Christmas in the Trenches (2 page)

This is not to say that troops were guaranteed a quiet time in the line. Artillery bombardments still fell on occasion, although a shell shortage generally confined heavy gunfire to offensive operations and trench raids. Of greater concern were snipers who, during this relatively quiet period, were usually waiting to account for the unwary and the careless. At Fleurbaix for example:

These snipers seldom missed. Their guns were fixed during the day to aim at a certain spot, and then during the hours of darkness they would fire at short irregular intervals, hoping to catch some of us who were moving about. Shallow parts of the trench and the holes in the convent wall immediately behind us were their favourite targets. Working and ration parties used to congregate behind the wall, owing to the communication trenches being full of water, and woe betide anyone who forgot for a moment and in the darkness stood in a gap in the wall instead of actually behind it . . . (
Pte W.A. Quinton, 2nd Bedfords
)

With the realisation that they would still be on active service over Christmas, the soldiers’ thoughts naturally turned to home and to how they could best celebrate the festive season under such trying circumstances:

I should like the pudding sent off soon or else it may not reach me in time for Christmas. I don’t know whether I shall be able to eat it on Christmas Day or not, it all depends on whether we happen to be in the trenches or not on that day. If we are not we will have pheasant and the puddings which will be very near the ordinary Christmas fare except for the company and the decorations but still we shall have to institute another Christmas when we come back and have all the festivities over again.
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(
Rfm Richard Lintott, 1/5th Londons
)

Parcels and Christmas gifts would not only come from families and friends; regimental associations, counties, towns and cities also supplied their fighting men with useful articles. Rfm Lintott, for example, received three khaki handkerchiefs, a tin of Abdullah cigarettes, a cigarette lighter and writing paper from the people of Horsham and a ½ lb tin of butter, a tin of milk, a tin of cocoa, a handkerchief and a case of writing material from his regiment. Among the gifts came one of the most enduring mementos of the First World War, the Princess Mary Gift Box. This was to be given to all those wearing the King’s uniform on Christmas Day 1914: some 2,620,019 men in total. With such a huge number of gift boxes and their contents to be manufactured, distribution priority was given to members of the BEF in France and the Royal Navy. In total some 426,724 boxes were received on Christmas Day, the remainder being issued subsequently.
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That this gift, along with a Christmas card from the King and Queen, was appreciated by the troops is shown by the mentions it receives in letters, diaries and memoirs as well as the fact that many men repacked the tins and sent them home to their families for safe keeping.

The arrival of Princess Mary’s gift coincided with one of the most widely known events of the war, the Christmas Truce. Until the evening of 24 December the weather had been generally very wet. However Christmas Eve brought a sharp frost, causing the ground to harden and thus easing mobility, a factor that would prove important the following day. As Christmas drew near even headquarters slackened their workloads; for example, at 4th Division HQ a communication was sent out to all units stating that owing to Christmas the divisional signals service would only deal with priority messages during the night of 25–26 December.
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For British troops in many parts of the line, strange activity on the part of the Germans soon became apparent:

As darkness came on lights were seen in the German lines in the Rue du Bois, at first our fellows fired at them and the Germans put them out – gradually the firing died down, and all the enemy sniping ceased. The silence was almost uncanny and we were all very suspicious and extra vigilant, expecting some trick. Later on lights began to appear in the German trenches and their whole line was illuminated. I think they had hoisted lanterns on tall poles on their parapet and in their trenches. After that they began to sing . . . finishing up with the Wacht am Rhein, the German and Austrian national anthems. They sang beautifully the whole effect was weird in the extreme. They then started shouting remarks across to us which we replied, but I could not hear what was said. I think everyone felt very homesick on Xmas Eve. Thoughts of our families at home were uppermost in our minds.

