December 23, 2017 • 26 mins
For Christmas, we're revisiting an episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. During the first Christmas of World War I, British and German soldiers laid down their weapons and celebrated the holiday together.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Happy Saturday and season's greetings everyone. Today's Saturday classic is
a Christmas favorite, the World War One Christmas Truths, which
took place at various points along the Western Front on
Christmas Eve. We still get requests for this one, which
was covered by past host Sarah and Debilina in eleven
and then in a much shorter episode so far back
(00:24):
in the archive that Josh Clark of Stuff You Should
Know was on this show That was by Candice and
Josh back in two thousand and eight. So this classic
is the Sarah and Deblina version after the podcast had
evolved to be a lot closer to what it is today.
So let's just hop right to it and we hope
whatever you celebrate, you have great holidays this year. Welcome
(00:47):
to Stuff you Missed in History Class from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Sarah Dowdy and I'm debling a chalk reboarding and it's December,
so tis the season for a holiday podcast special. And
(01:08):
I always like to do some kind of episode to
mark the season, but I usually try to pick something
that's a little bit offbeat. A couple of years ago,
Katie and I went for a Saturnalia celebration, which was
really fun. Imagine frenzied clapping of hands, the King of
the Beans. Last year we were kind of off beat too,
aren't we. We did. We covered that scrooge like tail
(01:29):
of Oliver Cromwell, he who canceled Christmas, plus some some
New England Puritan action too in there. But this year
we've chosen something that is a bit more somber, a
bit more serious, but also in my opinion, more moving
to the spontaneous Christmas e of truth that broke out
along the Western Front during World War One. And it
(01:51):
of course took place in the first months of a
year's long war, and it was never repeated after the
first winter, so you really and look at it as
an isolated event very early in the war. But as
Christmas nineteen fourteen approached, many men who had been sniping
and shelling each other just hours before, set aside their weapons,
(02:13):
sang carols together, decorated trees, and traded corn, beef and
cigarettes for beer and schnops. It's kind of a remarkable story.
It sounds so unbelievable. In fact, many folks think it's
an urban legend. It even has a snoop's entry. If
that tells you something, the real mark of a possible
urban legend, right. Others think, yes, it's true, but way overblown.
(02:37):
That only a few soldiers and certainly no officers frattenized
on the front, but actually soldiers of all ranks stationed
in sectors across the front called local truces, for as
little as a few hours or as long as two weeks.
So how did a truce like this come about in
the first place? How do you walk out into no
man's land between the trenches and propose a friendly exchange
(03:00):
ange of schnops or button how? Indeed? So, first, a
little background on the early months of the war. World
War one started in July nineteen fourteen, and in the
first month the Germans raced through Belgium on their way
to France, and they were finally halted in September at
the first Battle of the Marner, I should say, slowed down,
and this began a stalemate, the real digging in of heels,
(03:24):
the trench warfare, where victory meant moving your line up
just a few yards. You know, the way that we
imagine World War one. It's not a war where people
are zipping around across Europe really quickly, so four hundred
and seventy five miles of trenches were established from the
North Sea to Switzerland. That was the Western Front and
enemy troops that the front lines were, of course often
(03:45):
very close to each other, I mean like physically just
a few yards away from each other. So such close
quarters created these natural limited truces in some of the
quieter spots where each side would tacitly agree not to
shoot down a posing rations parties with sniper fire. Since
it was early in the war, some still also followed
the idea of fair play, like breaking for breakfast hour.
(04:09):
It seemed natural then that if you could break for breakfast,
maybe you could also break for Christmas. But that idea
was totally unlikely on a high level. Pope Benedict the
fifteenth Call for Christmas Truths was pretty much ignored by
political leaders across Europe. Some senior military even preemptively planned
against possible white flags flown on Christmas. On December twenty,
(04:30):
nineteen fourteen, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill,
message the Royal Navy that quote, any white flag hoisted
by a German ship is to be fired on as
a matter of principle. They were convinced that the Germans
would use the white flag as a trick, and I
didn't want any funny business. I would suspect that too.
Oh so you would. You would probably not be participating
(04:52):
in its cynical I mean, it is war, maybe just cautious.
So for many soldiers to the idea of mar king
Christmas in any way during war seemed inconceivable. Even in
nineteen fourteen. For instance, German officer Captain Rudolph Binding, who
had just come out of the First Battle of Epra,
called the Massacre of Innocence in Germany due to the
(05:15):
huge number of very young, very inexperienced soldiers who were
killed there, wrote to his father on December twenty of
his thoughts on Christmas at the front. He wrote, quote,
the simplicity of Christmas, with the laughter children, surprises, the
joy of giving little things. This is as it should
be when it appears alone. But when it enters the
lists with a war, it is out of place. Enemy
(05:38):
death and a Christmas tree. They cannot live so close together.
The guys are clearly thought otherwise. Though while none of
the wartime rulers thought it proper to suspend fighting on Christmas.
They did think small gifts for the troops were appropriate.
King George the Fifth and Queen Mary had cards and
tins of extra rations and putting sent to British troops,
for example, and the Kaiser had cars and tiny Christmas
(06:01):
tree shipped to the front lines, complete with ready to
light candles. I think I'd like a Christmas tree better
than a tinned pudding. Yeah, that doesn't It hasn't tried one,
so what do I know. But it's these barter ready
goods puddings or cigars whatever, and the cheery trees and
the tendency of both British and German people to sing
(06:23):
that started the truth in most factors where it occurred.
