While many soldiers lied about their age, reports suggest the oldest soldiers in World War I were in their late 60s or even 70s. Key examples include 67-year-old British Lieutenant Henry Webber, who was killed in 1916, and 79-year-old Austro-Hungarian soldier Gaspar Wallnöfer, who fought in 1917.
The oldest soldier to enlist in WWI is quartermaster sergeant Robert Frederick Robertson (UK, b. 12 September 1842), who was 71 years of age when he enlisted in late 1914. Robert's service records were destroyed in a WW2 bombing raid, however census reports and newspaper articles date his enlistment as late 1914.
This imposed conscription on all single men aged between 18 and 41, but exempted the medically unfit, clergymen, teachers and certain classes of industrial worker.
Conscription during the First World War began when the British Parliament 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.
1964: Stefan Westmann: How it felt to kill a man | The Great War Interviews | BBC Archive
Why were soldiers given condoms in WWII?
Military commanders took advice from medical staff and were much more pragmatic. They realised that providing condoms would prevent sexually transmitted diseases and maintain manpower levels. Military personnel also used the condoms to keep sand out of gun barrels, which saved time when they cleaned their weapons.
1916: Year of attrition. 1916 witnessed two of the longest and most notorious battles of the First World War (1914-18). These two bloody struggles resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties for both the Allies and the Germans on the Western Front.
Despite his remarkably young age, the six year old Seryozha Aleshkov was recruited into the Soviet Red Army as a soldier by his adoptive father Commander Mikhail Vorobych, and Seryozha Aleshkov became the youngest known soldier, at just six years old.
"Category Al, which I obtained, seemed to signify that you had the right number of the usual body parts. "They were particularly fussy about flat feet though, which was strange because once they had you in, their prime objective seemed to be to flatten them completely by continuous marching!"
The youngest authenticated British soldier in World War I was twelve-year-old Sidney Lewis, who fought at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Lewis' claim was not authenticated until 2013.
Examples of reserved occupations include medical practitioners and police officers, but what is or is not a reserved occupation will depend on war needs and a country's particular circumstances.
George Price was fatally shot in the right breast by a German sniper as he stepped out of the house into the street. He was pulled into one of the houses and treated by a young Belgian nurse who ran across the street to help, but Price died a minute later at 10:58 a.m., November 11, 1918.
The last living veteran of World War I was Florence Green. She was a British woman who served in the Allied armed forces, and who died on 4 February 2012, aged 110. The last veteran who served in combat was Claude Choules.
A man with war in his blood, Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart was of Belgian heritage but fought for the British Empire during WW1. Throughout his stints at war, he was injured multiple times, and despite the severity of his wounds, survived. He became known as the 'man who could not be killed'.
"To the glory of God and in loving memory of Reginald Earnshaw who died aged 14 the youngest known service casualty of the second world war. Sacred to the memory of over 500 boys of the Merchant Navy aged 16 and under who died in the service of their country during world war two."
Most surviving World War II veterans are now in their late 90s or have reached 100 years old. The youngest veterans who could have served would have been born around 1927, making them at least 97 years old today. The majority of survivors were born between 1920-1925, placing them well into their centenarian years.
Unsurprisingly, little is written about homosexuality in the armed forces during the Great War; it was illegal and those caught were subject to corporal punishment, so there would have been little reason to shout publicly about liaisons.
Stinking mud mingled with rotting corpses, lingering gas, open latrines, wet clothes and unwashed bodies to produce an overpowering stench. The main latrines were located behind the lines, but front-line soldiers had to dig small waste pits in their own trenches.
The Hundred Years' War (1337 - 1453) was a prolonged struggle between the rival kingdoms of England and France. Rather than being one long war, the Hundred Years' War was actually a series of sieges, raids, and battles on land and sea as the two countries competed for control of France.
