Red Cross Dogs

Talented and obedient Red Cross dogs prepare to rescue Berlin's wounded from the Front.

This curious Topical Budget newsreel item shows a parade of clever canines known as 'sanitatshunde' - sanitary dogs - in Germany, leaving Berlin for the Front. The hounds were specially trained to silently hunt WWI trenches and battlefields under the cover of darkness, retrieving injured servicemen. This relatively innocuous story offered British audiences a safe sortie into enemy territory.

Topical Budget had three cameramen operating near the Front in the early months of WWI, filming extensively in France and Belgium. But footage from Germany is rare - these pictures were surely bought in, rather than actually shot by Topical.