Christmas Truce: local meetings along the Western Front
The Christmas Truce of 1914 consisted of unofficial pauses arranged by soldiers along parts of the Western Front. There was no single agreement covering the armies. Some men stopped firing without meeting their opponents, while others crossed the ground between the trenches to exchange greetings and gifts. Certain pauses began on Christmas Eve and others on Christmas Day. Elsewhere in France and Belgium, fighting continued. The local arrangements varied in duration as well as in the amount of contact between soldiers on the opposing sides.
Christmas preparations had already brought familiar objects into the trenches. Gunner Herbert Smith of the British Royal Field Artillery remembered a lull on Christmas Eve and a Christmas tree in the German lines. A German soldier described seeing lights and rockets rising from the British positions. A Belgian soldier recalled a singer performing a Christmas hymn at midnight, followed by applause from both sides. Trees, lights and music appeared in different accounts of the holiday, with men recognizing traditions shared by soldiers they had been fighting.
The initial response could be suspicion. Major J. Q. Henriques of the London Regiment recorded that lights appeared in the German lines in the Rue du Bois as darkness fell. At first the British fired at them and the Germans put them out; gradually the firing died down and all sniping ceased. The silence was almost uncanny, and the men were suspicious and extra vigilant, expecting some trick. Later the whole German line was illuminated, with lanterns apparently hoisted on tall poles, and singing began, followed by shouting across the lines. By the morning the remarks had changed from uncomplimentary to greetings, including an offer that neither side should shoot. Henriques wrote that there was no shooting all day.
During the Christmas Truce, other soldiers made direct contact. Men emerged onto their parapets, called across to one another and eventually walked into no-man's-land. There they traded tobacco, cigarettes, food and drink, along with badges, buttons and caps. These exchanges were personal and improvised. Some participants spoke through trench-to-trench banter before approaching more closely. Rifleman William Eve's diary entry for December 25 describes men standing on the parapet and shouting greetings, then strolling about, talking with the Germans, exchanging souvenirs and playing football, with not a shot fired all day or night. The activities described in one unit's position did not necessarily occur in another, even during the same holiday.
Football was one activity among many in the Christmas Truce. A few groups played informal games after the men had ventured out between the trenches. Soldiers' letters also circulated a score of 3–2 to the Germans. There was no organized match representing the opposing armies as a whole. Other men sang carols, held religious services or simply observed a ceasefire. In some locations the quiet period also allowed soldiers to attend to comrades who had fallen between the lines. These different uses of the pause occurred alongside the exchange of Christmas greetings.
The gifts being shared had reached soldiers through a much larger network of support. Families and charities sent tobacco, sweets, chocolate, clothing, reading material and games to the front. Plum puddings also traveled in Christmas parcels. In December 1914, the wife of the British commander-in-chief, Sir John French, appealed for women to knit 250,000 mufflers. Such deliveries offered practical warmth as well as reminders of home. An already heavily burdened postal system carried the goods to men spending the holiday in cold and wet conditions.
Princess Mary's gift scheme distributed decorated metal tins to British and Indian troops. The cases carried her profile and were filled with items such as chocolate, sweets, cigarettes or tobacco. They also contained royal greetings. More than 355,000 reached their recipients by Christmas Day. Other forms of seasonal comfort depended on a unit's position. Men away from the front might eat a Christmas dinner in billets or reserve dugouts. Those holding the trenches generally relied on ordinary rations, supplemented by whatever parcels had arrived and could be shared.
Commanders opposed friendly contact with the enemy, although some junior officers tolerated what was happening in their own sectors. Orders prohibited communication and fraternization. Hostilities resumed early on December 26 in some areas, while other local ceasefires lasted for several days or beyond New Year's Day. No general timetable governed the return to fighting. The armies remained at war throughout the holiday, and the large-scale pattern of the Christmas Truce did not recur during the remaining years of the conflict.
Christmas observances nevertheless continued. German soldier Ernst Bergner searched for a tree in December 1915, regarding it as essential to the holiday. In 1916, British soldier C. H. Williams described a meal of roast pork and beer in an old sewing-machine factory in Albert, France. After the 1918 armistice, American troops and German civilians gathered around a lighted tree in Coblenz, with soldiers giving children small gifts. Seasonal celebrations survived through changing military circumstances, from the trenches of 1915 and 1916 to the occupation that followed the 1918 armistice.
- National Army Museum, The Christmas Truce: soldiers' diaries — ww1.nam.ac.uk
- National Army Museum, A First World War Christmas — www.nam.ac.uk
- National WWI Museum and Memorial, Christmas During World War I — www.theworldwar.org
- National Army Museum, Princess Mary Gift Tin (learning resource) — www.nam.ac.uk