So we'll give you a few accounts of how it
went down, because of course it is scattered across this
huge Western front. But in one case, a British century
near Laventi, France spotted a group of Saxon's on December
(06:47):
and they were up on top of their trench parapet,
but they didn't look very scary. They were goofing off.
One guy was juggling and uh, some of them were
waving the Brits over in a friendly way, not like
a mocking way. Um. The British officer in charge thought
this was really sketchy, really potentially dangerous, and Warren his
troops just basically don't mess with that, because inviting them
(07:11):
over they might be trying to see what our trenches
look like a could be a trick. But the next day,
on Christmas Eve, there was ultimately this cautious exchange between
the Germans and the Brits of cigars and beer, and
the German side for cigarettes and corned beef on the
British side, which was called bully beef. It was kind
(07:32):
of detested by the soldiers even at this point, so
they were probably willing to make that trade. And then
English newspapers, to which I think that's interesting that the
German soldiers would be coveting the English news. At dusk
of the Germans again climbed their parapets, but this time
it was too light Christmas trees, and at eleven pm
they started singing still and knocked, which is of course
(07:53):
silent night Christmas Day, with the mud all covered and
hardened by deep freeze and a sky bright and blue,
both sides came out again to exchange gifts and also
this is what I found surprising names and addresses, and
they promised to write or visit after the war them
apparently did. I mean, It's years later, but they did
maintain those friendships in relationship. And there was also an
(08:16):
impromptu soccer game which ended with a recorded Saxon victory
over the Lancashire Few Sellers. So there you go. They
were they were trying to enjoy themselves in the middle
of this. But across the front, similar episodes played out.
For instance, rifleman Ernest Morley of the sixteenth Battalion, London
Regiment wrote how things started in his sector. He said, quote,
(08:38):
we had decided to give the Germans a Christmas present
of three carols and five rounds rapid accordingly, as soon
as night fell we started and the strains of white
shepherds arose upon the air. We finished that and paused
preparatory to give the second item on the program. But
low we heard answering strains arising from their lines. One
(08:58):
of them shouted a merry Chris Smith English, We're not
shooting tonight. German lieutenant Johannes Niemann wrote of the decoration saying, quote,
our soldiers had hung little Christmas trees covered with candles
above the trenches, and British Sergeant A. Level wrote, quote,
I shall remember to my dying day right along the
whole line where hung paper lanterns and illuminations of every description.
(09:21):
And I keep imagining the terrible image you have of
World War One trenches with trees that are just completely decimated,
villages decimated, mud and bodies everywhere, and little Christmas trees
and lanterns strung around it. It really it paints quite
a picture if you try to imagine that. But Private
(09:42):
Albert Moren described hearing the Christmas Eve carols as quote
one of the highlights of my life. So you can
imagine that it did have this really huge effect on
these men who had just been seeing carnage day after day,
or boredom, experiencing boredom to have something so pleasant and
so out of the ordinary occur. And on Christmas Day
(10:03):
the truce continued in many of the places with more
games and gift exchanges and singing and combined religious services,
and uh soldiers would swap gear, you know, like switch hats,
or let me trade for your German coat for my
British coat or something and take pictures together, kind of
like just dressing up in costumes almost. And there was also,
(10:25):
of course, the very somber task of burying the dead,
some of whom had been lying out there in No
Man's land, where, of course, as the name implies, nobody
could go collect them for weeks or even months. Yeah,
and it's interesting to note that while the French and
Belgians didn't really participate in the Christmas Truths in the
same way that some British did, they might have had
(10:45):
harder feelings against the Germans. Obviously, some did arrange a
temporary Christmas armistice solely for the purpose of burying the dead,
so they would carry each other's men's to the middle,
exchange and shake hands, so something that was a lot
more umber, a lot more official. Just let's agree to
take care of this important task and not celebrate, right,
(11:06):
no singing of carols with that. Another truce oddity was
the exchange of insignia, buttons, scraps of cloth, and best
of all, pickle helves. The German dress helmet. So those
are the helmets with the little spikes on top. And
I can imagine why you might want one as a
as a souvenir. But there's one story from the London
Rifle Brigade written up in a History Today article by
(11:28):
John Terrain that tells of a German soldier who had
traded away his dress helmet, and the day after Christmas
he calls out to speak to a British officer and
they meet up in No Man's Land, and the German
explained that he had traded his helmet the day before,
and he had a grand inspection the next day, so
he really kind of needed to borrow it back. He
(11:50):
apparently borrowed it, must have used it for his inspection
in a satisfactory manner, and then did return it in
exchange for a little more bully beef, because that was
hot stuff in the German trenches. Another famous incident has
a British soldier recognizing his German barber from London and
getting a trim in the middle of No Man's Land.
(12:12):
And that's actually not quite as unlikely as it may
sound to some people. Many Germans had worked in pre
war England, so I might have known each other. And
there's another example of a soldier in the British Hampshire
Regiment who described the area between the trenches as just
a mass of gray and khaki, and those are, of
course the two sides uniforms and um. That helped me
(12:34):
also imagine what this looked like. I can imagine the
Christmas Eve with the light strung up in the Christmas
trees and all of that, but to imagine Christmas Day
just all of these guys kind of seeing each other
for the first time. In many cases because they had
been fighting trench warfare, fighting at night for so long,
a lot of them had never seen the enemy really,
(12:55):
and they probably and in in some documented cases, did
realizations about each other that, uh, you know, the Germans
weren't barbarians, the British weren't these stubborn clouds or something,
you know, these um stereotypes, ye, stereotypes that they had
about the opposing side, and that had really been indoctrinated
(13:15):
in them too. Still, though, in a lot of the
British letters and diaries that describe the truth, you'll find
the British distinguishing between the men that they were fraternizing with.
