" As we got to our objective we found two dugouts. I happened to be there first and I heard movement in one of these shelters. When I yelled out to the occupants, out came two hands with a loaf of black bread in each, and presently a pair of terrified eyes took a glimpse at me. They must have been reassured by my look, because the Huns came out at once, and, when I sized them up, all thoughts of revenge vanished. We could not kill children and these looked to be barely that. If any of us had been asked how old they were, most of us would have said between fourteen and fifteen, and that was giving them every day of their age. With a boot to help them along, they ran with their hands above their heads back to our lines.

Lieutenant Edgar Rule, 14th Battalion, AIF "

― Peter Hart , The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War