The Christmas Truce of WW1 revealed the true meaning of Christmas
ONE HUNDRED Christmases ago, two sides faced each other across a no-man’s-land no wider than a football field.
In the fantasy version of this battle, strong, fierce soldiers on both sides were each nurtured by patriotic zeal and a supreme hatred of their enemy.
Well-armed, well-trained and focused only on killing the occupants of the other trench with bullets and bombs, or somehow traversing the hundreds of yards strewn with craters and corpses to annihilate at close quarters those they found on the other side.
To turn the miles of trenches into mass graves snaking across northern France and up into Flanders.
But the events of Christmas 1914 were no fantasy — though they read as such. The truth is almost unbelievable. There were no supersoldiers there. They were men. Some were boys.
On both sides of the frozen wasteland between the trenches, British/French and German combatants in the five-month-old Great War huddled beneath their wool coats and hats, their teeth clicking so hard that they thought they would shatter.
Heavy mud sucked at their boots. Each man tried desperately to sleep between watches, too tired even to kick at the rats gnawing on the leftovers in tin cans. Each soldier must surely have wondered if they’d ever get to spend another Christmas at home with their families.
It was to be another three decades before another, greater war — so to speak — would be sparked by hatred, stoked by propaganda, and finally ceased by the rage of a nuclear explosion.
It was to be another four months before the first canisters of chlorine gas turned the carved fields of France into hell on Earth.
It was Christmas 1914 and the world was only coming to grips with the reality of an entire continent at war with itself. But miracles are known to happen at Christmas. This miracle began with some songs.
Today, there are not many people who do not know ‘Silent Night’. In 1914, not many of the British troops in their trenches had ever heard of the German carol. They paused and listened as voices — ‘Stille Nacht. Heilige Nacht. Alles schlaft, einsam wacht ...’ — carried easily across no-man’s-land.
Moved to return fire, the men in the western trench tried to out-sing their counterparts — ‘The first Noel, the angels did say ...’ And so it continued, with opposing troops exchanging Christmas songs instead of gunfire and shelling. Inevitably, they hit upon a carol whose melody they both knew.
‘O come, all ye faithful ...’ was echoed by the Latin version ‘Adeste fideles ...’ Two languages entwined in the freezing air, filling the still night with the festive hymn.
Christmas morning dawned and the Germans called tentatively for a truce. A British soldier climbed out of his trench and shouted agreement.
There was no greater hope among both sides than to travel into no-man’s-land and fetch their fallen brothers. Somehow, German and British men found themselves shaking hands and, buoyed by the Christmas spirit, exchanging small gifts: cigarettes, whisky, buttons, sweets, and jam. Soon, troops wearing differing uniforms and speaking differing languages were strolling about together. No-man’s-land became all-men’s-land.
This was no wartime anomaly. No black swan fluke; no quirk of probability. Nor was it some contrivance on the part of weak and dispirited battalions. Unbeknownst to the men chatting away between the trenches, the Christmas truce was breaking out all along the 30 miles of trenches all along the Western Front.
Could such a spontaneous act of humanity, involving what some sources claim was 100,000 men, have occurred at any time other than Christmas?
Near Armentières, north-west of the city of Lille, German troops took a barrel of prime Belgian beer from the brewery under their command, rolled it between the craters and barbed wire, and shared it with Welsh soldiers.
Elsewhere, a Londoner bumped into his German barber and received a well-needed trim. Other enlisted men who were talented with scissors set up impromptu barber shops and tended to a queue of men, all of whom were happy to present their bare heads to a sworn enemy who was holding a sharp implement.
Group photos were taken, with foes organising another truce just so they could see how the pictures turned out.
One soldier wrote home: “Just you think, that while you were eating your turkey I was out talking with the men I had been trying to kill a few hours before! It was astounding.”
And then there was the football.
Where no pigskin was available, a tin can or small sandbag made do. A German officer later wrote: “We marked the goals with our caps. Teams were quickly established for a match on the frozen mud, and the Fritzes beat the Tommies 3-2.”
Outside Neuve Chapelle, a Tommy captain shared a cigar with an 18-year-old Fritz who was “the best shot in the German army”. The man who wrote about that event was General Walter Congreve.
A letter penned by him and detailing the extraordinary truce only came to light this year. Despite the fraternising going on up top, he had been offered the chance to go and meet some of the Germans “but refrained as I thought they might not be able to resist [shooting] a general”.
General Congreve was happy enough for the festivities to continue, even though he could hear gunfire further along the front.
In fact, when one British sergeant entered no-man’s-land to offer cigarettes to friendly foes, he was killed by a sniper from a regiment not observing the truce. The Germans sent across an apology.
High-ranking officers condemned the festive banter and cessation of war. The captains and sergeants in the trenches were canny enough to allow it.
But this was no Hollywood-scripted war, so it featured infighting among neighbouring British regiments. “We aren’t here to pal up with the enemy,” wrote one medic, who had witnessed some punch-ups in the trenches. Clearly, the Christmas spirit did not intoxicate everyone.
As the truce stretched towards the new year, the generals visited the front to make sure they had become killing fields once more.
