Football match & The Christmas Truce 1914

[spof]

3rd Rifle Brigade War Diary on 25th Dec: "Remained in trenches".

Martin

I think this is a time when the war diaries need to be treated with a little caution. Being mostly written by Regular officers, I suspect they were wary of detailing too much of what went on. They probably knew that senior officers would not look to kindly on reports of fraternising and that these diaries would become part of the official history of the Regiment. It was OK to report ceasefires but the idea of socialising with the enemy let alone playing football would not have reflected well on them from an outsider's perspective.

Most of the written accounts of the truce seem to come from letters home particularly from officers and many of them ended up in newspapers in January 1915. Even these can seem to contradict later recollections of veterans so it is very difficult to be 100% sure. The book "Christmas Truce" by Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton is probably the best source for a collection of these letters especially for ones that didn't make the papers.

As for the kilted Scottish battalion - possibly 6th Gordon Highlanders near Fromelles. http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=193396&p=1898348

I'm not sure if you've made it to the 2nd Scots Guards in your diary searches yet but here is their entry for the 25th:

Fine and frosty. One man wounded on the night of Christmas Eve. The German trenches opposite those occupied by the Battalion at FROMELLES were lit up with lanterns and there were sounds of singing.

We got into conversation with the Germans who were anxious to arrange an Armistice during Christmas. A Private named F MURKER went out and met a German Patrol and was given a glass of whisky and some cigars and a message was sent back saying that if we didn't fire at them, they would not fire at us. There was no firing during the night.

Early on Christmas morning a party of Germans 158 Regiment came over to our wire fence and a party from our trenches went out to meet them. They appeared to be most amicable and exchanged souvenirs, cap badges etc.

Our men gave them plum puddings which they much appreciated and further down the line we were able to make arrangements to bury the dead who had been killed on Dec 18-19 and were still lying between the trenches. The Germans brought the bodies to a halfway line and we buried them.

Detachments of British and Germans formed in line and a German and English Chaplain read some prayers alternately. The whole of this was done in great solemnity and reverence.

It was heart rending to see some of the chaps one knew so well, and who had started out in such good spirits on Dec 18th lying dead, some with terrible wounds due to the explosive action of the high velocity bullet at short range. CAPTAIN TAYLOR's body was found amongst them. This body was carried to RUE PETILLON where we buried him in our little cemetery.

I talked to deveral officers and men, one officer a middle aged man, tall, well set up and good looking told men that LT HON F HANBURY-TRACEY had been taken into their trenches most severely wounded. He died aftre two days in the local hospital and was buried in the German Cemetery at FROMELLES.

He also said that another young officer had been buried. He was fair. We think this would be LT R NUGENT who was reported missing. CAPTAIN PAYNTER gave this officer a scarf and in exchange an orderly presented him with a pair of gloves and wished to thank him for his kindness.

The other officers were rather inclined to be stand offish and of the burgers class. Another officer who could not speak English or French appeared to want to express his feelings, pointed to the dead and reverently said "LES BRAVES" which shows that the Germans do think something of the British Army.

The men I spoke to were less reticent. They appeared generally sick of fighting and wanted to get bask to their previous employments. Some lived in England. One man told me he had been seven years in England and was married last March. Another said he had a girl who lived in Suffolk and said it had been impossible to communicate with her through Germany since war began.

The general opinion of the war was as follows{ France is on her last legs and will soon have to give up, Russia has had a tremendous defeat in Poland and will soon be ready to make terms of peace. England is the nut which still has to be cracked but with France and Russia out of the way, she, Germany, would be too powerful. The war they thought might be over by the end of January. This shows what lies are circulated amongst the German troops and the hatred which exists between Germany and England.

Discipline in the German Army is of the most rigid character; the men seemed to hate their officers but nevertheless are afraid of them. A photo was taken by LT SWINTON of a group of Germans and English. Both sides have played the game and I know that this Regiment has learned to trust an Englishman's word.

They appeared to be a smart looking lot of men, possibly only the best were allowed to come out of the trenches. As far as I could see the officers don't wear any distinguishing badge of rank.

They were happy to report intermingling of the troops but hid it behind the chance to bury their fallen comrades and avoids any detail of a lot of what happened.

