Special Guest Blogger: Henry Tandey

The Great War had started. It was expected to last about four months but it went on to last four years. The British characteristics of keeping a stiff upper lip and being sporting even carried on to the battlefield and I was as sporting as they come.
Not that I was against killing the odd Jerry, I won a Victoria Cross for crawling over No Mans Land and taking out a machine gun nest which was causing havoc with our advance.
I fought and survived some of the war’s greatest battles, Ypres, the Battle of the Somme and Passchendaele and then i arrived at Marcoing where only later i would discover what a remarkable and world changing day that was.
I was told to attack a German trench and informally to take no prisoners as prisoners have to be escorted back to the British lines which was a proper ball-ache as it meant taking valuable British fighting man out of action to escort them.
As the brutal battle reached its climax, the enemy troops surrendered or retreated and a wounded German soldier limped out of the trench and straight into my line of fire.
The exhausted German soldier simply stared at me and looked resigned to being shot because that's what we do, they shoot at us and we shot at them, everyone knows the rules but that’s when the British sporting bit kicked in and I decided it just wouldn't be cricket to shoot a helpless man so I lowered my rifle and let him go.
The young German soldier nodded a silent ‘Danke’ and scampered away to safety.
It was only later i found out that the lucky German was actually Austrian and ended up back in Germany where he began to campaign for a resurgence in German power, blamed Jewish people for being responsible for Germany’s surrender.
The name of the young man i allowed to live was Adolf Hitler and so in a way by not killing one man in a moment of British fair play, i caused the countless death of millions more.