The Lily of Belgium: The sufferings and renaissance of Belgium, a contemporary allegory, by Wladyslaw Starewicz, 1915: an animated insect short film about the invasion of Belgium by Germany and the start of WWI:

Part I:

Part II:

“A keen entomologist, [Starewicz] attempted to film two stag beetles fighting but was thwarted by their tendency, as nocturnal creatures, to fall asleep under hot lights. His response was to take the body parts of dead beetles and reassemble them with wire and wax so they could be made to move before a camera.”
— The Puppet Alchemist by Graham Fuller for Museum of the Moving Image