By the way, Pte Murker was later reported missing on the 27th and the photo taken by Lt Swinton appears in the book I mentioned above.

[John_Hartley]

Martin

From the comments, I presume you have the diaries for the Bedfords, Dorsets & Norfolks? Related to my upcoming Cheshires research, I'd appreciate any details the diaries have about actual deployment along the line on Xmas Day. A PM will be fine, rather than clog the thread up.

TIA

John

[spof]

PS

"photo taken by Lt Swinton appears in the book I mentioned above." the photo is captioned 2nd Scots Guards with Westphalians and Jagers"

Fritz,

There is a list of British and German units who took part in the truce on LLT

Glen

[fritz]

Fritz,

There is a list of British and German units who took part in the truce on LLT

Glen

Thanks again, Glen.

But I fear this list is not completely. My Great-uncles Jägerbataillon 10 is not mentioned.

Fritz

[Jack Sheldon]

Apparently a book of letters was published in Hamburg after the war. The title was Die 500 besten Briefe von Englaendern [The Best 500 British Letters] I know no more than that, except that it allegedly contains a letter by Captain Sir Edward H W Hulse Scots Guards to his mother describing a ceasefire in much the same terms as Niemann. The Scots Guards were not kilted, so it cannot have been them interacting with IR 133. I can also find no trace of this book, but perhaps somebody has access to the Hulse letter, possibly in a publication in English?

Jack

[spof]

The Hulse letter is extensively quoted in the Brown/Seaton book. The authors cite:

Letters (privately printed) 1916

The Scots Guards in the Great War 1914-1918. F Lorraine Petre and W Ewart

Vain Glory Guy Chapman

The Great War...I Was There Part 7

Or there may be something in these IWM collections http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/publication/45189 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030000136

[Jack Sheldon]

I should have done some more work before I posted. I tapped in Hulse's full name and regiment into Google and out emerged a complete version of all his very lengthy and detailed letters written before his death at Neuve Chapelle. His of 28 Dec 14 is most interesting covering, as it does, fraternisation with IR 158 'and some Jaegers'. No mention of football, however, but well worth a read.

Jack

[Guest]

Martin

From the comments, I presume you have the diaries for the Bedfords, Dorsets & Norfolks? Related to my upcoming Cheshires research, I'd appreciate any details the diaries have about actual deployment along the line on Xmas Day. A PM will be fine, rather than clog the thread up.

TIA

John

Yes... I have transcribed every British Infantry diary for the BEF* 1914 - over 1 million words so there is rather a large database that is searchable ...the Bedfords, Norfolks Cheshires and Dorsets diary entries for 25th Dec are all on a previous post on this thread.

If you PM me with exactly what you need. MG

* Every infantry battalion in 1st Guards Div, 2nd Div, 3rd Div 4th (Guards) Div 5th Div, 6th Div , 7th Div and 8th Div - 98 diaries plus 15 TF battalions that served at the front in 1914. Plus the 25 Brigade diaries plus 9 personal diaries contain within these, so 147 diaries in total so far...and counting. ...... The only exceptions are five TF units (Army troops) and the British Battalions with the Indian Army Corps a these have not yet been digitised/released.

[Guest]

Martin

I think this is a time when the war diaries need to be treated with a little caution. Being mostly written by Regular officers, I suspect they were wary of detailing too much of what went on. They probably knew that senior officers would not look to kindly on reports of fraternising and that these diaries would become part of the official history of the Regiment. It was OK to report ceasefires but the idea of socialising with the enemy let alone playing football would not have reflected well on them from an outsider's perspective.

Most of the written accounts of the truce seem to come from letters home particularly from officers and many of them ended up in newspapers in January 1915. Even these can seem to contradict later recollections of veterans so it is very difficult to be 100% sure. The book "Christmas Truce" by Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton is probably the best source for a collection of these letters especially for ones that didn't make the papers.

As for the kilted Scottish battalion - possibly 6th Gordon Highlanders near Fromelles. http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=193396&p=1898348

I'm not sure if you've made it to the 2nd Scots Guards in your diary searches yet but here is their entry for the 25th:

Fine and frosty. One man wounded on the night of Christmas Eve. The German trenches opposite those occupied by the Battalion at FROMELLES were lit up with lanterns and there were sounds of singing.

