British intelligence officers suspected two cats and a dog were spying on them in the trenches on the Western Front in World War I.

That’s one of the pieces of intelligence from the release on Thursday of 3,987 diaries of British soldiers from the National Archives in Kew, southwest of London.

The freshly-released intelligence report from July 15, 1915 reads: “Two (2) cats and a dog are under suspicion, as they have been in the habit of crossing our trenches at night; steps are being taken to trap them if possible.”

The 12th division lost seven officers and 64 soldiers that month in Ploegsteert Wood, Belgium, on the Western Front.

There’s no mention in the documents, prepared by intelligence officers from the 36th brigade of the 12th division, about whether the three suspected German spies were ever caught.

David Langrish, records specialist for the National Archives, said in an interview that the document shows a heightened interest in intelligence and new forms of warfare on the Western Front.

“The case of the dog and two cats, shows the level of suspicion amongst military units at this time,” Langrish said.

“Every detail was of potential importance for the planning of further operations, and so every possible suspicion would have been reported,” Langrish said. “The war saw new weapons, new tactics and new methods of conducting warfare, some of which were unimaginable a few years before. While the report about the cats and dogs is a less serious example, it shows the very extreme experiences of time in the front lines.”

“It just goes to show the extent of concerns at that time,” Simpson said.

One report released Thursday notes how the British attempted to taunt the nearby German troops, mocking them about how German forces had recently surrendered in West Africa.

“The enemy attempted to knock it down with rifle fire, and having failed, used very lurid language,” a British document reads.

The documents also note how the German forces flew brown paper kites across the trenches to the British forces with messages that included: “Englishmen, how badly you shoot!... You Englishmen — we have wine, sausage and meat — your Englishmen are hungry and thirsty… You stupid soldiers!”

There is also mention in the recently-released diaries of varied tactics, ranging from the use of flamethrowers by German forces and an attempt by the British to trick their enemies by using “dummy soldiers,” which were really life-size human replicas controlled by strings.

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An earlier collection of soldiers’ diaries were released in January and further releases are expected within the next few months.

“We have a few more batches to go,” Rebecca Simpson of the National Archives said. “There are 1.5 million pages in total.”