The night passed without a shot being fired on either side. Our sentries were however extra vigilant and I felt quite uneasy at the strange silence. (
Maj Q. Henriques, 1/16th Londons
)

The activity opposite the 1/16th Londons stopped some men from the battalion giving the Germans a special seasonal gift:

We had decided to give the Germans a Christmas present of 3 carols and 5 rounds rapid. Accordingly as soon as night fell we started and the strains of ‘While Shepherds’ (beautifully rendered by the choir) arose upon the air. We finished that and paused preparatory to giving the 2nd item on the programme, but lo! We heard answering strains arising from
their
lines. Also they started shouting across to us. Therefore we stopped any hostile operations and commenced to shout back. One of them shouted ‘A Merry Christmas English, we’re not shooting tonight’. We yelled back a similar message and from that time on until we were relieved on Boxing morning at 4am not a shot was fired. After this shouting had gone on for some time they stuck up a light. Not to be out done so did we. Then up went another, so we shoved up another. Soon the two lines looked like an illuminated fete. Opposite me they had one lamp and 9 candles in a row. And we had all the candles and lights we could muster stuck on our bayonets above the parapet. At 12.00 we sang ‘God save the King’ and with the exception of the sentries turned in.
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(
Rfm Ernest Morley, 1/16th Londons
)

With generally friendly relations established through the previous evening’s verbal advances the scene was set for the more adventurous souls on each side to move the truce to another level:

On Christmas Day the Germans stuck up a white light and shouted that if we refrained from firing they would do the same. We did so and people started showing themselves over the trenches and waving to each other. Shortly 2 Germans advanced unarmed towards our trenches and our men did the same. They met ½ way and shook hands, exchanged cigarettes and cigars and souvenirs and soon there was quite a big crowd between the trenches, we 3 included. Russell was introduced to a barber in the Strand named Liddle (spelling phonetic). Another German asked Russell in good English if he would like to go home. Russell asked him where he lived and the chap said London and hoped he would soon be able to return there. Both sides then buried the dead whom they had been unable to get at before, after which the Germans were ordered back to their trenches. Both sides continued to expose themselves, however, and to hold amiable conversations, and when we were relieved this morning not a shot had been fired on either side in our trenches though we could hear firing on both flanks and the artillery were bombarding each other over our heads.
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(
Rfm Jack Chappell, 1/5th Londons
)

In some sectors the need to bury the dead was a central factor in the truce taking place. Near Frelinghien, the 2nd Monmouthshire Regiment were holding the line:

Just imagine our feelings when we thought of home and looked out at our bleak surroundings. A yard or so from where I was standing a German soldier had been buried, and his foot had actually been sticking out in our trench until we had covered it up with earth. The stench at times was almost unbearable. (
Sgt Francis Brown
)

In some places the opposing troops joined together in paying their respects to the dead:

Near where we were standing a dead German who had been brought in by some of the English was being buried and a German officer after reading a short service in German, during which both English and Germans uncovered [their heads, he said], ‘We thank our English friends for bringing in our dead’ and then said something in broken English about a Merry Xmas and Happy New Year. They stuck a bit of wood over the grave – no name on it only ‘Vor Vaterland und Freheit’ (for Fatherland and Freedom). After a little while the German officers called their men in and we went back to our breastworks, calling in at a shelled out estaminet on the way to loot a chair and one or two other articles.
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(
Rfm Selby Grigg, 1/5th Londons
)

Although cordial relations were established across No Man’s Land in many places, the truce was not universal and casualties were therefore inevitable. One of these unfortunate men was Sgt Frank Collins of the 2nd Monmouthshires:

About 8am voices could be heard shouting on our right front, where the trenches came together to about 35 yards apart, German heads appeared, and soon our fellows showed themselves and seasonal greetings were bawled back and forth, evidently Xmas feeling asserting itself on both sides. Presently a Sergt. Collins of my Regiment stood waist high above the trench waving a box of Woodbines above his head. German soldiers beckoned him over, and Collins got out and walked half way towards them, in turn beckoning for someone to come and take the gift. However, they called out ‘prisoner’ and immediately Collins edged back the way he had come. Suddenly a shot rang out, and the poor Sergt. staggered back into the trench, shot through the chest. I can still hear his cries ‘Oh my God, they have shot me’, and he died immediately. (
Sgt Francis Brown
)

Despite the bitterness caused by the shooting, the truce held on the Monmouthshires’ sector of the line and at 9 a.m. Welshmen and Bavarians exchanged gifts and season’s greetings, with many of the Germans apologising for the shooting. Sgt Collins now lies in Calvaire (Essex) Military Cemetery, Comines-Warneton, 16km from Ypres on the road to Wijtschate and Ploegsteert.