We got into conversation with the Germans who were anxious to arrange an Armistice during Christmas. A Private named F MURKER went out and met a German Patrol and was given a glass of whisky and some cigars and a message was sent back saying that if we didn't fire at them, they would not fire at us. There was no firing during the night.

Early on Christmas morning a party of Germans 158 Regiment came over to our wire fence and a party from our trenches went out to meet them. They appeared to be most amicable and exchanged souvenirs, cap badges etc.

Our men gave them plum puddings which they much appreciated and further down the line we were able to make arrangements to bury the dead who had been killed on Dec 18-19 and were still lying between the trenches. The Germans brought the bodies to a halfway line and we buried them.

Detachments of British and Germans formed in line and a German and English Chaplain read some prayers alternately. The whole of this was done in great solemnity and reverence.

It was heart rending to see some of the chaps one knew so well, and who had started out in such good spirits on Dec 18th lying dead, some with terrible wounds due to the explosive action of the high velocity bullet at short range. CAPTAIN TAYLOR's body was found amongst them. This body was carried to RUE PETILLON where we buried him in our little cemetery.

I talked to deveral officers and men, one officer a middle aged man, tall, well set up and good looking told men that LT HON F HANBURY-TRACEY had been taken into their trenches most severely wounded. He died aftre two days in the local hospital and was buried in the German Cemetery at FROMELLES.

He also said that another young officer had been buried. He was fair. We think this would be LT R NUGENT who was reported missing. CAPTAIN PAYNTER gave this officer a scarf and in exchange an orderly presented him with a pair of gloves and wished to thank him for his kindness.

The other officers were rather inclined to be stand offish and of the burgers class. Another officer who could not speak English or French appeared to want to express his feelings, pointed to the dead and reverently said "LES BRAVES" which shows that the Germans do think something of the British Army.

The men I spoke to were less reticent. They appeared generally sick of fighting and wanted to get bask to their previous employments. Some lived in England. One man told me he had been seven years in England and was married last March. Another said he had a girl who lived in Suffolk and said it had been impossible to communicate with her through Germany since war began.

The general opinion of the war was as follows{ France is on her last legs and will soon have to give up, Russia has had a tremendous defeat in Poland and will soon be ready to make terms of peace. England is the nut which still has to be cracked but with France and Russia out of the way, she, Germany, would be too powerful. The war they thought might be over by the end of January. This shows what lies are circulated amongst the German troops and the hatred which exists between Germany and England.

Discipline in the German Army is of the most rigid character; the men seemed to hate their officers but nevertheless are afraid of them. A photo was taken by LT SWINTON of a group of Germans and English. Both sides have played the game and I know that this Regiment has learned to trust an Englishman's word.

They appeared to be a smart looking lot of men, possibly only the best were allowed to come out of the trenches. As far as I could see the officers don't wear any distinguishing badge of rank.

They were happy to report intermingling of the troops but hid it behind the chance to bury their fallen comrades and avoids any detail of a lot of what happened.

By the way, Pte Murker was later reported missing on the 27th and the photo taken by Lt Swinton appears in the book I mentioned above.

Glen - I am familiar with this diary. The 2nd Bn Border Regt diary (same Brigade) mentions an agreed truce:

25th Dec 1914. SAILLY. 2 Lt A V H WOOD and 130 other ranks joined the Battalion. Capt S H WORRALL took over command of the Battalion from Capt N F JENKINS who proceeded to ENGLAND. In the morning, the enemy in front of A and B Coy's trenches signalled for an Officer. One went over to their trenches and an armistice was agreed upon until 4:00 pm for the purpose of burying the dead lying between the trenches from the night of 18th Dec. There was no firing on either side on this day and the bodies were buried near the trenches.

The 1st Bn Grenadier Guards diary (one of the other units) has a one liner merely mentioning the arrival of a draft and the 2nd Bn Gordon Highlanders (the other unit in the same Bde) record:

25th Dec. Not a shot fired by either side. By agreement with the Germans the dead of both sides between the trenches were collected and buried side by side. Greetings were exchanged between all units of the Brigade.

My point (again) would be that while there is very detailed evidence of agreed and even pre-arranged truces right across the line, and there are some very detailed accounts of what happened - exchanging cigarettes, cigars, alcohol, Christmas trees on display, singing, and burying the dead etc, none of the unit diarists who go into this detail mention a football match. As your example above shows - written on Army Form C 2118, the official War Diary form - there was no reticence about recording these extraordinary events, yet in nearly 150 diaries we see no mention of a football match aside from the KOSB diary which includes the skepical caveat that it was 'hearsay'. I would have to disagree that they were reluctant to record what happened, simply because so many of them did record what happened in some fine detail. As you know the war diaries sometimes include private diary accounts too, so there is rather a large body of evidence.

I have transcribed enough material over the years to understand the weaknesses of so called first-hand accounts - including the unit diaries. Many of these diaries were not recorded on the dates they allude to and were written days and sometimes weeks after the events. This is why it is important not to base one's views in single shards of evidence in my view. By comparing diaries of co-located units and private diaries of men who were in the same location it provides an much more reliable and robust body of evidence. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen conflicting accounts of the same events. My point, if it is not already clear is that it seems to me so unlikely that this extraordinary football match was not recorded in a single British unit diary (to my knowledge).

Lastly the 1/6th Bn Gordon Highlanders War Dairy for 25th Dec 1914:

"Christmas Day"

MG

P.S. I note that one of the accounts is based on a 1983 interview. It is fairly well established axiom in the legal world that memory and recall are particularly unreliable, especially over long periods of time. The cutting edge of psychology has done dozens of studies that provide solid evidence of just how unreliable memories and recall are, particularly over time and particularly with people under stress. Very unreliable. I don't doubt that the person telling the story believed it happened, but I would really want to see other corroborating evidence rather than rely on the testimony of someone recalling events some 69 years later. The press was as prone to exaggeration and inaccuracy in 1914-15 as it is today, so I would be very cautious on both sources. People wrote about Angels and Canadians being nailed to crosses, and female snipers and a host of other things and Russians stamping the snow off their boots in England. It doesn't necessarily mean these things happened. I remain skeptical and would dearly like to see some more robust evidence. MG

[spof]

I agree with your aims Martin but I don't have time right now to add any more.

FWIW, here is a list of German units listed in the index of the book

Fifth Army
I Corps
V Corps
VII Corps
XIX Corps

63rd Frankfurt Field Artillery

15th (2nd Westphalian) Regiment
16th (3rd Westphalian) Regiment
16th Saxon Regiment
16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment
17th Bavarian Reserve Regiment
53rd Reserve Pioneer Corps
73rd Hannoverian Regiment
95th Bavarian Infantry Regiment
104th Saxon Regiment
107th Saxon Regiment
108th Saxon Regiment
120th Wurttemberger Regiment
124th Wurttemberger Regiment
130th Wurttemberger Regiment
132nd Saxon Regiment
133rd Saxon Regiment
134th Saxon Regiment
139th (Royal Saxon) Regimetn

[Guest]

The following Scottish unit diaries don't mention any football with the Germans. Note the 27th Div had only just landed in Havre on 20th Dec. The 'open' possibilities are the

1/4th Seaforth Highlanders (not digitised yet)

2nd Bn Black Watch (one of two Scottish battalions with the Indian Army Corps (ditto))

and the missing diary of the 1st Bn Gordon Highlanders:

No evidence in the following:

1st Bn Scots Guards

2nd Bn Scots Guards - mentions 158 IR

1st Bn Royal Scots - 27th Div landed 20th Dec.

2nd Bn Royal Scots - in billets

1st Bn Royal Scots Fus

2nd Bn Royal Scots Fus - in billets

1st Bn KOSB - not in theatre- landed in UK on 28th Dec 14.

2nd Bn KOSB - only report and mentions 'hearsay'

1st Bn Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)

2nd Bn Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)

1st Bn Black Watch

2nd Bn HLI

1st Bn Seaforth Highlanders

1st Bn Seaforth Highlanders

1st Bn Gordon Highlander -diary for late Dec 1914 missing

2nd Bn Gordon Highlanders

1st Bn Cameron Highlanders

2nd Bn Cameron Highlanders - 27th Div landed 20th Dec.

1st Bn A&SH - 27th Div landed 20th Dec.

2nd Bn A&SH - mentions 133 IR and 134 IR

TF:

1/8th Bn Royal Scots TF

1/5th Bn Black Watch

1/9th Bn HLI

1/6th Bn Gordon Highlanders

1/14th Bn London Regt (London Scottish)

1/10th Bn King's Liverpool Regt (Liverpool Scottish)

The only diary I don't have is the 1/4th Seaforth Highlanders - not yet digitised.

These are not yet available online:

2nd Bn Black Watch - Indian Army Corps

1st Bn HLI - Indian Army Corps. This unit not in France until Jan.

[Ken S.]

No mention of Christmas in the history of Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 120

Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 121

Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 124

[Jack Sheldon]

.. But there is in those of IRs 15 (detailed) and 55 (13th Inf Div). The main feature of all these ceasefires where they occurred appears to have been the burial of corpses which were stranded in No Man's Land. Perhaps, instead of football, we should be encouraging an international grave digging contest.

Jack

[Guest]

Why is the Diary for the 1st Gordon Highlanders missing? The entry for 25/12/1914

1st Battalion The Gordon Highlanders

25/12/1914 In Billets in Westoutre-Christmas day. Messages of Christmas greetings to the Regiment were received from Lord Kitchener. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien Commanding 2nd Army Corps & Brigadier-General Boves? Commanding 8th Infantry Brigade, also from the 2nd Royal Scots, the 4th Middlesex Regiment & 2nd Suffolk Regiment.

Mike

Edit War Diary 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders August 1914-October 1915

[Guest]

Why is the Diary for the 1st Gordon Highlanders missing? The entry for 25/12/1914

1st Battalion The Gordon Highlanders

25/12/1914 In Billets in Westoutre-Christmas day. Messages of Christmas greetings to the Regiment were received from Lord Kitchener. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien Commanding 2nd Army Corps & Brigadier-General Boves? Commanding 8th Infantry Brigade, also from the 2nd Royal Scots, the 4th Middlesex Regiment & 2nd Suffolk Regiment.

Mike

Edit War Diary 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders August 1914-October 1915

How strange. I have WO 95/1421/1 and it stops on 21st Dec and starts again on 4th Jan. - pages 23 and 24 of the diary. MG

[Crunchy]

I have transcribed enough material over the years to understand the weaknesses of so called first-hand accounts - including the unit diaries. Many of these diaries were not recorded on the dates they allude to and were written days and sometimes weeks after the events. This is why it is important not to base one's views in single shards of evidence in my view. By comparing diaries of co-located units and private diaries of men who were in the same location it provides an much more reliable and robust body of evidence. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen conflicting accounts of the same events.

Martin.

Well said, and an extremely pertinent point. Too often we see people quoting a first hand account, as if it is irrefutable evidence of the truth. Just because 'a first hand account' said a certain thing happened, doesn't mean to say it actually diid. One sees this in the Turkish MG at Gallipoli thread, without any consideration of the other evidence presented. My own experience on active service is that rumours, misquotes, hearsay and mistakes are reported as fact, and then we learn that all was not as it was presented to be. Dare I say it, war diaries and reports often seek to put the best gloss on failures, and they are not shy of protecting reputations, and overemphasising an enemy's resistance to explain away failure, or poor decisions. We are all human. Hence, corroborating a source with other evidence is essential.

Regards

Chris

[Guest]

Too often we see people quoting a first hand account, as if it is irrefutable evidence of the truth. Just because 'a first hand account' said a certain thing happened, doesn't mean to say it actually diid. One sees this in the Turkish MG at Gallipoli thread, without any consideration of the other evidence presented. My own experience on active service is that rumours, misquotes, hearsay and mistakes are reported as fact, and then we learn that that all was not as it was presented to be. Dare I say it, war diaries and reports often seek to put the best gloss on failures, and they are not shy of protecting reputations, and overemphasising an enemy's resistance to explain away failure, or poor decisions. We are all human. Hence, corroborating a source with other evidence is essential.

Regards

Chris

To expand on this: the 1/6th Cheshires TF are alleged to have taken part in a football match yet every other diary of the regular units that the 1/6th Cheshire were embedded with fails to mention this extraordinary event. I find that a very challenging factor, particularly as the inexperienced TF were effectively understudies for the hardened Regulars and would in my view be unlikely to take the lead in fraternising with the enemy after just a week in the trenches. Possible but improbable. If the theory about a football game is to be substantiated on the British side the evidence presented so far is quite thin on the ground.

