The German army sent a draft notice to a four-week-old baby named Lucio, ordering him to report for duty within the next 10 days, before realising it had blundered.

A spokesman for the army said the notice had been sent erroneously because a clerk typed in the wrong date of birth for the boy from Aubstadt, in southern Germany. "It was an accident," an army spokesman told Reuters. "Somebody entered the wrong number into a computer. There was no harm done. We realised the error the same day and called up the family to tell them to throw the notice away when it arrived."