When did the military stop using drummer boys (and kids in general)?

[BrainGlutton]

One of the startling things, to a modern audience, about the film Master and Commander is that one of the midshipmen is a 12-year-old boy. No one would think, nowadays, of sending a mere boy to sea on a merchant ship, let alone a Navy ship. And there used to be "drummer boys" who marched with the troops and shared the risk of getting shot. When did all that change?

[pletchap]

A wild conjecture, perhaps, but I bet the practice begins dying with the strengthening of child labor laws. I know that in some countries that do not have child labor laws (or strong feelings about them, at any rate) there ARE still 8-12 year olds recruited for war. There is a current movie about the subject (Innocent Voices)

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

One of the startling things, to a modern audience, about the film Master and Commander is that one of the midshipmen is a 12-year-old boy. No one would think, nowadays, of sending a mere boy to sea on a merchant ship, let alone a Navy ship. And there used to be "drummer boys" who marched with the troops and shared the risk of getting shot. When did all that change?

[beergeek279]

The style of warfare changing also certainly would have had something to do with it.....World War I wasn't about marching proudly rank-and-file into combat, and I think I'd be telling that drummer boy to shut the hell up during a shelling/gas attack!

[David Simmons]

Originally Posted by beergeek279

The style of warfare changing also certainly would have had something to do with it.....World War I wasn't about marching proudly rank-and-file into combat, and I think I'd be telling that drummer boy to shut the hell up during a shelling/gas attack!

This is a WAG but I agree with this. I think the need for standard bearers and drummer boys disappeared with the improvement in communication methods. With better communications forces could be more dispersed and in smaller groups and still coordinate actions. There was no need for a visible and audible signal to mark the rallying point.

[Paul in Qatar]

The use of children in war has not ended. The Ugandan rebel group, the Lord's Liberation Army or somesuch is infamous for using child soldiers. Other examples are in Burma.

Oddly both the British and American armies still use underage soldiers in some places. If we assume the age of majority is 18, a person under that age can enlist in the U.S. military, although IIRC policy limits them to duty in the US only.

The US has refused to accept the UN declaration against the use of child soldiers for this reason.

The British still have something called a 'Boy Soldier,' although I have no idea what they do in this day and age.

[BrainGlutton]

When did the Royal Navy raise its minimum age for midshipmen? (Or did it?)

[Sailboat]

Here's a really pertinent survey of this topic.

Boy warriors certainly did share risks, and in some cases fight like front-line troops -- the cadets of the Viginia Military Institute are one famous example.

But there were often efforts made to shield boy soldiers from the brunt of battle. In Shakespeare's Henry V, one characters exclaims in disgust, "To muder the boys and the luggage [baggage train], 'tis expressly against the laws of war!" We all know Shakespeare was writing drama, not history; but for him to write such a line shows he was at least aware of the unpleasant side of child soldiering, and thought his audience would understand the urge to shield the boys, even if it wasn't always (or even often) lived up to.

John Keegan, writing in The Price of Admiralty about exactly the sort of 12-year-old midshipmen and powder monkeys you saw in Master and Commander, says that casualties at Trafalgar (1805) were very low, "probably because the captains sent the boys below the waterline, and hence out of direct cannon fire, before the battle." [My paraphrasing, from memory; couldn't find a cite online.]

Sailboat

[Lemur866]

Originally Posted by David Simmons

This is a WAG but I agree with this. I think the need for standard bearers and drummer boys disappeared with the improvement in communication methods. With better communications forces could be more dispersed and in smaller groups and still coordinate actions. There was no need for a visible and audible signal to mark the rallying point.

I think this is a little backwards. Increased firepower and accuracy made old-style massed formations of infantry suicide. Infantry had to take cover or they'd be slaughtered by machine guns, artillery, and long-range breachloading rifles. This made the old style of command and control impossible...officers could no longer see all their men, the men could no longer see their standards or hear the signallers. Which leads to the ratfuck of WWI trench warfare.

The improved communication you talk about was a response to the need for dispersal and cover, not a cause of it.

Warfare has changed so much that nowadays people often just can't understand that the old methods of marching in formation weren't suicidal idiocy, but rather were effective ways to win battles.

Anyway, back to the OP. I guess it's been traditional for thousands of years for youngsters to accompany soldiers as apprentices, just like youngsters worked alongside their parents on farms or as artisans or eventually in factories. When we put kids in school instead of work I imagine the military changed as well. Armies organized along western lines follow suit, ad hoc militaries follow old-style methods.

[David Simmons]

Originally Posted by Lemur866

I think this is a little backwards. Increased firepower and accuracy made old-style massed formations of infantry suicide. Infantry had to take cover or they'd be slaughtered by machine guns, artillery, and long-range breachloading rifles. This made the old style of command and control impossible...officers could no longer see all their men, the men could no longer see their standards or hear the signallers. Which leads to the ratfuck of WWI trench warfare.

The improved communication you talk about was a response to the need for dispersal and cover, not a cause of it.

Quite possible. However the massed formations hung on for quite a while after it was obvious, or should have been (Battle of the Somme, Verdun), that they were a disaster. However, nothing could be done about it if you intended to do anything, other than just sit around defensively, until communications improved.

Maybe the correct line is that improved communications and improved tactics developed alongside each other in a sort of bootstrap manner.

[Mk VII]

improved public provision for orphans (and they usually were orphans) meant the regiment no longer took responsibility for their upkeep.
The raising of the school leaving age, from 14, to 15 after WW2, and finally to 16 in 1971, brought an end to Boy Service

[QuizCustodet]

Originally Posted by Paul in Saudi

The US has refused to accept the UN declaration against the use of child soldiers for this reason.

The British still have something called a 'Boy Soldier,' although I have no idea what they do in this day and age.

When I was an Officer Cadet in the Officer Training Corps (the British equivalent of ROTC, roughly) we had several instructors who had been 'boy soldiers'. Basically, they joined up at 16, did military training part time and spent the other half doing what was essentially school-work. They often were deployed into the regular Army at 17, thus fitting the technical definition of child soldiers. The expectation was that these would turn out to be future senior NCOs - and at least in this case it worked, as all three of the ones I encountered were Battery Sergeant Majors by their early thirties, with strong hopes of making RSM before they hit their 20 years in and retired/commissioned.
I think the program has been changed since then - there's a sixth form college where potential officers study for A-levels and do military training at the same time, and I think there's some similar program for enlisted men and women, but I don't know the details.

[Slithy Tove]

The British stopped sending boy soldiers out with front line troops in 1879, after the public was shocked to learn that at the Battle of Isandlwana the Zulus had hung the boys' bodies from the trees, disemboweled and with their genitals cut off.