Momčilo Gavrić was the youngest soldier in WW1 at age 8. The only reason he survived was because he was away from his home at the time. With no home or family, Momčilo Gavrić joined the 6th Artillery Division of the Royal Serbian Army in 1914.
Momčilo Gavrić, in Serbian military from age eight; youngest soldier in World War I in any of the nations which fought in World War I. John Condon, from Waterford, Ireland: incorrectly believed to have been the youngest Allied soldier killed (age 14), but later found to have been age 18 at his death.
James (Jim) Martin was 14 years old when he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). He served as a private in World War I. Arriving at Gallipoli in early September 1915, he served in Wire Gully and Courtney's Post among other places.
Soldier. He enlisted in the East Surrey Regiment in August 1915 at the age of twelve, and fought in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, then aged thirteen. In the 106th Machine Gun Company of the Machine Gun Corps he fought in the Battle of Delville Wood which saw some of the worst casualties on the Somme.
Although boys aged 14-17 could enlist as buglers, trumpeters and musicians, many gave false ages in order to join as soldiers. Their numbers are impossible to determine. Enlistment of boys was normal practice for the Navy and several died on service during the First World War.
On 28 June 1915, young James Martin sailed from Melbourne aboard the troopship Berrima - bound, ultimately, for Gallipoli. He was just fourteen years old. "Soldier Boy" is Jim's extraordinary true story, the story of a young and enthusiastic school boy who became Australia's youngest known Anzac.
In the following graph we can view in more detail the age of the 154 men of the 5th/22nd who enlisted in July 1915, and despite the raising of the recruitment age level the majority of the men were clearly in or below their mid-20's, with the mean at 23 years and an average of 26 years.
By the time battle ended, 18,000 'boy soldiers' had been killed or wounded.
Boy soldiers. While boys aged 14-17 could enlist in a non-fighting capacity during WW1 (generally as musicians), the actual enlistment age was 18, or 21 with parental/guardian consent. While it is not possible to determine exact numbers, many boys falsified their ages in order to enlist and fight as soldiers.
Technically the boys had to be 19 to fight but the law did not prevent 14-year-olds and upwards from joining in droves. They responded to the Army's desperate need for troops and recruiting sergeants were often less than scrupulous.
James Charles Martin (3 January 1901 – 25 October 1915) was the youngest Australian known to have died in World War I. He was only 14 years and nine months old when he succumbed to typhoid during the Gallipoli campaign.
Private John Condon was long believed to have joined the army aged 14 in 1914 by pretending he was 18. A year later he was killed in a gas attack at the Second Battle of Ypres and his body wasn't recovered for another 10 years.
Conscription during the First World War began when the British government passed the Military Service Act in January 1916. The act specified that single men aged 18 to 40 years old were liable to be called up for military service unless they were widowed with children, or were ministers of a religion.
The BBC reported recently that at 14 years, 152 days, Reginald Earnshaw was the youngest known Commonwealth service member to have died in action during World War II.
Momčilo Gavrić (Serbian Cyrillic: Момчило Гаврић; 1 May 1906 – 28 April 1993) was the youngest Serbian soldier; he became a soldier at the age of eight. Momčilo Gavrić in Loznica, 1914.
The Roll of Honour records the number of Australian deaths during the First World War as 61,514. This includes deaths until the formal disbandment of the AIF on 31 March 1921. During the period 4 August 1914 to 11 November 1918, there were 59,357 deaths.
During World War One, hundreds upon thousands of children and teenagers joined the fighting lines of warring countries.
They found an increase in the proportion of males from 1751 to 1920, which was interrupted by peaks in male births during World War I and World War II and followed by a decrease thereafter, similar to the trends in many other countries.
The casualties suffered by the participants in World War I dwarfed those of previous wars: some 8,500,000 soldiers died as a result of wounds and/or disease. The greatest number of casualties and wounds were inflicted by artillery, followed by small arms, and then by poison gas.
pier. Thomas and Alleta Sullivan of Waterloo gave up their five sons in a World War II tragedy that has never been forgotten.
Western Front – the beginning
The AIF suffered its greatest losses on the Western Front during 1916-1918. Of the more than 295,000 Australians who served in that theatre, some 46,000 were killed in action or died from other causes. More than 100,000 were wounded.
Over 100,000 Australians have lost their lives through war. Many more thousands have been wounded, while the number of Australians who have served abroad in wartime is eight to nine times the number who have died. These bare statistics alone show the significance that war has had for Australia.
Troops were paid a minimum of six shillings a day (more than three times the wage of English forces) leading to the phrase 'six bob a day tourists'. Although slightly below the basic wage, it was still attractive to many because of the tough financial conditions and high unemployment in 1914.