When the British took Ypres, they found a damaged printing press and started printing a satirical newspaper, The Wipers Times. It was named after how they mispronounced Ypres.
Two of the jokes:
Three Tommies sat in the Trench one day discussing the war in the normal way, they talk of the mud, they talked of the Hun, and what was to do and what have been done, they talked about rum. But the point which they argued from post back to pillar was whether Notts county could beat Aston Villa.
"Are you going over the top?
If so be sure to first inspect our new line of velveteen corduroy plush breeches."
Source: Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain
EDIT: Thanks /u/Combustible for pointing out right county!
Funny limericks and poems were popular, like others have said, and were published in newspapers for the troops. Some examples that I've read:
"There was a young lady of Ypres
Who was hit in the cheek by two snipers
The tunes that she played
Through the holes that they made
Beat the Argyll and Sutherland Pipers"
or
"There was a young Boche at Bazentin
Who liked the first trench he went in
But a 15-inch dud
Sent him flat in the mud
And he found that his helmet was bent in."
Maybe not comedic gold. Funny cartoons drawn by the troops would have appeared in the papers too, along with more conventional jokes. One went like this:
"Major General (Addressing the men before practising an attack in training): "I want you understand that there is a difference between a rehearsal and the real thing. There are three essential differences. First, the absence of the enemy. Sergeant-Major, what is the second difference in a real attack?"
Sergeant-Major: "The absence of the General, sir."
From Phillip Gibbs' Now It Can Be Told.
A couple of examples of, if not jokes, some instances of dark trench humour...
One day, when the German gunners were putting over a special dose of hate, a sergeant kept coming to one dugout to inquire about a "new chum," who had come up with the drafts.
"Is Private Smith all right?" he asked.
"Yes, Sergeant, he's all right," answered the men crouching in the dark hole.
"Private Smith isn't wounded yet?" asked the, sergeant again, five minutes later.
"No, Sergeant."
Private Smith was touched by this interest in his well-being.
"That sergeant seems a very kind man," said the boy. "Seems to love me like a father!"
A yell of laughter answered him.
"You poor, bleeding fool!" said one of his comrades. "He's drawn you in a lottery! Stood to win if you'd been hit."
In digging new trenches and new dugouts, bodies and bits of bodies were unearthed, and put into sand-bags with the soil that was sent back down a line of men concealing their work from German eyes waiting for any new activity in our ditches.
"Bit of Bill," said the leading man, putting in a leg.
"Another bit of Bill," he said, unearthing a hand.
"Bill's ugly mug," he said at a later stage in the operations, when a head was found.
As told afterward, that little episode in the trenches seemed immensely comic. Generals chuckled over it. Chaplains treasured it.
In addition to more conventional jokes, the men found a great deal of fun in creating their own versions of popular songs.
A distinction should first be cast between two different kinds of songs: those that were popular on the home front and in the musical halls, and those that had their origins in the trenches themselves. The former certainly made their way into the trenches as well -- often with quite surprising additions to the lyrics -- but they were not born there.
I'll list some of the most popular songs in each category and then provide some exemplary lyrics.
Music Hall
Songs of this sort were written for popular, public consumption, and often with a patriotic intent. Lyrics ranged from the winkingly suggestive to the nauseatingly sentimental, and much of the pleasure your average Tommy would take from it came with inventing his own additions or substitutions.
For example, the refrain to Paul A. Reuben's popular "We Don't Want to Lose You" (1914) ran thus:
Oh! we don't want to lose you
But we think you ought to go
For your King and Country
Both need you so;
We shall want you and miss you
But with all our might and main
We shall cheer you, thank you, kiss you
When you come back again
The man in the trench, swiftly fed up with this kind of cloying sentimentality, had his own take on the matter:
Now we don't want to hurry you,
But it's time you ought to go;
For your songs and your speeches
They bore us so.
Your coaxings and pettings
Drive us nigh insane;
Oh! we'll hate you, boo you and hiss you
If you sing it again.
In a more suggestive strain we see something like Wimperis & Finck's "I'll Make a Man of You" (1914), which became a very popular recruiting song early in the war. One may perhaps see why:
The army and the navy need attention,
The outlook isn't healthy you'll admit,
But I've got a perfect dream of a new recruiting scheme,
Which I really think is absolutely it.
If only other girls would do as I do
I believe that we could manage it alone,
For I turn all suitors from me but the sailor and the Tommy,
I've an army and a navy of my own.
