> In 1814, for example, Napoleon conscripted many teenagers for his armies.[28] Thousands of children participated on all sides of the First World War and the Second World War.[29][30][31][32] Children continued to be used throughout the 20th and early 21st century on every continent, with concentrations in parts of Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.[33] Only since the turn of the millennium have international efforts begun to limit and reduce the military use of children.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_the_military
I can see how it would be controversial because an argument could be made that children only are useful when you have some kind of artillery that doesn’t require the strength needed for a bow / crossbow. Still, I wouldn’t discount anything, especially on the purely modern subjective view of “it wouldn’t make financial sense”. Lots of human endeavors and actions don’t make financial sense. It’s not the only axis upon which humans behave.
I suspect of the controversy probably arises from the age “child” denotes. Is it a prepubescent human (lets say 10 and under) or a teenager (let’s say 13 and over).
Funnily enough, the word "infantry" comes from the same word as "infant". IE, the young guys on the battle field.
While a Crusade made up primarily of children is not realistic. The 'People's Crusade' was a thing. During the first Crusade 40 thousand or so poor peasants and various religious fanatics including many women and children departed Northern France a couple of months before the 'proper' army left.
It wasn't pretty. Along the way they murdered thousands of Jews, sacked or attempted to sack multiple cities and most of those who survived the journey were eventually massacred by the Turks (according to some that's one of the reasons why the Turks were so ill prepared when the actual Crusader army arrived, they expected that all westerners were poorly armed, disorganized and had no understanding or proper warfare... )
A skew is one thing seeing where one line eventually overtakes an other. However, discontinuities like that image definitely should be explained. The image above I think already has explanation. However, for some time after the election no explanation if I recall. So if one is seeing things like the above with no reasonable explanation, and they were already unsure about the about the election's integrity. It's pretty obvious to see why things like this would rile people considering the atmosphere leading up to election day.
Whole areas exported there population as soldiers, mercenaries and mining people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Guard Most of them were like the taliban in afghanistan, interlocked in eternal holy wars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War
Well obviously the taliban aint real either. A mountainous area, in eternal intertribal warfare.. not actually accepting the nation state.. ridiculous thought.
The english soldiers fighting in the independence war against the americans, were partially germans, sold by in debted aristoctrats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junker_(Prussia)
This was the reality on the ground, even up until the 2nd worldwar. The only escape for the peasants and althose 2nd,3rd sons who were bound to the land, was to go on pilgrimages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrimage or to flee to the "new world" were the nicer frontier awaited them.
I find the idea of a children crusadd very plausible. The crusader knights surely promised the conquered lands to peasants who would follow them. And pre-pestilence europe was certainly crowded.
Idealism is nice. Success self hypnosis is nice. But not believing in the brutality of bygone reality, while some parts of it are still around you, is foolish, and spreading that foolishness, is preparing for it to repeat itself. Work hard and meaningful, if not for yourselves, then to prevent the return of the olden times.
What do Junkers in Prussia have to do with the Hessian mercenaries who fought in the war of independence?
It was Frederick II who leased the army of Hesse-Kassel to the British. He was not some random indebted aristocrat but rather the ruler of a sovereign state. The soldiers were 'professionals' who volunteered and were paid a salary. Not (as you make it sound) random peasants conscripts sold off to pay of some debts.
> This was the reality on the ground, even up until the 2nd worldwar.
> The only escape for the peasants and althose 2nd,3rd sons who were bound to the land, was to go on pilgrimages
Yes. The only escape for peasants in the 1800's to 1930s was to go on pilgrimages.
In any case middle or upperclass people were more likely to go on pilgrimages than peasants (proportionally) even during the middle ages. Any long journey was prohibitively expensive for most people to afford.
> The crusader knights surely promised the conquered lands to peasants who would follow them
Generally crusader knights, especially the nobles were not too keen about taking thousands of untrained peasants who have to be fed and supplied with other provisions by someone on Crusades without providing anything in return. Generally various unorthodox/anti-establishment religious preachers like (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_the_Hermit) were the instigators of most 'popular' crusades.
They were ussually opposed by the nobility, the clergy and the bourgeoisie. For instance Shepherds Crusades of 1251 and 1320.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldatenhandel_unter_Landgraf_...
Read the Kantonspflicht part. They were drafted peasants.
>Yes. The only escape for peasants in the 1800's to >1930s was to go on pilgrimages.
Read old newspapers and alamanachs. They regularly locked vagabunds up into workhouses and the "euthanization" in the camps starting 1930 was just a continuation of that policy. Religous pilgrimage, entering servitude (sailor on ships etc.) or being rich was the only way to be able to migrate over long distances.Of course there were the usual religous purges, which pushed parts of the population to migrate to "safe havens" in the local klein-staaterei.
https://wiki.genealogy.net/Franken_J%C3%BCdisch https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugenotten#Hugenotten_in_Deuts...
>The crusader knights surely promised the conquered lands to peasants who would follow them
I was wrong there. It was mostly greek-orthodox and armeniens. If you read the sources, the whole crusade affairs were a mess, regularly bogging down in local warfare and criminal activity along the road.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BCrstentum_Antiochia#Geog...
It turns out that it was a real phenomenon, and many children did leave home, but being children, practically none of them made it to the Holy Land. The journey for many was much, much shorter. And likewise, for many it was merely a spiritual crusade and they went nowhere but "TO GOD!" as they were heard to shout.
There were eyewitnesses and contemporary accounts, and I compiled an impressive list of sources to document what could be gleaned from those accounts from a modern perspective.
This story sounds actually plausible as it may not be that far from where the children started to a port city.
The Wikipedia article mentions that also, but only after one of the children who apparently had visions from God and said the Mediterranean Sea would part into two and leave a path (sort of like the Red Sea for Moses) for them to march directly to the Holy Land...when that failed they settled on hitching a ride on ships from people who turned out to be slavers.
It's pretty big jump from "it never happened" to "some things happened, just not the way the stories told us."
As my history professor put it, "going to the Holy Land was an incredibly expensive endeavour reserved for a very few. There's no way anyone was going to waste it on young, inexperienced children".
Nearly every source we had saying that the crusade involved children came much later, after a few writers referred to the same source with a mistranslation (think reading "me and the boys" as referring to actual children).
But people spent 500 years discussing the horrors of the children's crusade without ever really questioning if it happened.