Christmas in the Trenches (18 page)

20–28 November 1918:
During this month the issue of warmer clothing was completed. Fur hats, leather jerkins, white canvas (Shackleton) boots, thick long stockings, index finger gloves, heavy mitts and heavy muffler were issued to all ranks. (
War Diary 2/7th Durham Light Infantry
)

At Omsk, in Siberia, temperatures by mid-December were down to 60°F of frost at midday (-28°C) and 79°F of frost at night (-47°C):

20 December 1918:
Notwithstanding fullest preventative measures taken, several men suffering from frostbite. Anxiously awaiting further supplies of fur hats, mitts and boots, repeatedly asked for.
(War Diary 25th Middlesex)

Under such conditions, preparations to celebrate Christmas became a key way to deflect the troops’ minds from their current situation. In Siberia the war diary of the 25th Middlesex recalls difficulties in obtaining funds for regimental purposes and that the usual commodities associated with Christmas were not to be found, despite the best efforts of the British consul. But for the 2/7th DLI, with the North Russian Expeditionary Force, things were rather easier:

25 December 1918:
At 12.45 a special dinner was provided for the Other Ranks by the Battalion. Five Roubles per man was allowed from the COs fund and five Roubles per man was also allowed by the War Office from NACB profits. In the evening at 19.00 a whist drive and sing song was arranged and later one parcel per other rank was provided from comforts sent by Queen Alexandra’s Field Force Fund and other comforts held by the RASC . . .

The weather was not nearly so cold as had been anticipated. Some snow fell almost daily but on the level ground it was never over 2 ft deep. 26 pairs of skis were drawn by the Battalion. (
War Diary 2/7th DLI
)

At the same time as the DLI were engaged in their festivities a section of the 421st Battery, RFA, was on the move across the frozen landscape:

We were at Bakharitza opposite Archangel town when . . . two days before Christmas orders suddenly arrived for another section (2 gun) to proceed to the front. The centre section consisting of Maj Body, Lieut Hart and 58 other ranks entrained for Obozerskaya with guns, stores and ponies to form the 16th Brigade Canadian Field Artillery at Seletskoe 70 versts from Obozerskaya a three day march (march is just a term here). There was difficulty in loading beside the railway so a late start was for Volchenitya. There were difficulties and Volchenitya was reached late at night and was 11 o’clock before all were in. I wish I could show you the scene a forest clearing of about 2 acres, a great fire burning on the frozen riverbank and one or two of us dipping out water for the ponies. Volchenitya is described as three wooden huts. Maj Body says the men who took part in that march will not forget it when Christmas comes round they’ll remember Christmas as spent in the snow-clad forest on the Seletskoe Obozerskaya trail. The forest dark and silent in the moonlight and all bustle and movement within, ponies and sledges constantly coming and going. There in one small clearing we were many nationalities Frenchmen (21st Colonial Infantry) who garrisoned the port, American hospital orderlies, British and Russian soldiers, men and women and children (drosky drivers) who all packed in together and thanking God for the roof overhead and fire, so Christmas 1918 was spent by Centre Section 421 Battery R.F.A. (
Gnr H.F. Goodright
)

In the Caucasus, weather conditions were more forgiving, although this had a drawback as local Bolsheviks could be more active, as occurred in Baku:

December 24 1918:
Everyone confined to barracks as we are having a bit of trouble with the Bolsheviks, they have cut off our electric supply and threatened to attack our barracks, all guards are doubled and every patient in hospital fit to use a rifle served out with one. Things looking a bit ugly.

December 25 1918:
Well Xmas Day, spending mine on guard, could be doing a lot worse I suppose.

December 26 1918:
Sent some of our R.E.s to the power station under armoured car protection to see if they can put the electric plant in working order again.

December 27 1918:
Electric on again, all troops standing by in case of trouble.