After Boxing Day, although meetings in No Man’s Land became rarer, opposing troops who had fraternised maintained the ‘live and let live’ attitude, with little in the way of hostilities. In places it was even arranged to have another truce on New Year’s Day, 2/Lt Chater remarking in a letter to his mother that the Germans requested this in order to see how photographs taken on Christmas Day had turned out.
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For Germans, New Year brought the feast day of St Sylvester, a traditional family holiday. However, one German practice of welcoming in the New Year did lead to some misunderstanding:

. . . things went smoothly till the night of the 31st. New Year’s Eve. On this night we decided to remove our M.G. to a new position some couple of hundred yards or so along the trench, as we had a notion that the Germans knew of its present position, and would not hesitate to shell us out as soon as hostilities recommenced. Having prepared the new gun-pit the previous night, we now made ready for the moving, and still being on friendly terms with the enemy, and our trenches being knee-deep in mud and water, we took the easiest course and travelled along the top behind our own trench. We started off, well loaded with all our kit, the gun, tripod, and boxes of belt ammunition, and our rifles slung across our backs by the slings. We made very slow progress as the ground was very heavy with mud (the snow having thawed) and in addition to this we had to negotiate the communication trenches that ran at right-angles to the firing-line. These were about 4ft wide and we crossed by taking a sort of staggering leap, and throwing the heavy stuff across to the outstretched arms of those already over.

An hour had passed and we had covered about three-parts of the total distance, when without a word of warning something happened that caused us to fall as one man, flat on our stomachs in the mud. The Germans had opened fire! Rifles and machine guns cracked. They had done the dirty on us! We crouched there in the mud, and the names we called those Germans must have turned the air blue. Yet, strange, we could not feel the ‘pinging’ of any bullets around us? The explanation came in the next few moments, when a voice from our front-line yelled ‘Hi you fellows, what’s up? They ain’t firing across ’ere. They warned us what they were going to do. They’re firing in the air to celebrate the coming-in of the New Year.’ . . . Having made sure that the voice from the trench had spoken the truth, we staggered to our feet and continued our journey. How easily mistakes can be made! Being out of the trench we did not know of this midnight arrangement, and it was lucky for the Germans that we had not misunderstood their intentions, and opened fire on them with our machine gun. This certainly would have broken up the temporary armistice.

And so this unofficial armistice with the enemy still held good. (
Pte W.A. Quinton
)

When news of the truce reached senior officers there was something of a mixed reaction. A report of IV Corps operations between 22 and 31 December 1914 records that German overtures for a temporary halt to hostilities were not entertained by the 8th Division, whereas the Gen Officer Commanding (GOC) 7th Division, Maj Gen Sir Thompson Capper, sanctioned the continuation of the truce on 26 and 27 December to allow adequate time for burial of the dead and drainage of watercourses and trenches, so as to improve the condition of the front line, the proviso being that no unit was to arrange any further formal or informal truce without reference to Corps HQ.
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Once such work was completed, commanders on both sides realised they had to get the war started again before the fighting spirit of their men was permanently affected. On the German side an army order of 29 December declared that any act of fraternisation with the enemy would be treated as high treason. Similar, though less dramatic, was Gen Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien’s 2nd Army instruction stating that any officer or NCO allowing informal understandings with the enemy would be tried by court martial. With orders arriving to begin vigorous artillery bombardment, sniping and machine gunning of the enemy, soldiers realised this brief interlude in the war was almost over. Some, however, were determined to ease their way back into the war, causing as little harm as possible to their new ‘friends’ on the other side of the wire: