Category: Secret Militias

• The "Boy Scouts" as a Secret Militia

  This theory claimed that Robert Baden-Powell’s Scout movement was not principally a civic youth program, but a disguised military structure preparing boys for political or imperial use. In the strongest versions, the Scouts were described as a child army that could be mobilized for authoritarian or coup-like purposes inside Britain. The theory grew from Baden-Powell’s military background, the movement’s use of uniforms, drills, patrol structures, and scouting manuals, and the close historical relationship between youth discipline and imperial citizenship in the early twentieth century.