The first Christmas of The Great War on the Western Front provides a story of how, in the midst of the destruction caused by a war waged on a 600 mile front using the industrial mechanisation that produced machines guns and artillery and other armaments on an industrial scale, shared beliefs and basic humanity led soldiers in small and not so small groups to halt the fighting and reflect on the meaning of Christmas.
Photo: A cross in the fields near Ploegsteert, Belgium marks the site of the Christmas Truce in 1914. [Munro Collection]
There are a number of web-sites dedicated to or carrying details of the Christmas Truce including:
Christmas truce 1914: Operation Plum Puddings contains many first-hand accounts and other information about the truce. It aims to collate the many letters printed in UK regional papers from soldiers who took part in the Christmas Truce of 1914. The website gives the following background to the Christmas Truce and includes sections on the songs sung and on many of the soldiers involved.
Setting the scene: Factors leading to the truce
The assassination of heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo on June 29 1914 sparked a rapid sequence of events which led to the outbreak of World War One. In early August, Germany swept past Luxembourg and Belgium on their way into France and at first made rapid progress. The Allies and Germans tried a series of outflanking movements which eventually led to a battle line – the Western Front – stretching from Lorraine in the south to the English Channel in the north. Soldiers dug trenches and erected barbed wire to hold their positions: the nightmare that was to become ‘trench warfare’ had begun.
In places the trenches were just yards apart and, as the soldiers realised that neither side was going to make any rapid victories or progress, the trenches became more fortified……
The proximity of the enemies also allowed men to shout out to their opponents or stick up signs on wooden boards. After a particularly heavy barrage of missiles or bullets, the soldiers might shout out “Missed” or “Left a bit”. (1) This black humour was to be the start of a ‘conversation’ between troops that would hasten the onset of a Christmas truce.
Another factor that assisted conditions for an unofficial truce between the men was the weather. For much of December it had been wet but on Christmas Eve the temperature dropped and a sharp frost enveloped the landscape. A ‘white Christmas’ as depicted on all traditional Christmas cards would provide the backdrop to one of the most remarkable Christmas stories in 2,000 years.
The shouting between troops turned into something more during Christmas Eve. Germans celebrate Christmas on December 24 more than they do on the day itself (in Britain and France, December 25 is the main day of celebration). It is on the 24th that the Germans have a large meal with family and ‘Father Christmas’ delivers his gifts. So on the Western Front on Christmas Eve, German soldiers began to sing carols and place Christmas trees lit with lanterns above the trenches. As a sub-altern told the Press Association (and it was then published in numerous UK newspapers): “Their trenches were a blaze of Christmas trees, and our sentries were regaled for hours with the traditional Christmas songs of the Fatherland. Their officers even expressed annoyance the next day that some of these trees had been fired on, insisting that they were part almost of the sacred rite.”
A ‘white Christmas’, singing of carols, shouts of good wishes across the trenches and the erection of illuminated decorations: A truce which days earlier had seemed inconceivable was now all but inevitable.
Other Christmas Truce web-sites include:
The Long Long Trail: The British Army of 1914-1918 for Family Historians. This site includes a list of all British units that took part.
THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE OF 1914 . This site has a 3 part description of the Truce and includes a bibliography.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWchristmas.htm. This site contains a considerable number of quotes from soldiers’ diaries.
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The Families and Friends of the First AIF thanks the Australian, UK and French governments for affording Australian and British soldiers – presently buried in mass graves at Pheasant Wood – dignified individual reburials in a new CWGC cemetery at Fromelles, and applauds Minister Snowdon and his British counterpart, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence and Minister for Veterans, Kevan Jones MP, for their joint decision to DNA test the remains at exhumation and use every reasonable method to attempt identification of each soldier.