December 28 1918:
Trouble with the people ended today so were allowed out again. (
Sgt William Dyer, 40th Field Ambulance, RAMC
)

At Batoum on the Black Sea, numbers of British troops were still arriving over the Christmas period. So, like the 107th Field Company in the Dobrudja, they could expect little but hard work until settled into billets:

We anchored 2 days before Christmas 1918. Everyone was anticipating to spend the Festival on board, but it was too good to be true . . . Sure enough we pulled alongside at Batoum on Xmas Eve and we knew what was going to happen. So we started unloading the horses first and the drivers took them away near an aerodrome. We gunners started unloading the guns, wagons, forage etc. We were handicapped as the weather was mucking. It was an all night job as we had brought over 90 days forage and iron rations and unfortunately rum. The unloading of both vessels took us up to Christmas Day at 6pm. Many gunners down the hole of the ship were drunk, having opened a case of rum. On being dismissed, at least before, the orderly bombardier warned me for night picquet with two others. So I thought just as well to finish off a Grand Christmas. (
Gnr Edmund Lenfestey, D Howitzer Battery, 27th Division, RFA
)

At Sevastopol, where men of the 3rd Royal Marine Light Infantry arrived on 9 December, all was quiet. The troops were quickly accommodated in the former Imperial Russian Naval Barracks and then had a chance to explore the city and sites relating to the Crimean War, although Christmas Day itself left much to be desired:

Dec 21st.
Today I visited the Panorama of the Crimea War, it is one of the most wonderful pictures I ever saw everything is so real and life-like, in the grounds the Russians have some magnificent monuments erected in memory of those who fell.

Dec 25th.
Another very happy Xmas day, we had a splendid spread of Bully and biscuits, my thoughts are very much at home.

Dec 27th.
Station and magazine guards relieved by the French, they have now taken over command here and proclaimed Martial Law, anyone found loitering about after 9pm will be shot. This evening 2 of our Marines deserted taking with them their rifles and ammunition it is thought they have gone over to the Bolsheviks.

Dec 30th.
Paraded 7.30am ready for marching off. Marched out of Naval Barracks Sebastopol 7.45 was detailed to proceed to Pier with my platoon to load lighters with provisions etc embarked on the ex-Bulgarian SS Dobruja 2pm. Left Sebastopol 2.30. (
Sgt Howard Couldrake, 3rd Royal Marine Light Infantry
)

Couldrake’s unit returned to Mudros from where he embarked for England on 7 January 1919. Apart from troops slowly returning to Britain for demobilisation other soldiers could be found in the many military hospitals and army camps that had sprung up during the war through which thousands of men passed during their military service. In Burden Military Hospital, Weymouth, was found Pte Albert Bullock (8th Royal Warwicks) who had been wounded in the hip on 6 October 1918 during the battle to break the Hindenburg Line:

We were all told to put up a stocking on Christmas Eve but the Sister told me I should want a bedsock so Sweet put one up for me and it was full in the morning. I don’t remember what I did have but I remember a box of 100 ‘Greys’ as I thought it was Dr Bliss till Sweet told me they were from Nurse Beanell. We had a jolly good day I know and Jim came in at 2 p.m. and had dinner and tea with me and had supper with the staff and a bed. I couldn’t thank Nurse Beanell as she sprained a ligament in her leg that night putting up some decorations and she was laid up for two months.

I was going well in the evening with a cigar when Devereaux came round. He was pleased to see me enjoying myself but said I wasn’t to make myself sick with the cigar.

At the Machine Gun Corps Training Camp at Grantham there was rather more ‘festive spirit’ flowing as the staff welcomed in 1919:

New Year’s Eve found the Sergeants’ Mess entertaining the officers; the officers providing the wine with which we toasted the New Year. The Sergeant Major went round filling as assortment of glasses and crockery, and failed to notice he missed the glass held by one Sergeant Nobby Clarke – a Scot. Somehow the officers heard of the omission next day and invited Nobby round to their mess. From his condition and amiability afterwards we gathered that our officers had done him proud. (
QMS Frederick Hunt, MGC
)

Postscript

When Christmas 1919 came around British and Dominion armed forces no longer constituted their ‘nations in khaki’ as they had been during the war. Churchill’s revised demobilisation scheme had done its job, sending home long-serving volunteers. By November 1919, the British Army was reduced from 3.8 million men serving at the time of the armistice to 900,000. Although there were still occupation forces in Germany, the Tyrol and Turkey, as well as intervention forces in Russia, military forces of the British Empire were returning to something approaching their pre-1914 levels and roles. Those who had joined for ‘the duration’ were mostly to enjoy that family Christmas they had longed for during the years of conflict.