For those not familiar with the Turkish MG thread, there are dozens of conflicting accounts and a central thematic that the British and ANZACs believed there were machine guns on the landing beaches while the Turkish sources absolutely deny this. Crunchy has, through some painstaking research that included comparing and cross-referencing the details of multiple accounts shown that at least one of the first hand accounts is a complete fabrication. He has also exposed some glaring inconsistencies between accounts. As stand-alone narratives they all appear credible. It is only when they are compared the inherent inconsistencies are exposed. These things happened. It is human nature. In our zeal to prove* this story one might consider the possibility that some of the football stories might be at worst be fabrications of the mind or at best the product of confabulation and inter-mingled stories **.

MG

* I use 'prove' in the sense of 'testing'.

** Psychologists generally agree that are three processes involved in the science of the memory:

1. Encoding - the act of creating the memory

2. Storage - creation of a permanent record

3. Retrieval - recall or recollection

Research into the mind and memory is an extremely difficult subject. There are studies supporting the theory that people who have had extreme experiences, the more emotionally charged the experience, the better it is remembered. This is what psychologists call the 'memory enhancement effect'. Men having experienced the horrors of warfare might have a greater tendency to remember the event well and have accurate recollections given the memory enhancement effect. However It seems there are other factors that inhibit memory creation and memory recall.

It is well established that memories tend to degrade with the passing of time - Transience - which occurs in the storage phase. Studies indicate that excessive or prolonged periods of stress may impair memory storage. This part is interesting as it provides some tangible evidence that stress in warfare can impair memories. So we have a potential conflict between the memory enhancement effect from extreme experiences and the impairment of memory storage from excessive and prolonged periods of stress which would degrade the initial enhanced memory.

[neverforget]

Martin.

I will briefly interrupt this thread, just to say that massive respect is due to you for the work that you have put into this thread, which has turned out to be absolutely fascinating.

Similar credit to you for the diaries thread too.

It would seem that the search for conclusive evidence that the match actually occurred, has become something of a Holy Grail. Who would have thought it.

[Guest]

The attached newspaper article is the sort of thing that could potentially be mis-quoted and merge two separate events into one.

Edit. The second newspaper article quotes an anonymous soldier in the Queen's Westminster Rifles. On Christmas day this TF unit was attached to 17th Inf Bde, rotating with the 1st Bn Royal Fusiliers in Chapel d'Armentiers. The QWR diary mentions the truce "No War today" and mentions the 107 IR opposite who they fraternised with. This story is very similar to the Rifle Brigade story where a football match was discussed but did not take place.

2nd Bn Leinster Regt in the same Bde mention fraternising with the 139 Saxon Regt.

[Guest]

Apparently it happened according to the IWM; This is cut from the BBC news story about the commemorative football match

Late on Christmas Eve 1914, men of the British Expeditionary Force heard the Germans singing carols and patriotic songs and saw lanterns and small fir trees along their trenches.Messages began to be shouted between the trenches. The following day, British and German soldiers met in No Man's Land and exchanged gifts, took photographs and some played football. They also buried casualties and repaired trenches and dugouts.Some officers viewed the truce as a chance to improve living conditions in the trenches, while others worried that such unwarlike behaviour would undermine fighting spirit.The high commands on both sides took measures to ensure such fraternisation would not happen again, and the 1914 Christmas Truce remained a unique event on the Western Front.

Source: Imperial War Museum

[deacs]

A Paper clipping from the "West Cumberland Times" from January 6th 1915.

[Tom A McCluskey]

Hi Martin,

Movements of the 2^nd Black Watch from the 17^th to 27^th of December:

17^th, Battalion moved to ANNEZIN;

18^th, ESSARS;

19^th, LE TOURET in Brigade Reserve.

21^st, Battalion moved to RUE DE L'EPINETTE. Two Coys to join Seaforths* in line. Major Wauchope and Lt. Maitland wounded (died 24th).

23^rd, Two Coys with Seaforths re-join the Battalion.