[Chorus]
On Sunday I walk out with a soldier,
On Monday I'm taken by a Tar,
On Tuesday I'm out with a baby Boy Scout,
On Wednesday a Hussar,
On Thursday I gang oot wi' a Scottie,
On Friday, the Captain of the crew,
But on Saturday I'm willing
If you'll only take the shilling,
To make a man of every one of you.
You'll have to pardon me -- my glasses have fogged up, here. Not content with the promises made above, the soldiers' amended version ran something like this:
On Monday I touched her on the ankle,
On Tuesday I touched her on the knee,
On Wednesday I confess, I lifted up her dress,
On Thursday I saw it, gorblimey,
On Friday I put me 'and upon it,
On Saturday she gave my balls a treat,
On Sunday after supper, I whopped me fucker up 'er,
An' now I'm paying forty bob a week!
The clips above come from the darkly satiric 1969 film Oh What a Lovely War, which does a great deal to ape the music-hall culture of the time.
Other popular songs included:
Of these, "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" and "Pack Up Your Troubles" have had the longest life and the most sustained popularity. These and the others above would have had satiric versions as well.
Trench Music
The most usual mode, as I've suggested above, was one of parody. This take on "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" was popular among transport drivers:
I've been in the saddle for hours
I've stuck it as long as I could,
I've stuck it and stuck until I said, "Fuck it,
My arsehole is not made of wood."
Sergeant, Sergeant, oh give back my stirrups to me, to me.
Sergeant, Sergeant, oh give back my stirrups to me.
While this one, to the same tune, was more broadly applicable:
My tunic is out at the elbows,
My trousers are out at the knee,
My puttees are ragged and frazzled
But the Q.M. says nothing for me.
My tummy knocks hard on my backbone,
My dial is as thin as can be;
Still all we get handed at mealtimes
Is bully and Maconochie.
[Bully beef = basically tinned corned beef; Maconochie = a widely-distributed brand of tinned vegetables.]
There were countless possibilities with a tune like this:
Last night as I lay on my pillow,
Last night as I lay on my bed,
I dreamt our old corp'ral was dying,
I dreamt the old bugger was dead.
Send him,
Oh send him,
Oh send our old corporal to He-e-ell;
Oh keep him,
Oh keep him,
Oh keep the old buffer in Hell.
Even some "official" songs had a harder edge to them. One of the regimental marches of the Royal West Surrey Regiment, for example:
Here they come, here they come,
Silly great buggers every one:
Half-a-crown a week to pay
For putting a girl in a family way.
Here they come, here they come,
Second of Foot but second to none.
Here they come, here they come,
Second of Foot but second to none.
Bullshit, bullshit,
Covered from head to foot in it.
Bullshit, bullshit,
Covered from head to foot in it.
[And so on]
The wide-ranging adventures of "Mademoiselle from Armenteers" were happily recounted by men in every branch of the service:
Mademoiselle from Armenteers, parlay-voo,
Mademoiselle from Armenteers, parlay-voo,
Mademoiselle from Armenteers,
She hasn't been fucked in twenty years,
Hinky dinky parlay-voo
[And on and on, with many variations]
Mademoiselle was not always looked upon with such affection, however, as in "Après la Guerre Fini":
Après la guerre fini,
Soldat Anglais parti;
Mam'sell Fransay boko pleuray
Après la guerre fini.
Après la guerre fini,
Soldat Anglais parti,
Mademoiselle in the family way,
Après la guerre fini.
Après la guerre fini,
Soldat Anglais parti;
Mademoiselle can go to hell
Après la guerre fini.
I think my favourite, both for its conciseness and strange pathos, is this popular riff to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne":
We're here because
We're here because
We're here because
We're here!
Oh we're here because
We're here because
We're here because
We're here!
Anyway, there were plenty more like all the above -- including "Do Your Balls Hang Low?", which remains weirdly well-known even today. Songs of this sort were a constant staple for the troops, who very often had to produce their own music if they wanted any at all. Interested parties should consult Max Arthur's When This Bloody War is Over: Soldiers' Songs of the First World War (2001) for more, though I'm really pleased with how useful the internet is for letting me convey the sound of these things as well as the lyrics.
I worked on the digitization of a World War I journal written by a student at the college I graduated from. This soldier, named Peter Krogstad, spent the war working as a censor in France. Throughout his journal, he quotes a lot of humorous, sad, and interesting text from the letters he was reviewing for censorship.
While not necessarily standard jokes that were told throughout the war, I thought that the humor displayed in the texts would be interesting to you.
"A soldier coming out of the trenches after a battle says," "The next day I took out $5000 more insurance."