Christmas was then, and remains today, the most universal festival celebrated by the British. It is a time to be with one’s family or, if this is not possible, a time when families and loved one are uppermost in one’s thoughts. For soldiers, thrown into the largest and most destructive war fought up to that time, focus on the family through the sending and receipt of letters, cards and gifts, helped take their minds away from the reality of daily life in the front line, if only for a short time. Besides their immediate families, soldiers received evidence that they were not forgotten and that their service was valued by their local communities and individuals across the Empire, who sent Christmas gifts to serving soldiers through the many comfort committees or servicemen’s support organisations that sprang up during the war.

For the Army too, the communal nature of Christmas celebrations lent themselves to unit-wide festivities. These were very important morale-boosting exercises with the men celebrating within their ‘military family’. Regimental and Territorial Force associations supported such activities and officers and NCOs went out of their way to provide the best food, drink and entertainment they could muster. The importance of such celebrations is indicated by the festivities being spread over the weeks surrounding 25 December. Whenever a unit was out of the front line it would find time to organise some sort of party. Indeed, wherever troops found themselves: in the muddy trenches of France and Flanders, in the deserts of the Middle East, among the ravines of Gallipoli or Macedonia, the mountains of Italy or the African bush, Christmas celebrations included traditional elements. A roast meal, including fowl if possible, presents, decorations, cards, concerts, general entertainments and sports were all on the checklist for a wartime Christmas. All were elements common to a peacetime celebration and as such brought some measure of familiarity and normality to men’s lives as well as bringing members of a unit closer together.

Celebrations also crossed boundaries of nationality, in the European theatres of war at least, leading to British soldiers sharing festivities with Allied soldiers and civilians and on occasions even with the enemy. However, as this book has shown, instances of Christmas fraternisation with the enemy, from the large-scale truce of 1914 to the simple slackening of the intensity of warfare, did not undermine the British soldier’s belief that the war had to be carried through to victory. This steadfastness remained although the troops were away from their homes and loved ones, often living in extremely adverse conditions, with the threat of death daily upon them. To sum up the attitude of the British Tommy one can do no better than to leave it to one of their own number:

I must write these special few lines to wish you all the Seasons Greetings, & every happiness & prosperity in the coming year. Am very sorry I cannot be with you all at this eventful season, such as never been the case before, for anyone of us to be away – but cheer-oh – drink & be merry, I shall be with you in spirit & thought.

Don’t worry
about me – I know where I should like to be, &
where I’m most comfortable
, but I also know where I’m most wanted, so out here with the lads I shall be enjoying myself likewise & thinking of the dear folk at home.
¹
(
Pte Arthur Burke, 20th Manchesters
)

Notes

I
NTRODUCTION

1.
Brown, M. and Seaton, S.,
Christmas Truce
–
The Western Front 1914
.

2.
For a detailed discussion of this see Ashworth, T.,
Trench Warfare 1914–1918
–
the Live and Let Live System
(Pan Books, 2000).

T
HE
F
IRST
C
HRISTMAS
: 1914

1.
Letter to parents, dated 23 December 1914.

2.
Letter to a Miss Francis, dated 13 December 1914.

3.
Letter to his mother, dated 12 December 1914.

4.
Figures from IWM website
www.iwm.org.uk
(page covering the whole story of Princess Mary’s gift to the troops, Christmas 1914).

5.
NA, WO 95/1441, War Diary, 4th Division Gen Staff, October– December 1914.

6.
Letter to ‘E G’, dated 29 December 1914.

7.
Letter to his parents, dated 27 December 1914.

8.
Letter to his parents, dated 26 December 1914.

9.
IWM Department of Documents, Ms letters of 2/Lt A.D. Chater, 2nd Gordon Highlanders.

10.
NA, WO 95/154, War Diary, 1st Army Gen Staff, December 1914– March 1915 and WO 95/1627, War Diary, Gen Staff, 7th Division, October 1914–January 1915.