Oh What A Time... - #115 Weird Wars (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 1, 2025

This week on the show we’re looking at wars that were, frankly, weird. We’ve got the Bulgarians and Greeks booting off over a dog, the great emu war in Australia, and how about Honduras and El Salvador kicking off on the football pitch and off it.And do you miss the days of ringing a mate’s landline to see if they wanted to do something? Or do you miss those pre-facebook days of never seeing people again? Any feedback on this weeks chat and correspondence welcome here: [e-mail] you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wandery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wandery Plus in the Wandery app or on Apple Podcasts. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the history podcast that asks, what was friendship like in the pre-social media age? Better. And the reason I ask this is that someone I haven't seen for about 20 years just sent me a Facebook message saying, I'm in London tonight. Do you want a pint? That one, I've not seen him since about 2003. We know this because the three of us are just about old enough to remember it, but prior to

Facebook, I suppose MySpace, which is the first social media I had, he would have had to have sourced my number probably, because he's from my hometown, he would have probably had to call my mum. Yeah. I think that's the crucial thing. If you wanted to speak to a friend in the past, you had to go via their mum. Those initial steps would have been either their mum or their dad would pick up. You'd have to navigate that conversation, then you get to speak to your friend. You famously had all these gatekeepers, didn't you? And they were usually mothers.

He would have called my mum and dad's house and said, I doubt Dennis is in, unless something bad has happened. But can you, it's Mark, can you pass on my number or can you give me his number? I would like to go for a pint with him. Will Barron That's very sweet though. Will Barron Yeah. Will Barron But even Facebook Elle feels a little bit nostalgic now to me. That's like an interim form of getting in contact between the phone and what we have now, which if someone sends you like a GIF on Snapchat with a point being down. Will Barron Yes, yes, yes.

Will Barron Yes, yes. of a sort of a unicorn in tears with a pint of lagerne. I don't really know what it means. It was just a really surprise me. I thought until, obviously in the grand scheme of things historically, very, very, very, very recently, this would have been impossible. But no, he's got back in touch. And there is my, Izzy, my wife is very anti social media and she's, she will make the argument, I think, or I've read this in newspapers, psychologists writing articles, they will say things like you're actually only designed to have a fairly small circle of friends. And so the idea of knowing what you especially know. Yeah. I've always said that.

Knowing what the girl you fancied at school in Year 9 is still up to. Yes, absolutely. We're not sort of, we're not designed for this. So prior to the phone call or, you know, so we've got social media now, prior to that it was the phone call. I guess before that, if you wanted to meet a friend, you just have to cycle around to their house or something, knock on the door and ask, and have the very real chance they are to your face going to say, no, sorry, I'm all right, I'm busy. And then you just have to go back to your house again.

Also, you'd have needed, I don't remember this, but you'd have needed a decent raft of excuses up your sleeve. Because just say, for example, that Tom and I had gone to school with each other 25 years ago, 30 years ago Tom and I had gone to school with each other 25 years ago, 30 years ago, and I didn't like Tom anymore. All right. And cycled to my house. Why does this have to be the dynamic of the story? Flip it.

Why can't I be the one in power? All right, then I've cycled to Tom's house and Tom doesn't like me, but I would love to have a pint with Tom. Yeah. I've knocked at the door. Tom's answered, hello, Tom. It's me. Remember me? I'm your friend.

And you've gone, yes. Would you like to have a drink with me tonight? You'd need an excuse like that. Otherwise, you're having a pint with me. And if I'm about to make love, I'm sorry. But I'll be free in four to five hours. God willing. God willing. God willing. Exactly. I've asked my dad about, how did people in the 60s and 70s go for a drink? He said, you would make a plan, you'd go to the Red Line and you'd say we'd meet there at seven, but you would have to be there at seven.

Yes. Otherwise the night might move on without you. Well I remember this. So my first nights out were in around 1997, 1998. So we would go out in Cmdn and we would all meet up at the Spread Eagle pub and there'd be people in there from probably 6.37. I used to get there by about 7 or 8 o'clock. But then you knew that by 9 we were moving on and then we would move on to the Boar's Head. And then we'd be in the Boar's Head for about an hour until about 10ish and then you would move on to, I think we would then go to the Jolly Tar pub.

