Who's Gallant Now?

I have a friend who sent me this email, which made me laugh immoderately:

I don't know whether you have read the Anne of Green Gables books, but I have them all and something made me pick up the last in the series, Rilla of Ingleside, which takes place during WWI. It's ages since I read it, but I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at the beginning of Chapter Ten, where "Antwerp fell -- Turkey fell -- gallant little Serbia gathered herself together and struck a deadly blow at her oppressor..."

Now to Google whose name Bent & Hampton would have given their dog one war earlier.

If you read Angela Thirkell, you too were giggling when you read the words "gallant little". If you don't, well... the joke is that two ladies constantly changed their dog's name to represent oppressed nations and their leaders during WWII. He was successively Zog (for Gallant Little Albania), Schuschnigg (for Gallant Little Austria), Smidgly-Rydz (for Gallant Little Poland), Mannerheim (for Gallant Little Finland), etc. After the war he was simply called Gallant because "nobody's being gallant now." Probably not funny - but extremely so to those who've read the books.