They were Saxons and Bavarians, they were not Prussians. That
seemed a very important distinguished for them to make and
I thought it was it was really strange that the
(13:35):
German troops themselves even would sometimes disassociate themselves from the Prussians.
In one case, there was a member of the Dublin
Fisiliers who was killed during the Truth by a stray bullet,
and that sounds like the kind of thing that would
shut down a truce immediately. But the Saxon troops sent
over an apology and it said quote, it must have
(13:59):
been one of those and Prussians exclamation point and followed
up the apology with two barrels of beer. That was
just so surprising to me that a truce could continue,
and that you would differentiate among your your ranks like that. Yeah,
and the one bullet wouldn't immediately start fighting again, that
(14:19):
the guy's buddies would just kind of get over it
or something. But um, you can imagine how in some
cases incidents like that would definitely bring the truth to
an end. And the truces did only last hours in
certain sectors, with some troops refusing to participate at all
and others that stretched as long as January tent. While
the truces were usually arranged by bold or brave bands
(14:42):
of soldiers, with officers having nothing else to do but
go along with it after their men began pouring into
no man's land. Sometimes the officers made the arrangements themselves.
Captain Robert Hamilton's of the first battillion Royal Warkshire Regiment,
stationed near Saint Yvan Belgium, met with the German officer
half way through no man's land. They shook hands and
(15:02):
arranged a forty eight hour truce. In his journal he
talked about doubling midnight centuries just for good measure, but
also notes quote, I am told the general and staff
are furious but powerless to stop it. I think you
would have been on the midnight century. You're suspicious of
this whole thing. But of course high ranking officers on
(15:23):
both sides were totally aghast at what was happening. They
thought is simply postponing the conclusion of a war that
had already gone on longer than expected, and for instance,
the British general Sir Horace Smith Dorian threatened disciplinary action
against any officers who fraternized with the enemy, even though
there aren't records of punishments actually being doled out. But
(15:46):
by the end of January UM, with the war escalating.
Of course, the death penalty was announced for what would
be considered high treason, so it's not Christmas anymore, it
is um treason against your country. On the German's side,
officers were threatened, uh, we're officers threatened soldiers with a
transfer to the Russian front, which does sound like it
(16:08):
would make you give up on your button collection pretty quickly.
Not that some truce participants didn't skirt authority for as
long as they could get away with it, though. British
General Sir Henry Rawlinson wrote in his diary quote a
German shouted out to our men, quote, lookout, we have
a general coming, so we have to fire at you,
but will aim high. You do the same for us.
(16:31):
I find that pretty pretty remarkable that again the trust
here is the trust and the willingness to just play war,
not just like we are openly and defiance of we're
having this truce, but we're going to just pretend like
we're fighting. We won't really try to hurt you. Um.
There's another example of that from Lieutenant Michael Holroyd, who
(16:52):
was a British machine gun officer in the First Battalian
Hampshire Regiment, and he told his parents that around New
Year's when the truce was still going on, the Germans
threw up a red light and cried out, put your
heads down before shelling them. After it ended, a white
light came up and they yelled, all right, Hampshires, our
officers are gone now, so putting putting on a show
(17:15):
for the guys in charge. And contrary to popular belief,
the press also celebrated the truce. News reached England by
the New Year, and the Illustrated London News showed a
single Saxon soldier delivering a candle a tree to the British.
(17:36):
It was captioned the light of Peace and the trenches
on Christmas Eve? So what was going on here and
what did it mean? I mean, did the truce mean anything?
Coming as it did at the beginning of a very long,
very terrible war. I mean, we talked about the chemical
warfare pretty recently in an episode. We know how bad
(17:56):
it is, and there were many cases of Christmas armistice us,
but it wasn't everywhere. We should emphasize that point. Some
soldiers on the front were shocked to hear of what
happened because they spent their night fighting just like they
normally did. For instance, Captain jail Jack of the First
Cameroonians recorded shelling and sniping mixed with a little German caroling,
(18:18):
which the British did not respond to, and even the
truce that was didn't continue beyond nineteen fourteen. By nineteen sixteen,
Sergeant p Hair of the eleventh Royal feust Laers wrote
to his mother, quote, there is very little here to
remind us of Christmas, just a handful of us remembering
that it is December. We are not dispirited, nor do
(18:39):
we feel downcast at the fact that we should be
spending such a great day like this. It's not a truce,
but just some sort of strange understanding between us and
the jerry's on the other side that Christmas Day should
be like this. Perhaps next Christmas the war will be over.
He was killed two months later, but so sad. But
even in nineteen fourteen, it's unlikely that many of the
(19:01):
participants really thought that any kind of international peace would
come from the truth. Troops on both sides didn't want
to lose just for the sake of you know, just
because you were making friends with a guy on the
other side getting his address, trading for his cool looking
hat didn't mean that you wanted your country to give
(19:22):
up or something. Bruce Barn's father, who was a famous
cartoonist and a machine gun officer with the Captain Hamilton's
who we mentioned earlier, the guy who walked out to
meet his German counterpart, he saw it as quote, an
interval between the rounds in a friendly boxing match, and
I have to imagine that for a lot of guys
it would be like that something to to get away,
(19:44):
as we mentioned earlier, from that day to day probably
really boring and sometimes really scary existence. Yeah, it's funny
to bring up that comparison to sports though, because that
whole exchange of gear thing did make me think a
lot of like international soccer matches that you watch when
afterwards they'll exchange jerseys and the whole playing fighting instead
(20:05):
of fighting. Your soccer perspective coming in here, yep um.