On December 30, one man wrote: “At about lunchtime a message came down the line to say that the Germans had sent across to say that their general was coming along in the afternoon, so we had better keep down, as they might have to do a little shooting to make things look right! And this is war!”
The war pushed into its second year, smothering the hope and goodwill of Christmas. Still the Fritzes and the Tommies occupied their trenches. Generals on both sides tried desperately to end the stalemate. By April, the first green-yellow tendrils of poison gas snaked through the trenches and turned the fields of Flanders once more to hell on Earth.
The all-too-brief respite from war offered by the Christmas truce of 1914 became a forgotten story. It morphed into a kind of modern myth, living on today only in the video for Paul McCartney’s ‘Pipes of Peace’ Christmas song and, more recently, in the brilliantly-crafted Sainsbury’s TV advert.
On its centenary, perhaps we should all take a moment to try to understand the significance of what the men and boys on both sides achieved before the slaying resumed.
Christmas 2014 has already become infamous with scenes not unlike a warzone. We’ve witnessed young mothers tearing each other’s hair in a desperate bid to snatch the last of the Disney dolls from the shelves. We’ve watched ‘Black Friday’ bedlam break out in high-street stores and a woman dragged along the floor, clinging to a television set already commandeered by someone else. For those of us lucky to afford it and others who’ve borrowed too much, we’ve been swept up in the maelstrom of marketing. The panic purchases. The gifting insanity. The hardy perennial of being spat out, dazed and confused, sometime between Christmas dinner and New Year’s Day, wondering what all the fuss was about. Again.
Let us call a truce. Let us be still and consider the words of ‘Silent Night’. Let the ricochets and explosions of battle cease so we can all think about the true meaning of Christmas — hope, peace, goodwill. It meant the same to those troops. It hasn’t changed in 100 years.
Happy Christmas.
“It was a beautiful moonlit night, frost on the ground, white almost everywhere; and about 7 or 8 in the evening there was a lot of commotion in the German trenches and there were these lights — I don’t know what they were. And then they sang ‘Silent Night’ — ‘Stille Nacht’. I shall never forget it, it was one of the highlights of my life. I thought, what a beautiful tune.”
“I shouted to our enemies that we didn’t wish to shoot and that we make a Christmas truce. I said I would come from my side and we could speak with each other. First there was silence, then I shouted once more, invited them, and the British shouted: ‘No shooting!’ Then a man came out of the trenches and I on my side did the same and so we came together and we shook hands — a bit cautiously!”
“The last I saw of this little affair was a vision of one of my machine gunners, who was a bit of an amateur hairdresser in civilian life, cutting the unnaturally long hair of a docile Boche, who was patiently kneeling on the ground while the automatic clippers crept up the back of his neck.”
“We shook hands, wished each other a Merry Xmas, and were soon conversing as if we had known each other for years. We were in front of their wire entanglements and surrounded by Germans — Fritz and I in the centre talking, and Fritz occasionally translating to his friends what I was saying. We stood inside the circle like street corner orators. What a sight — little groups of Germans and British extending almost the length of our front! Out of the darkness we could hear laughter and see lighted matches, a German lighting a Scotchman’s cigarette and vice versa, exchanging cigarettes and souvenirs.”
“The English brought a soccer ball from the trenches, and pretty soon a lively game ensued. How marvelously wonderful, yet how strange it was. The English officers felt the same way about it. Thus Christmas, the celebration of love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time.”
“At 8.30pm, I fired three shots in the air and put up a flag with ‘Merry Christmas’ on it, and I climbed on the parapet. [The Germans] put up a sheet with ‘Thank you’ on it, and then the German captain appeared on the parapet. We both bowed and saluted and got down into our respective trenches, and then he fired two shots in the air — and the war was on again.”
British general’s letter home details the truce
“Darling dear – as I cannot be with you all, the next best thing is to write to you for so I get closer.
“We have had a ‘seasonable weather’ day – which means sharp frost & fog & never a smich of sun. I went to church with 2 of my battalions in an enormous factory room & after lunch took down to the N. Staffords in my old trenches at Rue du Bois Mother’s gifts of toffee, sweets, cigarettes, pencils, handkerchiefs & writing paper.
“There I found an extraordinary state of affairs – this a.m. a German shouted out that they wanted a day’s truce & would one come out if he did; so very cautiously one of our men lifted himself above the parapet & saw a German doing the same. Both got out then more & finally all day long in that particular place they have been walking about together all day giving each other cigars & singing songs. Officers as well as men were out & the German colonel himself was talking to one of our captains.
“My informant, one of the men, said he had had a fine day / of it & had ‘smoked a cigar with the best shot in the German army, then not more than 18. They say he’s killed more of our men than any other 12 together but I know now where he shoots from & I hope we down him tomorrow’.
“I hope devoutly they will – next door the 2 battalions opposite each other were shooting away all day & so I hear it was further north, 1st R.B. playing football with the Germans opposite them - next Regiments shooting each other.
“I was invited to go & see the Germans myself but refrained as I thought they might not be able to resist a general...”
