For the soldiers of the First World War, it was the first winter in the horror of the trenches. But the Christmas spirit nevertheless overcomes the mud and blood when, on December 25, 1914, a series of ceasefires occurred spontaneously and locally all along the Western Front. In some regions, the truce would even have extended until the New Year.
These episodes remain difficult to trace and authenticate. Despite everything, several testimonies from British soldiers, collected by the BBC in the 1960s, allow us to reconstruct fragments of this history.
Christmas carols and football matches
On Christmas Eve 1914, Graham Williams of the 5th London Rifle Brigade was on guard duty and anxiously watching the enemy trenches when suddenly lights appeared along the German trench. “I thought it was a funny thing. And then the Germans started singing “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht” (quiet night, holy night). I jumped, and all the sentries woke up the others to come and see what was happening.“, he says. The familiar voices and carols of Christmas carried through the desolation of No Man’s Land. “They finished their song, we applauded them and then we responded with “The First Noel””.
For Colonel Scott Shepherd, a junior officer who fought near the town of Armentières in northern France, it all started almost by accident. At dawn on Christmas morning, No Man’s Land was covered in thick fog. We decided to take advantage of this cover offered by time to repair the trenches which were collapsing. But as soldiers scramble to fill sandbags and restore their trenches, the fog clears at a rapid pace.amazing».«In front of us, we could suddenly see Germans doing exactly the same thing as us, in the open», raconte Scott Shepherd. «We looked at each other for a while, then one or two soldiers came towards them. They shook hands, exchanged cigarettes. The war seemed to have stopped at that moment».
Testimonies even tell of impromptu football games in No Man’s Land. Colonel Johannes Niemann, a second lieutenant, participated in one of these meetings. “An Englishman arrived with a football… That’s when a match started. In the end, the Germans won the football match 3-2».
This truce would never happen again during the First World War. The general staff, surprised by the ceasefires and the unexpected camaraderie, feared that they would erode their troops’ will to fight. On both sides, orders were given to end the “fraternization with the enemy”with threats of court martial. The war resumed its brutality, and as the horrors intensified, the bitterness between the enemy nations deepened. The following Christmas, the sounds of machine guns deliberately drowned out the Christmas carols.
Source: www.slate.fr