But clearly the perception of war was something so sporting
as a boxing match would change later some historians would
see it as kind of a bridge between the pre
war and the post war world, contributing to the PBS
series on the Great war. Paul Fusil describes it as
the quote last gesture of the nineteenth century idea that
(20:27):
human beings are getting better the longer the human race
goes on. Nobody could believe that after the First World War,
and certainly not after the second, and to go along
with that idea almost I mean, some people consider it
the last holdout of like a Victorian Christmas, and and
that makes sense or Dickens Christmas, I mean kind of
the same thing. But that makes sense if you think
(20:49):
that the origin of a Victorian Christmas, which is from
Britain is of course German because of Prince Albert. As
we've talked about all that before too, so it makes
that these two countries in particular would have such similar
Christmas traditions and and um end up celebrating them in
this early stage of the war together. But I was
(21:12):
really surprised. I know we've had a lot of quotes
in this episode because there are so many letters and
diaries written by soldiers, but we do have a quote
from our old friend Arthur Conan Doyle, who is really
the new Queen Victoria up in every episode. I really
like what how he described the truth. Though it's quite poignant.
He wrote, it was quote one human episode amid all
(21:35):
the atrocities which have stained the memory of the war. Um,
and clearly it has been really well remembered and celebrated
because it is so unique. It is this one human episode.
I mean, if it had ended the war or something,
it would clearly be in a whole different league of history.
But it's so unusual that a lot of people have
(21:57):
remembered it and have marked it. In nineteen nine nine
for Existence, members of the Association for Military Remembrance reenact
the Truth at APRA and in November two thousand five,
the last known Christmas Truce veteran died in Scotland at
a wopping one hundred and nine years old. His name
(22:18):
was Alfred Anderson. He was a Black Watch soldier and
he was eighteen and nineteen fourteen. Later in the war,
he had served as a batman to the brother of
the late Queen Mother and consequently had received a visit
from Prince Charles and numerous telegrams from the Queen. I
feel like we should explain batman really quickly too, because
because the batman UM. I found out about this from
(22:41):
watching Downton Abbey. UM it's like the personal assistant almost
of high ranking officers. So the job would be anything
from like getting your messages, making sure you had your supplies,
to offering some kind of personal protection. And it was
a really prestigious position to have. You might get to
go to better places and move up faster in the army. UM.
(23:03):
So that was I was also kind of surprised that
this fellow, Alfred Anderson UM, died in two thousand five.
I believe that the last World War One survivor died
just this year, so not too not too far apart,
not too far for the last Christmas Truth survivor UM.
But one final comment here on Bruce Bearn's father, who
(23:25):
he mentioned earlier. I looked at some of his cartoons
and I kind of thought they were a neat way
to take a different look at World War One, one
that is personal, one that's sometimes humorous instead of remote
and upsetting and mechanical. You know, it's it's clearly depicting
the soldiers not just as cannon fodder. There are people,
(23:47):
and they do funny things, and they have funny reactions.
There were funny interactions with people. But I also liked
Bearn's father's reflection on the truth, and they certainly suggest
that he may have seen it as more than just
a lull in a friendly boxing match. As we mentioned earlier,
he wrote quote, there was a kind of invisible and
tangible feeling extending across the frozen swamp between the two
(24:11):
lines which said, this is Christmas Eve for both of us,
something in common. Well, that was a great choice for
a Christmas episode, I think, Well, I'm glad that you
liked it, and I really enjoyed listening to it. Made
me break out my family. Carol's book kind of put
me in a in a Christmas mood, but a reflective
one too, And I know that there are a lot
(24:33):
of other Christmas themed episodes that people want to hear.
I think people request sat Nick every single year people do.
We get a lot of requests for sat Ni. So
maybe that will be next year's episode. Maybe, But in
the meantime, if you have any more requests Christmas related
or not, please email us for a history podcast at
how Stuff Works dot com. You can also hit us
(24:54):
up on Facebook or on Twitter at mist in History.
And of course, have a very merry Christmas and a
happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanza, Happy New Year, Festivus Festivals, Saturnalia,
of course christ Tied. If you listen into our old
episodes you will know both of those references. Whatever holiday
you celebrate, I hope you have a happy and peaceful season.
(25:16):
You can also learn more about Christmas as well as
the Christmas Truths. We do have an article on that.
I found it unfortunately after I was done researching this episode.
Because I'm rarely expecting we have uncovered history articles anymore.
We usually don't. We usually don't, but we do have
one for this It's called what was the Christmas Troops?
(25:37):
And we have How Christmas Works, which I always like
to recommend. You can check it out by searching for
Christmas on our home page at www dot how stuff
works dot com. Thank you so much for joining us
for this Saturday classic. Since this is out of the archive,
(25:59):
if you heard an email address or a Facebook U
R L or something similar during the course of the show,
that may be obsolete now. So here is our current
contact information. We are at History Podcast at how Stuff
Works dot com, and then we're at Missed in the History.