RIP, no longer there. What's it called? The Jolly Tar? The Jolly Tar. Yeah, I think it was like a Docs thing, I think. I don't actually know what it meant. So there was a sort of circuit you could follow. But yeah, if you weren't there by eight, you might wait for half an hour if it was a pub,

but otherwise you'd move on. And there was no... you could, I suppose, call the pub. Oh yes. Yes. Yeah, never thought of that. I remember people doing that. Yeah. But you know, so I suppose if I'd been,

I never did at it, but if I'd been very late, I possibly could have rung the spread eagle and said there'll be a group of underage drinkers on the left-hand side. Would you let them know that one of their underage friends is- Are there a group of boys who look like they shouldn't have been served? Good, that's my friends. Yeah, they're my friends. their underage friends is... Are there a group of boys who look like they shouldn't have been served? Yeah.

Good, that's my friends. Yeah, they're my friends. Could you let them know that one of their underage friends, there was an issue with his tea and his mother burnt the gammon and he's going to be about half an hour late. But could he have a smirnoff eye? What's weird, El, is you simply mentioning that, the idea of the steps of a pub crawl, which is exactly how I first went out drinking in Bath. I used to start a pub in Bathampton, we then walk along the towpath, there's a variety

of pubs in Bath we go to. Yeah, same order every time. We were saying the same place, same order every time. Exactly. It makes me feel so excited and so nostalgic for that. Because I think that's another thing that's died away. I think the experience of... Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just old. But the pub crawl seems to have gone away. It used to be such a thing when I was 20, 21, going from place to place to place. Now it seems most people will go to a nice pub and

just, you know, they'll settle there and then they'll go to a club. When I speak to friends who are younger than me, that seems to be the thing they do. You don't speak to anyone younger than you. What you want about? I spoke to you Chris. Stop inventing friends. I think that might be an age thing and that might be a London thing maybe. I don't know. But I think that might be because when you're older, if you've found somewhere with good seats and stuff, you might settle in. Jolly Tars... When your knees go and your hips go and you don't want to walk up the high street.

Jolly Tars is a nickname because it was next to the sort of harbour in Carmarthen, where the old dock would have been. So Jolly Tars is a nickname particularly associated with British sailors, especially in the Year of Sail and it typically refers to a sailor or a seaman. The term jolly suggests a cheerful, good-natured and often boisterous character, a common trait attributed to sailors at that time. And the word Tars is short for tarpolines or tar canvas,

which are often used to protect sailors in the weather and their clothes. But yes, you just have to, there was the order and if you messed up, that was that. I remember when I first started drinking, underage drinking, me and a few friends, we went to a bar, we successfully got served and within like three minutes the phone rang at the bar and the barman went, is there a malachy here? And he's like, one of my friends and he was like, yeah.

He was like, your mom's on the phone. It's like 10 minutes in, 10 minutes in to successfully breaching the security of a bar and getting served. That reminds me of one of the most quickly ruined night out ever when I was 18. We used to meet this pub called the George at Bath Hampton. We would then buy cans and walk along the towpath in the sun into Bath. You can walk along the canal. This must have been my

third night out ever. I was with my friend Rob. We've had one beer in the pub. We set off. We're going down the towpath. Suddenly we come across a lady who's, she's dropped her oar and can't seem to get her... Oh no. What are we calling this? It's the start of an episode of casualty. What are those very thin boats that you sit in? What are they called? Those one man boats?

Or some others do have them, depending on what happens next. Well you're correct in thinking where it's going to go next. She's in her little... What are those little boats called? I don't know what that means, escaping me. A canoe, there you are. She can't get over to the side. My friend

who's 18 and one point in, which he's probably drunk too quickly and getting excited, says I'll deal with this. God leans out to pull in the canoe, loses his foot and he goes straight in. So my friend's now in the canal. And I think in a basic life, if you've fallen in a canal at the beginning of the night, your night is over. It's definitely over. Did he stay out? No. No, he got picked up by his mum. I know people who definitely would have stayed out.

