Christmas Truce of World War One (Part ONE of TWO)
.
.
.
______The
Christmas
_____Truce
__by Simon Rees
__Part ONE of TWO
You are standing up to your
knees in the slime of a
waterlogged trench.
It is the evening of 24
December 1914 and you are
on the dreaded Western Front.
Stooped over,
you wade across to the firing
step and take over the watch.
Having exchanged pleasantries,
your bleary-eyed and
mud-spattered colleague shuffles
off towards his dug out.
Despite the horrors
and the hardships,
your morale is high and you
believe that in the New
Year the nation’s army march
towards a glorious victory.
But for now you stamp
your feet in a vain
attempt to keep warm.
.
.
All is quiet when jovial voices
call out from both friendly
and enemy trenches.
Then the men from both
sides start singing carols
and songs.
Next come requests
not to fire,
and soon the unthinkable
happens:
you start to see the shadowy
shapes of soldiers gathering
together in no-man’s
land laughing,
joking and sharing gifts.
Many have exchanged cigarettes,
the lit ends of which burn
brightly in the inky darkness.
Plucking up your courage,
you haul yourself up and
out of the trench and
walk towards the foe…
The meeting of enemies as
friends in no-man’s land
was experienced by hundreds,
if not thousands, of men on
the Western Front
during Christmas 1914.
.
.
Today,
90 years after it occurred,
the event is seen as a shining
episode of sanity from among
the bloody chapters of
World War One –
a spontaneous effort by the
lower ranks to create a peace
that could have blossomed
were it not for the interference
of generals and politicians.
The reality of
the Christmas Truce,
however, is a slightly less
romantic and a more down
to earth story.
It was an organic affair
that in some spots hardly
registered a mention and in
others left a profound impact
upon those who took part.
Many accounts were rushed,
confused or contradictory.
Others,
written long after the event,
are weighed down by hindsight.
These difficulties aside, the
true story is still striking
precisely because of
its rag-tagged nature:
it is more ‘human’ and
therefore all the more potent.
Months beforehand,
millions of servicemen,
reservists and volunteers from
all over the continent
had rushed enthusiastically to
the banners of war:
the atmosphere was one
of holiday rather than conflict.
But it was not long before
the jovial façade was torn away.
Armies equipped with
repeating rifles, machine guns
and a vast array of artillery tore
chunks out of each other,
and thousands upon thousands
of men perished.
To protect against the threat
of this vast firepower,
the soldiers were ordered to dig
in and prepare for next
year’s offensives,
which most men believed would
break the deadlock
and deliver victory.
.
.
The early trenches were
often hasty creations and
poorly constructed;
if the trench was badly sighted
it could become a sniping
hot spot.
In bad weather
(the winter of 1914
was a dire one)
the positions could flood
and fall in.
The soldiers –
unequipped to face the rigours
of the cold and rain –
found themselves wallowing in
a freezing mire of mud and
the decaying bodies of the fallen.
The man at the Front could not
help but have a degree of
sympathy for his opponents
who were having just as
miserable a time as they were.
Another factor that broke
down the animosity between
the opposing armies were
the surroundings.
In 1914 the men at the front
could still see the vestiges
of civilisation.
Villages, although
badly smashed up,
were still standing.
Fields,
although pitted with shell-holes,
had not been turned into
muddy lunarscapes.
Thus the other world –
the civilian world –
and the social mores and
manners that went with it
was still present at the front.
Also lacking was the pain,
misery and hatred that years
of bloody war build up.
Then there was the desire,
on all sides,
to see the enemy up close –
was he really as bad
as the politicians,
papers and priests were saying?
It was a combination
of these factors,
and many more minor ones,
that made the Christmas Truce
of 1914 possible.
On the eve of the Truce,
the British Army
(still a relatively small
presence on the Western Front)
was manning a stretch of
the line running south
from the infamous Ypres
salient for 27 miles to the
La Bassee Canal.
Along the front the
enemy was sometimes no more
than 70,
50 or even 30 yards away.
Both Tommy and Fritz could
quite easily hurl greetings and
insults to one another,
and,
importantly,
come to tacit agreements
not to fire.
Incidents of temporary truces
and outright fraternisation were
more common at this stage in
the war than many people
today realise –
even units that had just
taken part in a series of futile
and costly assaults,
were still willing to talk
and come to arrangements
with their opponents.
.
.
As Christmas approached the
festive mood and the desire for
a lull in the fighting increased
as parcels packed with goodies
from home started to arrive.
On top of this came gifts
care of the state.
Tommy received plum puddings
and ‘Princess Mary boxes’;
a metal case engraved with an
outline of George V’s daughter
and filled with chocolates
and butterscotch,
cigarettes and tobacco,
a picture card of Princess
Mary and a facsimile of
George V’s greeting to
the troops.
.
.
’May God protect you and
bring you safe home,’
it said.
Not to be outdone,
Fritz received a present
from the Kaiser, the Kaiserliche,
a large meerschaum pipe for
the troops and a box of cigars
for NCOs and officers.
Towns,
villages and cities,
and numerous support associations
on both sides also flooded the
front with gifts of food,
warm clothes and letters
of thanks.
The Belgians and French also
received goods, although not
in such an organised fashion
as the British or Germans.
For these nations the Christmas
of 1914 was tinged with
sadness –
their countries were occupied.
It is no wonder
that the Truce,
although it sprung up in some
spots on French and
Belgian lines,
never really caught hold
as it did in the British sector.
With their morale boosted
by messages of thanks and
their bellies fuller than normal,
and with still so much
Christmas booty to hand,
the season of goodwill
entered the trenches.
A British Daily Telegraph
correspondent wrote that on
one part of the line the
Germans had managed to
slip a chocolate cake into
British trenches.
Even more amazingly,
it was accompanied with a
message asking for a ceasefire
later that evening so
they could celebrate the festive
season and their Captain’s
birthday.
.
.
They proposed a concert
at 7.30pm when candles,
the British were told, would be
placed on the parapets
of their trenches.
The British accepted the
invitation and offered some
tobacco as a return present.
That evening,
at the stated time,
German heads suddenly
popped up and started to sing.
Each number ended with
a round of applause from
both sides.
The Germans then asked
the British to join in.
At this point,
one very mean-spirited
Tommy shouted:
’We’d rather die
than sing German.’
To which a German
joked aloud:
‘It would kill
us if you did’..
.
.
.
Leave a Reply