All over social media that is our name on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest,
and Instagram. Thanks again for listening. For more on this
(26:24):
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Happy Saturday and season's greetings everyone. Today's Saturday classic is
a Christmas favorite, the World War One Christmas Truths, which
took place at various points along the Western Front on
Christmas Eve. We still get requests for this one, which
was covered by past host Sarah and Debilina in eleven
and then in a much shorter episode so far back
(00:24):
in the archive that Josh Clark of Stuff You Should
Know was on this show That was by Candice and
Josh back in two thousand and eight. So this classic
is the Sarah and Deblina version after the podcast had
evolved to be a lot closer to what it is today.
So let's just hop right to it and we hope
whatever you celebrate, you have great holidays this year. Welcome
(00:47):
to Stuff you Missed in History Class from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Sarah Dowdy and I'm debling a chalk reboarding and it's December,
so tis the season for a holiday podcast special. And
(01:08):
I always like to do some kind of episode to
mark the season, but I usually try to pick something
that's a little bit offbeat. A couple of years ago,
Katie and I went for a Saturnalia celebration, which was
really fun. Imagine frenzied clapping of hands, the King of
the Beans. Last year we were kind of off beat too,
aren't we. We did. We covered that scrooge like tail
(01:29):
of Oliver Cromwell, he who canceled Christmas, plus some some
New England Puritan action too in there. But this year
we've chosen something that is a bit more somber, a
bit more serious, but also in my opinion, more moving
to the spontaneous Christmas e of truth that broke out
along the Western Front during World War One. And it
(01:51):
of course took place in the first months of a
year's long war, and it was never repeated after the
first winter, so you really and look at it as
an isolated event very early in the war. But as
Christmas nineteen fourteen approached, many men who had been sniping
and shelling each other just hours before, set aside their weapons,
(02:13):
sang carols together, decorated trees, and traded corn, beef and
cigarettes for beer and schnops. It's kind of a remarkable story.
It sounds so unbelievable. In fact, many folks think it's
an urban legend. It even has a snoop's entry. If
that tells you something, the real mark of a possible
urban legend, right. Others think, yes, it's true, but way overblown.
(02:37):
That only a few soldiers and certainly no officers frattenized
on the front, but actually soldiers of all ranks stationed
in sectors across the front called local truces, for as
little as a few hours or as long as two weeks.
So how did a truce like this come about in
the first place? How do you walk out into no
man's land between the trenches and propose a friendly exchange
(03:00):
ange of schnops or button how? Indeed? So, first, a
little background on the early months of the war. World
War one started in July nineteen fourteen, and in the
first month the Germans raced through Belgium on their way
to France, and they were finally halted in September at
the first Battle of the Marner, I should say, slowed down,
and this began a stalemate, the real digging in of heels,
(03:24):
the trench warfare, where victory meant moving your line up
just a few yards. You know, the way that we
imagine World War one. It's not a war where people
are zipping around across Europe really quickly, so four hundred
and seventy five miles of trenches were established from the
North Sea to Switzerland. That was the Western Front and
enemy troops that the front lines were, of course often
(03:45):
very close to each other, I mean like physically just
a few yards away from each other. So such close
quarters created these natural limited truces in some of the
quieter spots where each side would tacitly agree not to
shoot down a posing rations parties with sniper fire. Since
it was early in the war, some still also followed
the idea of fair play, like breaking for breakfast hour.
(04:09):
It seemed natural then that if you could break for breakfast,
maybe you could also break for Christmas. But that idea
was totally unlikely on a high level. Pope Benedict the
fifteenth Call for Christmas Truths was pretty much ignored by
political leaders across Europe. Some senior military even preemptively planned
against possible white flags flown on Christmas. On December twenty,
(04:30):
nineteen fourteen, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill,
message the Royal Navy that quote, any white flag hoisted
by a German ship is to be fired on as
a matter of principle. They were convinced that the Germans
would use the white flag as a trick, and I
didn't want any funny business. I would suspect that too.
Oh so you would. You would probably not be participating
(04:52):
in its cynical I mean, it is war, maybe just cautious.
So for many soldiers to the idea of mar king
Christmas in any way during war seemed inconceivable. Even in
nineteen fourteen. For instance, German officer Captain Rudolph Binding, who
had just come out of the First Battle of Epra,
called the Massacre of Innocence in Germany due to the
(05:15):
huge number of very young, very inexperienced soldiers who were
killed there, wrote to his father on December twenty of
his thoughts on Christmas at the front. He wrote, quote,
the simplicity of Christmas, with the laughter children, surprises, the
joy of giving little things. This is as it should
be when it appears alone. But when it enters the
lists with a war, it is out of place. Enemy
(05:38):
death and a Christmas tree. They cannot live so close together.
The guys are clearly thought otherwise. Though while none of
the wartime rulers thought it proper to suspend fighting on Christmas.
They did think small gifts for the troops were appropriate.
King George the Fifth and Queen Mary had cards and
tins of extra rations and putting sent to British troops,
for example, and the Kaiser had cars and tiny Christmas
(06:01):
tree shipped to the front lines, complete with ready to
light candles. I think I'd like a Christmas tree better
than a tinned pudding. Yeah, that doesn't It hasn't tried one,
so what do I know. But it's these barter ready
goods puddings or cigars whatever, and the cheery trees and
the tendency of both British and German people to sing
(06:23):
that started the truth in most factors where it occurred.