Are you kidding? Well, Friday nights when you're younger is such a big thing. The idea of waiting another week. You can't fall in the canal and stay out. I would say the majority of my friends at 18 would have stayed out. A friend of mine, I remember him going on a night out and he was like, God, I'm not having a great night. And we were, they were quite rough pubs in Carmarthen in the 90s.

And I was like, what is that then? He said, I've just got diarrhoea. I was like, you've got diarrhoea. You can stay on, you mad bastard. My friend had bile disease, it's even worse. Did he? You're a hunk of a mudbusters. My friend had mild disease, it's even worse. Did he? That is horrendous. You've been for shit in here.

Yes, a few times. I was like, Jesus Christ, man. No respect. Absolutely no self-respect. Oh my god. Do you know as well, just to go back a bit, like, ringing your mate's houses. I really, I missed that. The interaction with the mother or one of my friends, his older brother, who was about

eight years older than him, my friend Tom, when I rang him up, his brother always used to answer the phone, ahoy ahoy, which was Alexander Graham Bell's original suggestion for a greeting on the phone. And it's a joke in The Simpsons because that's how Mr Burns answers the phone. My dad used to answer the phone with a variety of different ones. Hello Battersea Dogs Home. That's brilliant. SAS headquarters. Oh God, did I really say that? That was another one of his. That is his dog's home. And there's a double-posed police, can I help you?

And people go, can I use this then? Yes, yes, yes. Young people today will never know the pride that comes from being 14, or younger than that, 12, picking up your home phone and quickly reading out your home number. Yes, before I fall. And then I went to find it, if I didn't, that would be, yeah, yeah. How can I help you, please? That was my thing.

Who am I speaking to with one of those two? Such a weird thing to do. But such a buzz reading out the number of, yeah. Yeah. Why do people do that, to double check that you've got the number? Like, oh, sorry, I've got Mr. Digit or something. Why do people read out their own number

when you have to answer? It was to prove that you were ringing in the right place, but you're quite right. By skipping the number and just saying who you are, you also find out that you've given the information that's required. Hello to Crane. That's all you need. I'm going to start doing that on my mobile phone. So when people call me up, I'm going to start going, Oh, seven and seven four. Don't say the whole thing out.

I would love that. What a lovely nostalgic trip that was. Great nostalgic chat. Yeah, good humor. Just quickly, something that happened to me last week. More nostalgic chat. I want to start with nostalgia from last week. Someone rang me on a number I didn't recognize.

I called them back and I was like, oh, sorry, I had a miscall from this number. And this older lady was like, no, you don't. And I was like, well, I've literally just hit, I've just hit, you've missed a call, I've hit you back. She's like, no, I didn't. That's so weird. I immediately think some kind of weird scam. I don't understand.

What's a scam? Most things I assume are a scam. Did you find out? No, I didn't. I was like, well, should we just leave it then? She was like, yeah, I think we should. Yes, please. If you're not going to leave it, what are you going to do? Should we meet for a coffee and discuss it? I thought I'm doing you a favour.

Yeah, how strange. People, eh? Yeah. Yeah, how strange. People, eh? Yeah. Right, welcome to Oh What A Time. This is of course not just a nostalgia pod, it is a history pod first and foremost. Shall we discuss what we're talking about today? We'll do a little bit of correspondence and then we'll crash into the history. What's today's subject, Al?

Today we are discussing weird wars and in part, I will be chatting about one of the strangest beginnings to a war I've ever heard of. I'll be talking about Honduras versus El Salvador on the football pitch and in a war off it. Oh, that sounds great. I'm going to be talking about a very weird war between a certain animal and Australians that happened in 1931. It's mad. Wow. Can I guess kangaroos? Interesting. Well, we'll have a guessing game at the beginning of my bit.

And yeah, and I, but a little spoiler, you're wrong already. Oh, okay. But I can see why you guessed that, but it's not a kangaroo. Before we get into that, let's do a little bit of correspondence because you guys always send such amazing stuff. Here's a quick email from Louise Richardson. So just a bit of a refresher, was it, El, were you talking about the idea of people ironing their hair? Was that what it was? Were you talking about that?