24^th, Battalion moved to LE TOURET;

25^th, PARADIS;

26^th, ECQUEDECQUES;

27^th, AMETTES, in rest.

From Le Touret**, the Battalion begin a westward movement to rest barracks in Amettes. Paradis is away from the front (sometimes called Le Paradis – made infamous by the ‘Le Paradis Massacre’, a war crime committed by the SS Division Totenkopf in 1940). Ecquedecques is west of Lillers, and Amettes is further away towards the south-west.

The source document is the Battalion’s War Diary, and it is ‘lightweight’ on information. That said, if the movements reported are accurate, I would hazard that the 2^nd Black Watch are not the kilted battalion you are looking for.

*1^st Battalion of the Dehra Dun Brigade.

**Again, it is worth bearing in mind Le Touret was being used as a Brigade Reserve position.

I hope this is of use.

Tom McC

[SteveGreen]

The Premier League, Football League, the Football Association and the British Council have come together to promote a schools project based on the Christmas 1914 truce and the alleged football matches. At least the introduction recognises both the uncertainty whether any games took place and the opposition to fraternisation by the military high command.

The education pack for schools is here (site loads slowly) http://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/files/WWI-Football%20Remembers-Pack-Activities.pdf

It has a very interesting way of introducing language learning through comments made by soldiers on both sides.

[Fattyowls]

The Premier League, Football League, the Football Association and the British Council have come together to promote a schools project based on the Christmas 1914 truce and the alleged football matches. At least the introduction recognises both the uncertainty whether any games took place and the opposition to fraternisation by the military high command.

The education pack for schools is here (site loads slowly) http://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/files/WWI-Football%20Remembers-Pack-Activities.pdf

It has a very interesting way of introducing language learning through comments made by soldiers on both sides.

Steve, that's really interesting; thanks for posting. The myth about a football match taking place where the Khaki Chums cross is situated is perpetuated I noticed, but I was pleased to see the legendary Leigh Richmond Roose get a mention. There were at least five footballs by the cross when I passed it last week.

Pete.

[Anneca]

Not sure if these excerpts from Brown and Seaton's book have already been quoted in this thread - apologies if they have.

"A New Year's Day letter in the Manchester Guardian from a British officer referred to a football match with a bully-beef tin, and the History of the Lancashire Fusiliers records that 'A' Company played a football match against the enemy with an old tin for a ball, they won 3-2."

"There are a sufficient number of references to games which allegedly took place for it to be difficult to believe that this is all smoke without fire; and, interestingly enough, most of the likely contenders happened on Christmas Day itself. Lieutenant Charles Brewer of ₂/Bedfordshires wrote in a contemporary letter: 'Higher up in the line - you would scarcely believe it - they are playing a football match'. In a brief contemporary diary, Gunner CLB Burrows of 104 Battery, 22nd Brigade noted: 'Our infantry played a football match with them [the Saxons opposite] and exchanged cigarettes etc. in No Man's land.' It might be argued that these two were hearsay reports, but in his account, the German Hugo Klemm wrote: 'Everywhere you looked the occupants from the trenches stood around talking to each other and even playing football'. Similarly Lieutenant Johannes Niemann, in the same regiment, implied first-hand experience in his account: 'Suddenly a Tommy came with a football, kicking already and making fun, and then began a football match. We marked the goals with our caps. Teams were quickly established for a match on the frozen mud, and the Fritzes beat the Tommies 3-2.' As it happens, this score coincides precisely with that to be found in one of the first references to a football game in contemporary newspapers - in a Christmas Day letter by an anonymous major of the RAMC quoted in the Times on New Year's Day: 'The ......Regiment actually had a football match with the Saxons, who beat them 3-2.' "

"Given all the circumstances - the uneven shell-pocked ground (which had at least been hardened by the recent frost), the crowds of men milling about, the difficulties of the language - if, given all this, a football had suddenly appeared in No Man's Land, arguably the most likely outcome would not be a formal game with eleven men neatly attacking opposing goals, but a disorganised, untidy affair with everybody joining in as much or as little as they wanted to - one diversion among the others rather than a major event."

I reckon if there were "football matches" that Christmas day, I would go with the last quote in that they would not have been like matches we know today, but totally disorganised and for want of a better name for kicking balls around, they called them "football matches".

Anne