During the winter of 1917 , Russian and German soldier fighting in the dreary trenches of the Great War ’s Eastern Front had a slew to revere : foe bullets , oceanic abyss foot , frostbite , innumerous diseases , shrapnel , bayonets , tanks , sniper fervency . Oh , andwolves .
In February of that year , a dispatch from Berlin observe that gravid packs of wolves were creeping from the wood of Lithuania and Volhynia into the inside of the German Empire , not far from the front lines . Like so many living creatures , the creature had been ride from their home by the war and were now simply looking for something to eat . “ As the beasts are very thirsty , they click into the hamlet and kill calves , sheep , goats , and other farm animal , ” the account , which appear in theEl Paso Herald , says . “ In two cases children have been attacked by them . ”
According to another dispatch out of St. Petersburg , the wildcat were such a nuisance on the field of battle that they were one of the few things that could contribute soldiers from both sides together . “ Parties of Russian and German scouts met of late and were hotly engaged in a skirmish when a gravid large number of wolves dashed on the scene and assail the wounded , ” the report say , according to theOklahoma City Times . “ Hostilities were at once debar and Germans and Russians instinctively round the pack , killing about 50 wolves . ” It was an unspoken agreement among snipers that , if the Russians and Germans decided to operate in a corporate wolf - hunt , all firing would lay off .
Takethis July 1917New York Timesreport line how soldiers in the Kovno - Wilna Minsk dominion ( near forward-looking Vilnius , Lithuania ) decide to cease belligerency to fight this furry common enemy :
Afterward , the soldiers presumably returned to their posts and resumed sharpen their rifle at a more violent and dangerous opposition — each other .