So just to refresh the listeners for that. Our friend, Will Briggs, who I saw the other day and I asked him about it, used to iron his hair because he was in a band in the late 90s, pre-GHD hair straighteners. So he used to use like his mum's iron on an ironing board and he told me that the key to it was to use it on its lowest setting because he once went too hot and it ironed the shape of the iron into his hair. It was like a silhouette of a domestic iron in the side of his head. He couldn't get rid of it. And I said, Tom Crane asked if he used to use the steam setting, and he laughed for about 12 minutes. So, yeah, low setting on the iron board.

Well, this email relates to that. The email is titled Ironing My Hair. And Louise says, hi guys, second time emailer, continuous listener. Thank you very much, Louise. Having listened to your Invention sequel episode, I couldn't help but inform you of the fabulous Straight and Shine hair straightener,

a staple to a cool girl hair kit in the early 2000s. Now this game changer was everything to me, but would take you two hours to do a good job. As you had to fill the front with water almost continuously as it was essentially a tiny steam iron. So let's just picture this. It's basically a tiny iron. You're having to fill it with water constantly

and to straighten your hair would take two hours. Let's get your initial take on that. How are you feeling about two hours of straightening? AM. Yeah. I'd say it takes you 20 minutes to get there. You start the hair process at 4.40pm if it takes two hours. Ideal, yes. Unless you're planning on eating food before leaving the house, in which case it needs to be earlier than that.

Gee whiz. If you're planning on having dinner before the pub, it's got to start at half three. Is this why the perm was as big as it was for as long as it was? Did it just bake in your hairstyle for a significant period of time? Well this is early 2000s, which to me is slightly later than the post post per post perm. Exactly. This is PP. As Louise says here, thank God for GHDs though, as I'm sure I'd be bald if I continued using boiling water in the frizz. Don't even get me started on my crimper. It's not even worth thinking about. Picture attached. Look forward to the live

shows and the Bath of Custard. Keep up the great work, Louise Edinburgh. I will send you a picture of this thing. Wow, it is genuinely quite frightening. We'll also stick it up on our socials. Give me two seconds, boys. Although I went to a wedding on Saturday and I went for a meal with Izzy the other night. Yeah. And I had shaved, washed my hair with baby shampoo, as we've already discussed, and cut my nails. And I had a suit on. I thought, I cannot do any more than this. This is as nice as I can look. I've made all the effort. I've got no more options left. The fingernails are short. I've shaved. Hair, washed. Every lever has been pulled. That's it.

What more do you want from me? What more can I do? You want me to wash my body as well, is he? Shy of plastic surgery, there is nothing left to improve. So I've sent it round to you on the WhatsApp group, have a little look. I think that I would not let that anywhere near my head.

I feel like I remember that, maybe in my mum's head. It is like a little line, it's right. You can see the little water section. Oh yes, I remember that. Good old Barbaris. We'll put this on the WhatsApp, but to me, not within a hundred yards of my hair would I let that go. No, no, no.

Not in a month or Sunday. I tell you what, this- I know, but it's nice to look nice. This brings me back to one of the most terrifying things as a kid is like pouring, well not as a kid, but as a teenager, pouring water into an iron over a tap. Do you remember the little hole at the top of an iron and having it skirt down and fizzle on the side.

It felt like I was going to electrocute myself or blow the iron up. That fear. Yeah. God. Has iron technology moved on? I feel like it has. Another really quick way to straighten your hair, as I've seen actually, is falling into a canal. That does too it. My friend came out, his hair was entirely straight down across

his face. But it did work. It did work. You could not shower enough after falling into a canal. Oh my gosh. I was thinking if you come out of the canal and you're going into town you're going to stink. But maybe the key is to ham it up by like grabbing some seaweed or something and throwing it over your shoulders. Just so you look like a bog monster. Like just for the banter.

Yes. You've got to go the other way. The key is to head home, shower and rejoin surely. I would chuck you out of my... If a canal man walked into my pub I would be like out of my pub. If a canal man walked into my pub, I could have a can on me. Dragging a rusty anchor around his ankle. One foot in a shopping trolley.

I'm a reasonable man. I think I would say, listen, you can stand in the beer garden, but I'm not letting you take, I'm not letting you sit down. You're putting off the other customers. Could I have 15 pints of fresh water? Why? Out to the beer garden. And some radox. Yeah, exactly. So thank you, Luis, for sending that. That's really made me laugh. If you have any mad hair memories from your life or any strange historical things that you've seen grandparents do or weird things that your family members have done. Let's just say to beautify themselves generally.

