Out of World War I came all sorts of odd news, and newspapers all over the world printed the stories as a service to the families of the soldiers. Most of the stories were charming and others seemed out of place. For instance, French soldiers chasing after chickens while the Germans fired at them. The funny moment in the story was when the chickens started dropping eggs everywhere out of fright.
Here are a few of the other “odd” stories printed during WWI.
Lawyers in Battle
When we throw the words lawyers and battle together, most of us think of courtrooms, but that was not the case during WWI. Lawyers were not exempt from taking a very active part in the war. In fact, in 1914, it was reported that 529 lawyers died in the German ranks.
Now only did the lawyers of Germany take such a fatal hit, but 173 German referendiaries, 120 judges and administration officials, and 85 solicitors lost their lives during the first year of The Great War.
The loss was tragic. By the end of the war, it was estimated that over two million German soldiers lost their lives, leaving Germany in dire economic and social state. [1][2]
Luxury in the Trenches
There is no denying that war in the trenches was ugly and brutal, but there were a few men that made an effort to bring a touch of class to the mess.
A short report published in 1914 told how some of the officers would enter the homes in captured towns and collect all the rugs, books, and artwork. They would take these items to their dug-out quarters in the trenches and make themselves at home.
Some of the dug-out trenches were also furnished with fine wooden furniture to make the lives of the officers and their men just a little more bearable when the whole world seemed to have turned into a steaming pile of poop. [3]
Both Belonged to the Union
One of the most awful realizations among the men and women who fight in wars is that they are often not so different from the people they are fighting against. There is no clear-cut enemy and people on the other side are not “evil.”
For instance, a British corporal wrote home in 1915 and told how he was about bayonet a German. Suddenly, the frantic German, knowing that his life was about to end, pulled out his membership card for the British engineers’ union. Incidentally, the British corporal was also a member of this union and decided not to kill the German. [4]
Mechanical Trench Dummy
Trench dummies were used in World War I to draw fire away from living soldiers and to distract enemies. British soldiers would stuff clothing and attach their dummies to the end of a stick to hold them up in plain view. However, a different dummy was made by a group of German toymakers back in 1915.
According to a newspaper report, the German toymakers were in the trenches and much have gathered enough resources from their surroundings because they made a mechanical dummy. They “propped up in their trench a dummy, facing the French. French fired and at every hit [the] dummy raised [his] hand and curled his mustache.” [5]
Heart Wrenching Letter
Countless soldiers from both sides of the war wrote letters home to their mothers. These moms had the heart wrenching duty of keeping the family together while they worried endlessly about their sons in the trenches.
In 1914, an Austrian soldier wrote a letter to his mother and told her that he wished he would be captured and taken prisoner so that he might see her again.
Written on the envelope in pencil were the words, “This soldier was shot Nov. 24, 1914.” [6]