So we'll give you a few accounts of how it
went down, because of course it is scattered across this
huge Western front. But in one case, a British century
near Laventi, France spotted a group of Saxon's on December
(06:47):
and they were up on top of their trench parapet,
but they didn't look very scary. They were goofing off.
One guy was juggling and uh, some of them were
waving the Brits over in a friendly way, not like
a mocking way. Um. The British officer in charge thought
this was really sketchy, really potentially dangerous, and Warren his
troops just basically don't mess with that, because inviting them
(07:11):
over they might be trying to see what our trenches
look like a could be a trick. But the next day,
on Christmas Eve, there was ultimately this cautious exchange between
the Germans and the Brits of cigars and beer, and
the German side for cigarettes and corned beef on the
British side, which was called bully beef. It was kind
(07:32):
of detested by the soldiers even at this point, so
they were probably willing to make that trade. And then
English newspapers, to which I think that's interesting that the
German soldiers would be coveting the English news. At dusk
of the Germans again climbed their parapets, but this time
it was too light Christmas trees, and at eleven pm
they started singing still and knocked, which is of course
(07:53):
silent night Christmas Day, with the mud all covered and
hardened by deep freeze and a sky bright and blue,
both sides came out again to exchange gifts and also
this is what I found surprising names and addresses, and
they promised to write or visit after the war them
apparently did. I mean, It's years later, but they did
maintain those friendships in relationship. And there was also an
(08:16):
impromptu soccer game which ended with a recorded Saxon victory
over the Lancashire Few Sellers. So there you go. They
were they were trying to enjoy themselves in the middle
of this. But across the front, similar episodes played out.
For instance, rifleman Ernest Morley of the sixteenth Battalion, London
Regiment wrote how things started in his sector. He said, quote,
(08:38):
we had decided to give the Germans a Christmas present
of three carols and five rounds rapid accordingly, as soon
as night fell we started and the strains of white
shepherds arose upon the air. We finished that and paused
preparatory to give the second item on the program. But
low we heard answering strains arising from their lines. One
(08:58):
of them shouted a merry Chris Smith English, We're not
shooting tonight. German lieutenant Johannes Niemann wrote of the decoration saying, quote,
our soldiers had hung little Christmas trees covered with candles
above the trenches, and British Sergeant A. Level wrote, quote,
I shall remember to my dying day right along the
whole line where hung paper lanterns and illuminations of every description.
(09:21):
And I keep imagining the terrible image you have of
World War One trenches with trees that are just completely decimated,
villages decimated, mud and bodies everywhere, and little Christmas trees
and lanterns strung around it. It really it paints quite
a picture if you try to imagine that. But Private
(09:42):
Albert Moren described hearing the Christmas Eve carols as quote
one of the highlights of my life. So you can
imagine that it did have this really huge effect on
these men who had just been seeing carnage day after day,
or boredom, experiencing boredom to have something so pleasant and
so out of the ordinary occur. And on Christmas Day
(10:03):
the truce continued in many of the places with more
games and gift exchanges and singing and combined religious services,
and uh soldiers would swap gear, you know, like switch hats,
or let me trade for your German coat for my
British coat or something and take pictures together, kind of
like just dressing up in costumes almost. And there was also,
(10:25):
of course, the very somber task of burying the dead,
some of whom had been lying out there in No
Man's land, where, of course, as the name implies, nobody
could go collect them for weeks or even months. Yeah,
and it's interesting to note that while the French and
Belgians didn't really participate in the Christmas Truths in the
same way that some British did, they might have had
(10:45):
harder feelings against the Germans. Obviously, some did arrange a
temporary Christmas armistice solely for the purpose of burying the dead,
so they would carry each other's men's to the middle,
exchange and shake hands, so something that was a lot
more umber, a lot more official. Just let's agree to
take care of this important task and not celebrate, right,
(11:06):
no singing of carols with that. Another truce oddity was
the exchange of insignia, buttons, scraps of cloth, and best
of all, pickle helves. The German dress helmet. So those
are the helmets with the little spikes on top. And
I can imagine why you might want one as a
as a souvenir. But there's one story from the London
Rifle Brigade written up in a History Today article by
(11:28):
John Terrain that tells of a German soldier who had
traded away his dress helmet, and the day after Christmas
he calls out to speak to a British officer and
they meet up in No Man's Land, and the German
explained that he had traded his helmet the day before,
and he had a grand inspection the next day, so
he really kind of needed to borrow it back. He
(11:50):
apparently borrowed it, must have used it for his inspection
in a satisfactory manner, and then did return it in
exchange for a little more bully beef, because that was
hot stuff in the German trenches. Another famous incident has
a British soldier recognizing his German barber from London and
getting a trim in the middle of No Man's Land.
(12:12):
And that's actually not quite as unlikely as it may
sound to some people. Many Germans had worked in pre
war England, so I might have known each other. And
there's another example of a soldier in the British Hampshire
Regiment who described the area between the trenches as just
a mass of gray and khaki, and those are, of
course the two sides uniforms and um. That helped me
(12:34):
also imagine what this looked like. I can imagine the
Christmas Eve with the light strung up in the Christmas
trees and all of that, but to imagine Christmas Day
just all of these guys kind of seeing each other
for the first time. In many cases because they had
been fighting trench warfare, fighting at night for so long,
a lot of them had never seen the enemy really,
(12:55):
and they probably and in in some documented cases, did
realizations about each other that, uh, you know, the Germans
weren't barbarians, the British weren't these stubborn clouds or something,
you know, these um stereotypes, ye, stereotypes that they had
about the opposing side, and that had really been indoctrinated
(13:15):
in them too. Still, though, in a lot of the
British letters and diaries that describe the truth, you'll find
the British distinguishing between the men that they were fraternizing with.