Will Barron Can I make a request as well, Crane? Crane Yes. Will Barron If you've ever fallen in a canal and got on a night out, please let us know. Crane Yes. The Jolly Tar in Carmarthen, there was a small chain fence and then you were in the River Towie. Wow. So people used to fall into the River Towie from the Jolly Tar all the time. My first girlfriend's ex-boyfriend had fallen in and she was like, it was so embarrassing

because everyone's having a drink. Was it a fast-flowing river? Would you be sort of pulled along or not? You'd be able to get back into the pub garden? I mean it wasn't ideal but it used to happen all the time. You tended to just... I remember seeing a guy, a taxi driver pulling someone out. He had rope in his boot. So yeah, there'll be people... I reckon we'll get loads of emails on this. I'd like to make it even broader than that. I think the ideal email is, have you fallen into a body of water on a night out and continued? The second one is, what's the

most humiliating, disastrous thing that's happened to you on a night out and you've still continued? So we've looked, we've seen Elle's friend who had a pronounced experience of diarrhoea and kept going. Yeah. Can you beat that? Email us or whatever way you want to get in contact, here's how. Alright, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at earlwatertime.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Oh What A Time, now clear off. Is that why the Jolly Tar closed down?

No it was... People constantly falling out of the pub into the river. Like a lot of pubs in Carmarthen it was probably 200 years old, my mother used to drink them in the 60s. It was just, I think, I think nights out to change. It used to sell triples for 50p, the jolly tar, when I was in my pump. Elle's mum and dad met in the river midnight out, didn't they? After flipping over the railing.

Yeah, it was, yes, it was a different time. Talking of different times, it's time for a bit of history. Very nice. Okay, so we're discussing weird wars here. And when you think of how wars begin, there's the classic reasons, religion, nationalism, territory, resources, obviously civil wars, all sorts of different.

There, there's sort of classics, there's lots of classic reasons. But in October 1925 the Balkans, which was often a very tense region of south-eastern Europe of course, erupted into conflict and you think, well what's this going to be? Is it going to be some sort of territorial dispute? That's what it usually is. No, a dog strayed over the border between Greece and Bulgaria a dog strayed over the border between Greece and Bulgaria, and a Greek soldier crossed the frontier to try and rescue the animal, right?

Now, unfortunately, he ran into a passing Bulgarian patrol which opened fire. The Greek soldier was killed. And then from then on, there was this incident in a town called Petrik escalated. So this stray dog has crossed the border between Greece and Bulgaria. The Greek soldier's like,

don't worry, I'll get this. He runs over to get the dog. The Bulgarians open fire. Suddenly they're at war. Wow. Now this is massive, right? So it was October 1925. So the Bulgarian government apologized to the Greek.

Do we know what happened to the dog? That's a genuine question. So the Bulgarian government apologized to the Greek. Do we know what happened to the dog? That's a genuine question. Did the dog survive? I don't... Well, all will be revealed. Now the Bulgarian government quickly apologized to the Greek government. They insisted it was a misunderstanding.

They appealed for calm. The Greeks having none of it. So they now issue an ultimatum. They demanded punishment for those involved in millions of compensation. And to make sure they got what they wanted, the Greeks sent a cohort of troops to occupy the border town of Petri.

Wow. So now it's, we're off. We're off and running over a bloody stray dog, okay? Now the League of Nations in Geneva, obviously there's this big scramble to try and prevent a full-scale war because the Balkans, I mean, we remember this from our teenage years,

is a tinderbox, okay? So they're like, bloody hell, we can't, we can't go to war over this. Obviously it's less than 10 years after the First World War. So telegrams and letters passed with urgency, the two governments squaring up, the League of Nations archives still contains more than a hundred files on the subject, right?

