Christmas Truce 1914

[jacey]

I have a theory, and it’s only a theory, so accept it or not as you wish. My granddad, Lance Corporal Tommy Bennett of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry took part in the Christmas Truce in 1914. It wasn’t one isolated incident, meetings took place up and down the lines where English and German troops faced each other across No Man’s Land.

Some years ago I was talking to my German friend, Gunnar Wiegand, about this and he told me that the unofficial truce on Christmas Eve 1914 wasn’t something that was known about in Germany, however there were stories of troops in earlier wars (Napoleonic times) meeting up at Christmas to share festivities. Indeed in the days when wars were fought hand-to-hand the troops would sometimes trade across the lines when battles were not raging – without permission from their officers, of course.

My theory is that the 1914 Christmas truce was not a one-off, but it is very probably notable for being the last Christmas truce between opposing armies. As wars became less personal, and more reliant on artillery and air raids to kill from a distance, common soldiers lost the opportunity and the wish, to meet their opposite number in peace.

Grandpa didn’t talk much about his time in the trenches, except in very general terms, but Mum told me the story some years later, after he’d died. I wish I’d been able to question him about it, but I was too late. The story always resonated with me, and some years later, as part of Artisan, I recorded Mike Harding’s song about Christmas Eve 1914. Here it is: http://artisan-harmony.com/Soundfiles%20fullsongs/artisan-christmaseve1914.mp3

Reblogged from my Wordpress blog

 

 

 

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Comments

[jhetley]

Re: trading across the lines.

In the US Civil War, I've read reports of Yankee troops trading coffee beans to Rebels for southern gunpowder or cartridges. The blockade kept coffee out of the south, and northern war profiteers sold inferior ammo to the government. Both sides used identical weapons . . .

They'd also pass letters back and forth across the lines, because both sides had relatives in enemy territory.

[cmcmck]

My late FiL was also there (one of the well known truces, the one with the football, involved the 2nd Argylls) but as a professional soldier, he always denied that it happened.

It was the last truce between professional soldiers before Britain started compulsory enlistment. I see it as the last (the very last) remains of the 'Truce of God' which would have been well known to the Scot's mediaeval and my early modern armies. You didn't fight at harvest and you didn't fight at Easter or Christmas.

The French didn't allow the truce nor the Russians. You don't make truce with invaders.

Interestingly,it was the British officers who said yea or nay. On some fronts when the Germans came over the order was 'ten rounds rapid' and it was invariably obeyed.

We need to unpack the legends.

[jacey]

Thanks for this. My grandpa was an early volunteer in the KOYLI, not a professional soldier, but not a conscript either. He survived the Somme, but was invalided out at Passchendaele with half his calf blown away. After a year in hospitals un Britain, including a stint in Scotland, he was discharged and went back to a life at the coalface in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where at least no one was shooting at him. He did a spell in the Home Guard during WW2, retired from the pit in the mid 1950s and died in the late seventies, aged about 82. Not a bad lifespan for someone who took part in one of the bloodiest wars of recent times, and then did a job that was equally likely to be fatal if you were unlucky. He was also ne of the most gentle men I've ever known.

[cmcmck]

His dad was on the retreat from Mons, then the Somme and various other fronts right through the war and came out as sergeant.

He taught gunnery in what was then India (now Pakistan) between the wars and became regimental QSM.

He also fought through WW2 at St Valéry (the Scottish Dunkirk) was on D Day +3 and was there when they broke down the doors of Kz Belsen. Fetched up as Town Major of a town in the Ruhr at the end of it all. He became a TA Major afterwards and retired after many years of service in the seventies. He died at a grand age in the eighties.

[jacey]

Grandpa came out of WW1 a Lance Corporal. He was too old for the regular army by the time WW2 came around but because of his experience in WW1 he was in charge of firearms training in his section of the Home Guard. I think he was quite proud of this in his own quiet way. In WW2 Dad drove a tank across the Western desert and then through Italy. He ended up a company sergeant.