They were Saxons and Bavarians, they were not Prussians. That
seemed a very important distinguished for them to make and
I thought it was it was really strange that the
(13:35):
German troops themselves even would sometimes disassociate themselves from the Prussians.
In one case, there was a member of the Dublin
Fisiliers who was killed during the Truth by a stray bullet,
and that sounds like the kind of thing that would
shut down a truce immediately. But the Saxon troops sent
over an apology and it said quote, it must have
(13:59):
been one of those and Prussians exclamation point and followed
up the apology with two barrels of beer. That was
just so surprising to me that a truce could continue,
and that you would differentiate among your your ranks like that. Yeah,
and the one bullet wouldn't immediately start fighting again, that
(14:19):
the guy's buddies would just kind of get over it
or something. But um, you can imagine how in some
cases incidents like that would definitely bring the truth to
an end. And the truces did only last hours in
certain sectors, with some troops refusing to participate at all
and others that stretched as long as January tent. While
the truces were usually arranged by bold or brave bands
(14:42):
of soldiers, with officers having nothing else to do but
go along with it after their men began pouring into
no man's land. Sometimes the officers made the arrangements themselves.
Captain Robert Hamilton's of the first battillion Royal Warkshire Regiment,
stationed near Saint Yvan Belgium, met with the German officer
half way through no man's land. They shook hands and
(15:02):
arranged a forty eight hour truce. In his journal he
talked about doubling midnight centuries just for good measure, but
also notes quote, I am told the general and staff
are furious but powerless to stop it. I think you
would have been on the midnight century. You're suspicious of
this whole thing. But of course high ranking officers on
(15:23):
both sides were totally aghast at what was happening. They
thought is simply postponing the conclusion of a war that
had already gone on longer than expected, and for instance,
the British general Sir Horace Smith Dorian threatened disciplinary action
against any officers who fraternized with the enemy, even though
there aren't records of punishments actually being doled out. But
(15:46):
by the end of January UM, with the war escalating.
Of course, the death penalty was announced for what would
be considered high treason, so it's not Christmas anymore, it
is um treason against your country. On the German's side,
officers were threatened, uh, we're officers threatened soldiers with a
transfer to the Russian front, which does sound like it
(16:08):
would make you give up on your button collection pretty quickly.
Not that some truce participants didn't skirt authority for as
long as they could get away with it, though. British
General Sir Henry Rawlinson wrote in his diary quote a
German shouted out to our men, quote, lookout, we have
a general coming, so we have to fire at you,
but will aim high. You do the same for us.
(16:31):
I find that pretty pretty remarkable that again the trust
here is the trust and the willingness to just play war,
not just like we are openly and defiance of we're
having this truce, but we're going to just pretend like
we're fighting. We won't really try to hurt you. Um.
There's another example of that from Lieutenant Michael Holroyd, who
(16:52):
was a British machine gun officer in the First Battalian
Hampshire Regiment, and he told his parents that around New
Year's when the truce was still going on, the Germans
threw up a red light and cried out, put your
heads down before shelling them. After it ended, a white
light came up and they yelled, all right, Hampshires, our
officers are gone now, so putting putting on a show
(17:15):
for the guys in charge. And contrary to popular belief,
the press also celebrated the truce. News reached England by
the New Year, and the Illustrated London News showed a
single Saxon soldier delivering a candle a tree to the British.
(17:36):
It was captioned the light of Peace and the trenches
on Christmas Eve? So what was going on here and
what did it mean? I mean, did the truce mean anything?
Coming as it did at the beginning of a very long,
very terrible war. I mean, we talked about the chemical
warfare pretty recently in an episode. We know how bad
(17:56):
it is, and there were many cases of Christmas armistice us,
but it wasn't everywhere. We should emphasize that point. Some
soldiers on the front were shocked to hear of what
happened because they spent their night fighting just like they
normally did. For instance, Captain jail Jack of the First
Cameroonians recorded shelling and sniping mixed with a little German caroling,
(18:18):
which the British did not respond to, and even the
truce that was didn't continue beyond nineteen fourteen. By nineteen sixteen,
Sergeant p Hair of the eleventh Royal feust Laers wrote
to his mother, quote, there is very little here to
remind us of Christmas, just a handful of us remembering
that it is December. We are not dispirited, nor do
(18:39):
we feel downcast at the fact that we should be
spending such a great day like this. It's not a truce,
but just some sort of strange understanding between us and
the jerry's on the other side that Christmas Day should
be like this. Perhaps next Christmas the war will be over.
He was killed two months later, but so sad. But
even in nineteen fourteen, it's unlikely that many of the
(19:01):
participants really thought that any kind of international peace would
come from the truth. Troops on both sides didn't want
to lose just for the sake of you know, just
because you were making friends with a guy on the
other side getting his address, trading for his cool looking
hat didn't mean that you wanted your country to give
(19:22):
up or something. Bruce Barn's father, who was a famous
cartoonist and a machine gun officer with the Captain Hamilton's
who we mentioned earlier, the guy who walked out to
meet his German counterpart, he saw it as quote, an
interval between the rounds in a friendly boxing match, and
I have to imagine that for a lot of guys
it would be like that something to to get away,
(19:44):
as we mentioned earlier, from that day to day probably
really boring and sometimes really scary existence. Yeah, it's funny
to bring up that comparison to sports though, because that
whole exchange of gear thing did make me think a
lot of like international soccer matches that you watch when
afterwards they'll exchange jerseys and the whole playing fighting instead
(20:05):
of fighting. Your soccer perspective coming in here, yep um.