So this is serious, but they couldn't prevent little skirmishes. Or, here they come, the ready participation of the internal Macedonian revolutionary organization of a secret society formed in the 1890s when the region was part of the Ottoman Empire. Because they wanted to push- We were all wondering when they were coming along. They wanted to push for Macedonian independence. And it's weird, cause I was in North Macedonia

a few months ago, watching Wales play football. And there's a big Albanian enclave in Skopje, the city where the game was happening. And as we were walking, we were staying in the Albanian bit. And as we were walking into town to watch the match, we've sort of, most of the boys have got Wales shirts on. We were all getting beeped and people were cheering us

because the Albanians who live in Macedonia wanted Wales to win. Because they don't call themselves Macedonia. So there's because they don't think of themselves as Macedonia. So there's a lot of different sort of ethnic people there. So the last thing they need is for a bloody stray dog to be wandering from border to border, country to country. So now you've got the Macedonian Revolution, the organization involved, sacred society,

they're pushing for Macedonian independence. 50 Bulgarians lost their lives before peace was restored. And the Bulgarians claim that more than 120 Greeks were also killed. Wow. So there was a cessation of hostilities when the League of Nations intervened and they said, you know, you've got to stop this.

So both sides backed down, although Greece was commanded to pay compensation. And then there was a commission of inquiry launched to settle the border to find out crucially what had happened. So it sounds like obviously a silly excuse for a war, you know, a stray dog. But it may be that there was no dog involved at all. Oh my gosh. Great twist. Here we go. When I read this...

It was a cat. It was a bloody fox. So this is a great twist. When I read this in terms of the searchers, I go, here we go. I mean we're making it, but I would be amazed if there wasn't already a podcast series on this. Now here's

the text of a telegram sent by the Greek government to the Bulgarians, which was distributed at the Liga nations. On October 19th at 2pm, the Bulgarian posts began without provocation to fire on the Greek post, O69, killing a soldier. Naturally, the soldiers of the post, on seeing their comrade fall dead, replied, firing became general. Bulgarians firing heavily on the whole line of Greek posts number 67 and 69. The captain of the company guarding the frontier ordered his soldiers to cease fire, hoisted the white flag, went towards the Bulgarian line and endeavored to get into communication with the Bulgarian officers. He was killed immediately. Firing continued up to the evening. Now the

difficulty with that evidence is why the Bulgarians started firing at all. Now deep in the files held in Geneva you've got some of the Bulgarian reasoning, pages of ongoing tit-for-tat stuff along the border with Greece including an incident on the 5th of September 1925 which was the month prior, which a Greek sentry post had fired at and thrown a grenade towards its Bulgarian counterpart. So in other words, until we sort out the border,

these things will continue. But they never mentioned the bloody dog. Oh. Right. So the Greeks and the Bulgarians, it's worth saying, had been on opposite sides of the First World War. So when that conflict had broken out in 1914, both countries had initially declared their neutrality. But then Bulgaria soon joined the Central Powers alongside Germany, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary in opposite to the allies

of Britain, France and Russia. Greece were aloof until 1917, then they joined the Allied cause. So these are old enmities. So the League of Nations inquiry concluded that you basically couldn't determine who had fired first, Greece or Bulgaria, but that it had definitely happened. What they did conclude was that the Greek soldier was killed was in Greece, not Bulgaria, as the Bulgarian sentries had claimed, and at no stage was a dog ever mentioned. So it's sort of held truth now that the dog didn't exist, that is the feeling. Well people aren't sure, so where did that really come from? It seems like a lot of myths, it entered the story as an explanation for the inexplicable or the mundane. There's some people

of the theory that could be a metaphor because you are all of these frontier tit for tats, they were very commonplace. So people are like, well, why this incident flared up so badly? Was it someone's bad tempers gone wrong? But also there was a bit of opportunism, they think, on the part of those involved. The Greek dictator, Theodoros Panaglos, had recently come to power through a bloodless coup

that June, so a few months prior, and he was quite willing to engage in saber rattling, but they don't know if he was willing to risk a full-scale war. So maybe it was just an excuse, maybe someone concocted the dog. That's fascinating. But all they know is that Panaglos knew full well that Bulgaria's army was weak and limited in size, thanks to the country's defeat in 1918 as part of the Central Powers, the end of the First World War. So there were dogs involved in the story but more as sort of victims of military to and fro. So there was shortly after

