This was a natural response to fight for King, Country and Empire, loved ones and to deal the dastardly enemy a bloody nose.
The pressure to enlist will have been intense and indeed there was a strong and targeted campaign which led, to example, to the founding of battalions of those from a local area, termed the Pal's Regiments.
By the end of the war there were very few towns and villages that were able to welcome back all of their menfolk, able bodied or injured but alive from the bloodiest conflicts of the campaign.
Although volunteers were plentiful the British Army in particular maintained qualifying standards in terms of height and chest size to ensure that recruits were of sufficient stature to take on the range of tasks that would be required on the battlefield and in supporting roles such as drivers, medical orderlies, jobs requiring manual labour and other heavy duties amongst infantry, cavalry, artillery and engineering regiments.
You can therefore imagine the stigma, shame and disappointment of those not of a robust stature or physical characteristics, in effect those below the minimum height stipulation of five feet three inches (1.6 metres) and thirty four inch chest.
Many falling below this threshold were perfectly fit and healthy and this included sturdy types from coal mining areas, the industrial sector or where National or Regional characteristics were defined by smaller physical frames.
There were scenes of protest and indignation where individuals were rejected from being able to take up the call to arms.
In response to this dilemma a series of special Battalions were formed under the Bantam title, referring to the hardy and feisty breed of hen and used in boxing classifications to indicate fighters of a lighter stature.
They were often grouped together with other categories of recruits and anecdotal accounts were of, amongst the more robust members, the frail, impoverished, scavengers and those under a Ticket of Leave which referred to convicts who had been released from custody on the condition that they enlist.
Those of a lighter weight and stature may not have been suited to many military roles but were perfectly suited as crew in the new tank regiments and as sappers and tunnellers in field operations.
Bantam Battalions did serve on the front line . One Officer in the trenches complained that Bantam infantrymen often raised up the firing platforms on the inner front face of the trenches to attain the correct elevation to lay down a field of fire from rifles but then when the same position was taken up by regular troops they found themselves fully exposed to sniper fire and shell fragments. This was resolved by a restriction on using sandbags only which could be quickly removed rather than more permanent structures.
It will have been a tough enough experience in front line duties where there was a minute by minute danger of death or injury but even more so for the Bantam soldiers where in addition there will have been bullying, disrespect and ridicule from contemporaries and peers.
Perhaps one of the most well known members of a Bantam Battalion, the 11th Kings Own Royal Lancasters was the artist and war poet Isaac Rosenberg.
He recounted a most challenging time in basic training where his battalion were exposed to poor equipment, bad food and an almost slave like existence at the hands of bully boy Officers and not helped by a rag-tag assembly of other infantrymen from diverse social and economic backgrounds.
Amongst his stark descriptions of Active Service were moments of pathos and humour. He records how the Battalion were presented to King George V and that from a distance he must have been waiting for them to stand up from a sitting position when they were already at attention ready for the review.
Bantams were exposed to the same perils and threats as regular troops and will have suffered from what was called Shell-Shock or as we know it in the modern era, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
In 1916 twenty six Bantams were sentenced to death for cowardice and three of these were executed by firing squad. It is not clear if posthumous Pardons were granted as has been the practice in retrospect for those deemed subsequently to have been suffering from PTSD.
By the later phase of the War the original Bantam Battalions had been largely disbanded and surviving troops re-allocated to other Regiments to make up the severely depleted numbers from the carnage of trench warfare.
In their actions the Bantams achieved a hard earned reputation for duty and endeavour and confirmed the importance of their participation as regular troops.
Isaac Rosenberg was killed in action on the Western Front on 1st April 1918
(Source; Extracts from "Nobody Told Me To Oil My Boots" by Neil Cargill and BBC Four Extra Voices of World War 1- Dan Snow)
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