But clearly the perception of war was something so sporting
as a boxing match would change later some historians would
see it as kind of a bridge between the pre
war and the post war world, contributing to the PBS
series on the Great war. Paul Fusil describes it as
the quote last gesture of the nineteenth century idea that
(20:27):
human beings are getting better the longer the human race
goes on. Nobody could believe that after the First World War,
and certainly not after the second, and to go along
with that idea almost I mean, some people consider it
the last holdout of like a Victorian Christmas, and and
that makes sense or Dickens Christmas, I mean kind of
the same thing. But that makes sense if you think
(20:49):
that the origin of a Victorian Christmas, which is from
Britain is of course German because of Prince Albert. As
we've talked about all that before too, so it makes
that these two countries in particular would have such similar
Christmas traditions and and um end up celebrating them in
this early stage of the war together. But I was
(21:12):
really surprised. I know we've had a lot of quotes
in this episode because there are so many letters and
diaries written by soldiers, but we do have a quote
from our old friend Arthur Conan Doyle, who is really
the new Queen Victoria up in every episode. I really
like what how he described the truth. Though it's quite poignant.
He wrote, it was quote one human episode amid all
(21:35):
the atrocities which have stained the memory of the war. Um,
and clearly it has been really well remembered and celebrated
because it is so unique. It is this one human episode.
I mean, if it had ended the war or something,
it would clearly be in a whole different league of history.
But it's so unusual that a lot of people have
(21:57):
remembered it and have marked it. In nineteen nine nine
for Existence, members of the Association for Military Remembrance reenact
the Truth at APRA and in November two thousand five,
the last known Christmas Truce veteran died in Scotland at
a wopping one hundred and nine years old. His name
(22:18):
was Alfred Anderson. He was a Black Watch soldier and
he was eighteen and nineteen fourteen. Later in the war,
he had served as a batman to the brother of
the late Queen Mother and consequently had received a visit
from Prince Charles and numerous telegrams from the Queen. I
feel like we should explain batman really quickly too, because
because the batman UM. I found out about this from
(22:41):
watching Downton Abbey. UM it's like the personal assistant almost
of high ranking officers. So the job would be anything
from like getting your messages, making sure you had your supplies,
to offering some kind of personal protection. And it was
a really prestigious position to have. You might get to
go to better places and move up faster in the army. UM.
(23:03):
So that was I was also kind of surprised that
this fellow, Alfred Anderson UM, died in two thousand five.
I believe that the last World War One survivor died
just this year, so not too not too far apart,
not too far for the last Christmas Truth survivor UM.
But one final comment here on Bruce Bearn's father, who
(23:25):
he mentioned earlier. I looked at some of his cartoons
and I kind of thought they were a neat way
to take a different look at World War One, one
that is personal, one that's sometimes humorous instead of remote
and upsetting and mechanical. You know, it's it's clearly depicting
the soldiers not just as cannon fodder. There are people,
(23:47):
and they do funny things, and they have funny reactions.
There were funny interactions with people. But I also liked
Bearn's father's reflection on the truth, and they certainly suggest
that he may have seen it as more than just
a lull in a friendly boxing match. As we mentioned earlier,
he wrote quote, there was a kind of invisible and
tangible feeling extending across the frozen swamp between the two
(24:11):
lines which said, this is Christmas Eve for both of us,
something in common. Well, that was a great choice for
a Christmas episode, I think, Well, I'm glad that you
liked it, and I really enjoyed listening to it. Made
me break out my family. Carol's book kind of put
me in a in a Christmas mood, but a reflective
one too, And I know that there are a lot
(24:33):
of other Christmas themed episodes that people want to hear.
I think people request sat Nick every single year people do.
We get a lot of requests for sat Ni. So
maybe that will be next year's episode. Maybe, But in
the meantime, if you have any more requests Christmas related
or not, please email us for a history podcast at
how Stuff Works dot com. You can also hit us
(24:54):
up on Facebook or on Twitter at mist in History.
And of course, have a very merry Christmas and a
happy Hanukkah. Happy Kwanza, Happy New Year, Festivus Festivals, Saturnalia,
of course christ Tied. If you listen into our old
episodes you will know both of those references. Whatever holiday
you celebrate, I hope you have a happy and peaceful season.
(25:16):
You can also learn more about Christmas as well as
the Christmas Truths. We do have an article on that.
I found it unfortunately after I was done researching this episode.
Because I'm rarely expecting we have uncovered history articles anymore.
We usually don't. We usually don't, but we do have
one for this It's called what was the Christmas Troops?
(25:37):
And we have How Christmas Works, which I always like
to recommend. You can check it out by searching for
Christmas on our home page at www dot how stuff
works dot com. Thank you so much for joining us
for this Saturday classic. Since this is out of the archive,
(25:59):
if you heard an email address or a Facebook U
R L or something similar during the course of the show,
that may be obsolete now. So here is our current
contact information. We are at History Podcast at how Stuff
Works dot com, and then we're at Missed in the History.
All over social media that is our name on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest,
and Instagram. Thanks again for listening. For more on this
(26:24):
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
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