The Christmas Truce
No matter where you go in New Zealand at this time of year, you will hear it being sung, you will sing it out loud in a Mall, on the street, beside complete strangers and neither of you will be embarrassed. You’ll hear it sung as muzak in elevators, it will make you smile, why? Because it’s just that kind of song! It’s not Bing, or Frank singing. It’s The Royal Guardsmen.
WHO? I hear you say. The Royal Guardsmen. They first performed ‘Snoopy’s Christmas’ in 1967. It continues to be played as a holiday favorite on most radio stations.
The song is about how Snoopy had to fight the Red Baron on Christmas Eve and the two enemies set aside their differences for that night. At the end, they share a holiday toast and then Snoopy and the Red Baron fly their separate ways, each knowing they’d meet on some other day. What many do not realise is that although the song is obviously fictitious, it does have a parallel.
During World War I, in 1914, an event known as “The Christmas Truce” took place between the Germans and the British, initiated not by the commanders, but by the soldiers themselves. The “Christmas truce” is a term used to describe several brief unofficial cessations of hostilities that occurred on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day between German and British or French troops in World War I, particularly that between British and German troops stationed along the Western Front during Christmas 1914.
The truce began on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1914, when German troops began decorating the area around their trenches in the region of Ypres, Belgium, for Christmas. They began by placing candles on trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas carols, most notably Stille Nacht (Silent Night). The Scottish troops in the trenches across from them responded by singing English carols.
The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were calls for visits across the “No Man’s Land” where small gifts were exchanged whisky, jam, cigars, chocolate, and the like. The soldiers exchanged gifts, sometimes addresses, and drank together. The artillery in the region fell silent that night.
The truce also allowed a breathing spell where recently-fallen soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties. Proper burials took place as soldiers from both sides mourned the dead together and paid their respects. At one funeral in No Man’s Land, soldiers from both sides gathered and read a passage from the 23rd Psalm: The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the path of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
The truce spread to other areas of the lines, and there are many stories of football matches between the opposing forces.
In many sectors, the truce lasted through Christmas night, but in some areas, it continued until New Year’s Day. The truce occurred in spite of opposition at higher levels of the military. Earlier in the autumn, a call by Pope Benedict XV for an official truce between the warring governments had been ignored.
British commanders Sir John French and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien vowed that no such truce would be allowed again, although both had left command before Christmas 1915. In all of the following years of the war, artillery bombardments were ordered on Christmas Eve to ensure that there were no further lulls in the combat. Troops were also rotated through various sectors of the front to prevent them from becoming overly familiar with the enemy. Despite those measures, there were a few friendly encounters between enemy soldiers, but on a much smaller scale than in 1914.
Last month on 11 November, the first official Truce memorial was unveiled in Frélinghien, France, the site of a Christmas Truce football game in 1914. After the unveiling and a Service of Remembrance, men from 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh (The Royal Welch Fusiliers) played a football match with the German Panzergrenadier Battalion 371. The Germans won, 2-1.
1st Battalion The Royal Welsh and Panzergrenadier Battalion 371 were invited to take part because their regimental ancestors from 2nd Battalion The Royal Welch Fusiliers and the 134th Saxon Infantry Regiment had held the Truce at Frelinghien on Christmas Day, 1914. The match was played in the presence of retired Major Miles Stockwell, grandson of Captain C. I. Stockwell, who commanded ‘A’ Company, 2/RWF in 1914 and wrote about the Truce in his diary.
Mrs Margaret Holmes, daughter of Welsh Private Frank Richards, DCM, MM, and Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant-Colonel) Joachim Freiherr von Sinner, grandson of Hauptmann (Captain) Maximilian Freiherr von Sinner the commander of the Machine-gun Company of the German 6th Jäger Battalion, were also present at the game.
Before the match, as happened in 1914, a Saxon soldier rolled a barrel of beer towards the Welsh while Major Stockwell offered Lieutenant-Colonel von Sinner a plum pudding and a cigar. The football, signed by all players, is now in the possession of the Arbeitkreis für Sächsische Militärgeschichte. It will be displayed in the Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr in Dresden, Germany.” The ‘spirit’ of Christmas lives on, it’s a beautiful thing!
