WWI commemorations

Conscience and Conviction – WWI school resources

Quaker Peace and Social Witness has produced two new resources for peace education: Conscience (primary school-focused) and Conviction (secondary school-focused). Conviction can supplement existing lesson materials in subjects such as History, Religious Education or Citizenship, and be used to support the delivery of Personal Social Health Education (PSHE) or Spiritual Moral Social Cultural (SMSC) education. Through engaging with speaking and listening activities in pairs and groups, children can discuss and reflect on historical source materials including documents, letters, posters and images.

---

How did Britain let 250,000 underage soldiers fight in WW1?

A BBC resource. Includes a final section on 'could this happen today'? At the outbreak of war in 1914, the British Army had 700,000 available men. Germany’s wartime army was over 3.7 million. When a campaign for volunteers was launched, thousands answered the call to fight. Among them were 250,000 boys and young men under the age of 19, the legal limit for armed service overseas.

---

Militarisation in everyday life in the UK: a conference report

In response to the recent developments in the UK, there has been an increase in critical academic studies, media coverage, and work by campaigning organisations and others on these issues. On 19 October 2013, around 70 academics, activists, campaigners, and writers came together in London at the Militarisation in Everyday Life in the UK conference organised by ForcesWatch.

---

Welsh bishops urge army to raise enlistment age to 18

The Ministry of Defence has come under pressure from the Church in Wales and campaign group Child Soldiers International which is calling for an end to recruitment of under-18s to the Army

---

Bishops attack army on recruitment of minor while teen enlistment figures plummet

Recruitment of 16-year-olds down 40% on previous year; former Armed Forces minister says “Time is right” to review recruitment age

---

Open letter to Minister of State for the Armed Forces on armed forces recruitment age

"We call for the minimum recruitment age to be returned to 18 years. This would be a fitting memorial to those thousands who, whether unlawfully recruited as minors during the First World War or recruited to fight in other conflicts, were exposed to death, injury and trauma that no child should ever experience."

---

Raising the age of recruitment: an open letter and a cautious welcome of the MoD review

ForcesWatch are among 24 signatories of an open letter to Mark Francois MP, Minister of State for the Armed Forces which calls for an end to the recruitment of under-18s.. The signatories include the Church of Scotland, the Church in Wales, the Unitarian Church and Catholic, Baptist, Methodist and Quaker groups and Child Soldiers International. The letter notes that as the centenary of the outbreak of World War One approaches, the recruitment and deployment age of British soldiers is lower now than it was a century ago. The signatories call on the Ministry to raise the recruitment age to 18 as a “fitting memorial” to the thousands of young soldiers killed in World War One.

---

Anti-war activists battle to get their voices heard in WW1 centenary events

Campaigners challenge 'glorious conflict' narrative and plan to highlight treatment of conscientious objectors

---