the matters were resolved, there was a journalist and he was writing for a Bulgarian daily newspaper and he published an account of the incident and it aimed at being factual. But the writer, he couldn't miss an opportunity to describe the damage on the ground and he aimed at being factual but the writer he couldn't miss an opportunity to describe the damage on the ground and he complained to in every Bulgarian village there was a corpse of a dog with a bullet in its belly. So maybe it comes from that. That's fascinating. Do you know what, in the thick of that story I think you mentioned that one side sent an emissary to the other and that person was killed. And like, whenever I hear historical stories like that, one party going to negotiate with

the other and they get murdered, like the diplomatic representative getting gunned down. I always get like a fear that that could be me. I feel like I would be that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go talk to them. Tell them to calm down. Well, don't shoot the messenger. That's where it comes from, isn't it?

That is what the phrase is. That's what it relates to. Absolutely. Because I sort of vaguely heard of this, but yes, there's a Wikipedia page, The Incident of Patrick or The War of the Stray Dog. And I went through a phase of reading a lot of books about East Germany and the Berlin Wall. Interesting use of past tense there. Yeah. But it's a good example because there was such

tension around the border. Yes. And so you just get one small mistake that can suddenly escalate and then you've got two countries at war with each other. Well we talked at the beginning of this episode about how different it is now that we have social media and we can WhatsApp our friends, stuff like that. That is a real boon for whoever the messenger is in war, isn't it? The fact that we now have WhatsApp has really made that position much easier. Oh my God. Passing on a message to the opposition is now, have you got their number? Of course. What do you want me to write? That's basically what it is. Rather than going across no man's land. The messenger community love the landline. They're like, finally.

Cause you know how there'll be like farmers for instance, like, oh, I'm a farmer. My parents are farmers. My grandparents were farmers. Yeah. You know, lots of industries, you know, fishermen are like, oh, my dad did this. My granddad did this.

There must be messenger families. They're like, yeah, dad was a messenger. He died, shot her. Granddad was a messenger. He died, got shot up. You know, you're doing all right. Yes, what's up? It's all done on WhatsApp these days. I reckon you don't get a lot of second and third generation war messengers. They just don't exist. You tend to be the first one in your family to do it, and the last. If you read the accounts of messengers in World War I having to go back across the lines and World War II for that matter, any of the trench warfare is just horrific.

Yes. Having to brave bullets and kind of, oh my goodness me, braver men than me. My great uncle was a dispatch rider in World War II. So, you know, taking messages to the front and stuff on a motorbike. And I asked him once, I said, you know, how was your experience with the war? He said, brilliant. I loved riding motorbikes. And our regiment had a rugby team.

I played rugby all the time. Was always on a motorbike. It was absolutely great. and I loved it. I'm too scared to ride a motorbike on, you know, like a country road at a time when we're not at war, let alone when there's bullets flying. That would be quite an interesting email to punt out for people who's, because obviously war is horrific, but every now and then you must have had a sort of decent experience.

So like, like I, cause honestly my uncle, my uncle Jack, he was like, yeah, yeah, loved it, loved being a dispatcher. I just really loved riding motorbikes. Yeah. Well, well, well. Well, that's fascinating, Al. That's generally amazing. It's interesting,

isn't it? You wonder how many wars are started off the back of this sort of spurious or just made up, just a story to justify action, basically. There was a very, there's a great community called Rob Newman. And I remember seeing him do a really funny routine on the beginning of World War One. Obviously he started because Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. He was like, and then the world went to war. How popular was Archduke Franz Ferdinand? What a guy! And you've only got to read, you know, pretty much every war poem, will people be talking about needless war and how pointless it all is. But yeah, over a, you know, I'm a pet lover, but over a stray dog, you can't have people bloody going to war over that.

Every teenager in the country had a Artcheek Franz Ferdinand poster of their bird at that point. He was like, you know, he was basically the Fonz, wasn't he? He was, yeah, exactly. He was yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Well that's it for part one of Weird Wars but if you want part two right now and if you want to hear about the war between Honduras and El Salvador that started on a football pitch. You can get part two right now and you can also get two bonus episodes every month and access to the full bonus episode archive including lots of book reviews and even more on East Germany. To do that you can become an O What A Time full-timer. You can sign up at owhatatime.com via Wondry Plus and another slice. Otherwise, we'll see you tomorrow for part two.

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