Over the past few weeks, I have been following a WW1 course run by Humanatees. Their courses are run by Jake and are each about an hour long. Jake is very nice and funny. You can choose to do the live sessions or the recorded ones; I did the recorded sessions. I have done another course about the Holocaust with him and am starting a new one soon. I really enjoy these courses and have learned a lot from them. Here are a few facts that stand out from what I have learned:
- The war all started when Archduke Ferdinand was shot in 1914. The shooting was in Serbia, a country in eastern Europe.
- The war started with Serbia wanting to attack Austro-Hungary. Russia and France sided with Serbia and Germany sided with Austro-Hungary. We were allied with Belgium so when German troops marched through Belgium to get to France, we joined in.
- The youngest soldier to fight in World War I was just eight years old. He was a Serbian and all his family had been killed so he signed up. He didn’t die in the war and lived until 1993.
- There was a baboon called Jackie who worked as a morale booster for the South African troops. He was taught to salute and light soldiers’ cigarettes.
- At the end of the war, the Germans didn’t have enough men to fight so they started recruiting children. The British became reluctant to fight, because they didn’t want to kill innocent children.