"Two soldiers on a furlough were passing a barber shop; one stopped and watched the barber singing a man's hair. He said, Gee Bill, they're looking after them with candles now."
"An Englishman goes into a house as if he owns the place. An American goes in a place as if he didn't give a darn who owned it.”
"Two rather windy boys were bragging about farm work they had done. One fellow said he had planted potatoes all over New New England. The other fellow said That's nothing he had sowed wild oats all over Paris."
"I hope this war wont last any longer than a quart of whiskey does in a thirsty crowd of Irishmen."
"The curse of a nation——Liptons Tea." British Letter.
"I think Jim's red nose has the Statue of Liberty beat a hundred ways as a beacon flaming out to all the world".
"A prisoner was asked by his French captor if he still thought God was on the side of the Germans. "Yes, he said, but the Yankees are with you."
"The Germans have discovered by this time that the Kaiser is a humbug; that he didn't have the "pull" with God that he was bragging about all the time.”
"If you don't get this letter let me know."
"Our Father who art in Washington, honored be thy name. Give us this day our long delayed pay and forgive us our A.W.O.L. as we fogive the bugler, the mess sergeant, and all others who weat bars. Lead us not into the army of occupation, but deliver us from the fatigue squad, for thine is the army of the M.P, and Q.M. and the Field clerks for ever and ever---Ah We.”
As a bonus, a man in Krogstad's Censors Co. wrote this poem:
Now, come, yet gallant censors / And come ye quickly now, /Come stand in line and listen / While the chauffeurs shoot their chow.
Come stand in line and be the goats / For a bold hard boiled marine, / Unless perhaps a scrapper, / Is standing on the scene.
The bold Marine was, "First to fight" / And also first to quit / He only got some blackened lamps / For handing censors hot air.
So come, yet gallant censors / And gaily stand in line, / Perhaps there will be another fight, / Perhaps there will be nine.
For what is grub and what is chow / And what is toothsome slum, / To seeing the censor's office / Put the Marine Corps on the bum.
My Grandfather was an officer who trained out of Camp Devens, MA in 1917 and fought alongside British forces in "The Great War". While looking up a few sayings and jokes I recall him saying, I found the following worth reading.
Breakfast:
"I'm so hungry I could eat a mattress!"
"Why is it taking so long to get me some flapjacks? Are they being made in Serbia or something?"
Bathroom humor:
"Always dig a trench twice as deep as you need it. You'll thank me the first time you need to relieve yourself and can't find the crapper."
"Did you know a SINGLE sheet of toilet paper can be used 3 times?"
Q. "If Bread is the Staff of Life, what is the Life of the Staff?"
A. "One long loaf!"
I finally have something of value and relevance to share.
Last year I was filming a documentary in and around Ypres/Arras with the Royal Engineers Association, focusing on the Tunnelling Companies of WWI.
We were south of Arras, near the crater at La Boiselle, in a small village named Bouzencourt. The tunnels underneath Bouzencourt served as a mustering point for the front lines, and have been very well preserved. In fact they are not open to the public, but we were given access to film there thanks to Iain McHenry (a wonderful historian and author).
To answer your question, the British Tommy on the Western Front behaved exactly as you might have expected any soldier throughout time to behave. The tunnels under Bouzencourt are riddled with messages on the walls, with small carved shrines to fallen comrades and other assorted imagery.
Including this wonderful example.
I'm sorry this isn't a fully replete answer discussing the various cultural phenomena of the time with accurate citations. This might not be the kind of quality content that /r/AskHistorians usually delivers. But this is evidence I witnessed whilst filming and researching my documentary, it's not just bollocks.
Here's a "humorous" song from the front lines:
If you want to find the General, I know where he is, I know where he is, I know where he is. If you want to find the General, I know where he is, He's pinning another medal on his chest. I saw him, I saw him, pinning another medal on his chest, I saw him, pinning another medal on his chest.
If you want to find the Colonel, I know where he is, I know where he is, I know where he is. If you want to find the Colonel, I know where he is, He's sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut. I saw him, I saw him, sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut, I saw him, sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut.
If you want to find the Sergeant, I know where he is, I know where he is, I know where he is. If you want to find the Sergeant, I know where he is, He's drinking all the Company rum. I saw him, I saw him, drinking all the Company rum, I saw him, drinking all the Company rum.
If you want to find the Private, I know where he is, I know where he is, I know where he is. If you want to find the Private, I know where he is, He's hanging on the old barbed wire. I saw him, I saw him, hanging on the old barbed wire, I saw him, hanging on the old barbed wire.
Chumbawumba do a very good version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRs6tLkXnu0
