Ted Francis(1896-1996)

One of the last surviving soldiers of the first world war, Ted Francis joined the British army in the very first weeks of the war (at age 18) to fight a Germany led by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Like many eager young soldiers who went off to the war under the delusion that he would be fighting glorious battles in the name of Britain, he quickly came to realize how brutal and awful the war really was. Not only did he find the war brutal and horrifying but he, like his comrades went to the war thinking that it wouldn't last past December and ended up fighting for their lives for the next four years.