A Baboon Made Corporal In The Great War, And The Paperwork Stumps Me

A baboon made Corporal in the South African army, and honestly I still cannot get over the paperwork involved.

You see, Albert Marr found this chacma baboon wandering around his farm somewhere in the early 1910s. He caught the animal and literally trained him to act like a proper human household member. Wait, wait, wait — you already know how animals behave, so let me explain what actually happened next.

When military orders finally came knocking in 1915, Marr packed the primate instead of leaving him behind. The commanding officers were genuinely surprised but agreed to bring the mascot along.

The battalion quickly handed him an official uniform complete with a cap, a dedicated ration set, and his own paybook.

How does a primate survive the trenches?

He mastered holding his posture perfectly still like any drilled recruit, and honestly that image refuses to leave my brain. He could also light soldiers’ cigarettes whenever the mood struck.

Night watch duties proved especially tricky when the enemy started creeping closer. His heightened senses meant the baboon would be the first to know when attacks were coming.

Combat hit hard at Delville Wood during the Somme Campaign, where 80 percent of the men fell. Eish, I cannot imagine walking through that smoke with a primate right beside you, but they somehow kept moving forward together.

Shrapnel, surgery, and a promotion

Later campaigns dragged them down to Egypt, and Marr took a bullet straight to the shoulder on February 26 1916. Jackie stayed right there, licking the wound as they awaited help.

the trenches in france introduced actual explosions, and Jackie tried desperately to construct a protective wall around his sleeping spot. Stretcher bearers tried dragging him away from the gunfire, but he simply refused to abandon his newly built barrier.

Shrapnel eventually bypassed the makeshift shelter and lodged itself in his leg and arm. Doctors had no choice but to remove his entire leg, yet somehow the survivor still made it out alive.

They officially awarded him a medal for bravery and instantly bumped him up to Corporal. The record explicitly states he remains the only baboon to ever achieve private status or higher in that entire conflict.

After hostilities stopped, officials processed his discharge papers at the Maitland Dispersal Camp in Cape Town. Marr brought him back home.

Instead of fading into domestic comfort, a house fire claimed the soldier’s life exactly one year later in May 1921. Honestly, I’m not okay with how that plays out for a creature who earned his stripes in mud.

So tell me, Chillers, do you think modern military standards would ever approve another primate recruit, or is the whole thing better left buried in history?

Source: Wikipedia’s article on “Corporal Jackie”. The facts are theirs; the words are ours.