in red so they could be recognized in an event of escape. They would then be circumcised and converted to Islam. As Sultanâs personal slaves, they were trained for a life of service, to fight and die for their master.
During Age of Sail, British Royal Navy used âpowder monkeysâ. These were young boys recruited or press-ganged to service cannons on warships. Their job was to carry gunpowder from the magazine in the shipâs hold to gun crews. It was a dangerous job, as guns would regularly dismount and maim crewmembers, and could also explode.
Drummer boys were also frequent on the battlefield through centuries, often also serving as unit mascots. This was true throughout the Age of Sail, but drummer boys got popularized through French Revolution and later American Civil War. The youngest recruit to be killed in the American Civil War was in fact the 13-years old Charles King. Before that, during the American War of Independence, average age of British soldiers was some 21,6 years, and 24 years during the Napoleonic Wars.
And even as the society began to frown upon intentionally employing children on the battlefield, it still happened. Children as young as 12 and 13 lied about their age to fight for Britain in the First World War. Approximately 250 000 British soldiers in the First World War were under the legal age of 19. The youngest recognised soldier was 12-year-old Sidney Lewis, who fought in the battle of the Somme. Overall, average age of soldiers killed in the war was 27 â but more 19 year olds were killed than any other age group, and the youngest soldiers killed was 16. In tota, two 16 year olds and seven 17 year olds were killed.
Things got worse when ideology got involved. Both Nazis and Yugoslav Partisans recruited and sent to fight children as young as 10 years of age. For this reason, perhaps, Croatia still has 1 680 people receiving pension of Croatian Armed Forces (1941 â 1945) and 4 500 individuals receiving pension for participation in the Croatian Partisan movement (1941 â 1945). And of course, Hitler sent Hitlerâs Youth to fight the final battle of the war.
#age #soldiers #teenagers #war
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