That's not what my great-great-grandfathers service record says, or the extremely long list of Canadians killed or injured in WW1.
The German that shot him was probably just messing around, you're right.
The German that shot him was probably just messing around, you're right.
It’s likely your grandfather was a good man with no desire to kill Germans. It’s likely whoever shot him felt the same.
No doubt they were. But we do tend to forget that large swathes of them had originally volunteered, often with enthusiasm.
It's far worse to uncritically examine our ancestors behaviour.
Your link also states "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation"
Both their parent and GP were talking about reading conflicting things. Reading around to get a better sense of the truth of the matter would seem, reasonable.
Of course a less pithy comment, where the meaning was clear would be best of all.