This chain letter will protect your doughboy…somehow

Are you superstitious? Do you have a lucky pair of socks? A pre-game ritual? Do you hand-copy and send dozens of copies of a chain letter to friends and acquaintances to protect your World War I doughboy? Because your grandparents and great-grandparents might have.

It may seem insane to a generation that grew up with chain emails being a running joke, but even powerful folks used to get drawn into chain letters. Once a chain gets going, then taking part in it is good luck and "breaking" it is bad luck.

Chain letters could go "viral." If each recipient copied and sent the letter four times, the message quickly spread. We've previously talked about the fundraiser for U.S. soldiers in Cuba to get ice that resulted in so many donations that the family had to take out ads asking recipients to break the chain.

Sometimes, these chain letters had real and valuable impact, like the ice fundraiser. In another case, Americans resisting U.S. involvement in World War I gave instructions for conscientious objection to escape the draft.

But one of the most common types of wartime chain letters was luck or religious chain letters that promised protection.

Unsurprisingly, troops and their families sought ways to save themselves and their loved ones from the dangers of combat. The Himmelsbrief, the "Letter from Heaven," spread across Europe at different periods and enjoyed some popularity in the U.S. in the early 20th century. It often purported to be written by Jesus Christ. People carried it because it claimed that it protected from all manner of dangers.

Obviously useful in the trenches.

Many letters focused on luck rather than a religious appeal, though. The "Flanders" letter claimed it was written by an American officer serving in Flanders.

Some of the appeals worked as part of a scam, demanding that families send payment along with copying the luck letter to a certain number of recipients. It should be obvious that sending a few dollars to a random address won't save any soldiers overseas, but nervous families were easy marks.

But soldiers have lots of historical superstitions. And there are plenty of modern superstitions to join the ranks every time and old one like chain letters falls off.