Sainsbury's Christmas Advert

[Guest]

Whether it was a Saxon or a Prussian bullet that killed Cpl Smith makes no difference.

Whichever irresponsible individual it was who initiated the 'truce' on the British side in that sector still had to carry the weight of guilt for the poor man's death.

Something, I am sure, he bitterly regretted for the rest of his life.

Many of the truces were arranged simply to bury the dead, which seems to be a fairly legitimate reason for a truce during wartime. Removing decaying corpses and burying them had some military value to prevent disease. Clearly some went well beyond this.

One of the books on the truce goes into some detail of how a young British soldier broke the truce by shooting and unarmed German dead. The author/diarist lamenting about how this reflected badly on the British. There were more than a few 'white flag' incidents in 1914, which makes this episode even more extraordinary. Whoever made the first step was extremely brave.

[phil andrade]

Whether the Sainsbury's ad portrays the truth or not, and whether it is blatant commercialism or not, one fact remains:

The Christmas 'truce' was a foolhardy stunt by irresponsible soldiers who really should have known better.

It was, quite rightly, stamped on pretty quickly.

Snipers don't go on Christmas holiday and neither do the enemy's intelligence gatherers: the whole affair was a woeful security breach and the participants bordering on traitorous.

A shameful chapter, and one best forgotten.

LT. General Sir William Marshall, who at that point of the war was commanding the 1st Battalion The Sherwood Foresters in the Neuve Chapelle sector, would have been in heated agreement with your sentiments. This is what he wrote in his book MEMORIES OF FOUR FRONTS :

I have alluded to the Christmas fraternization, and before relieving the East Lancashire, on the night of Christmas Day, I cautioned all my company commanders against allowing such a thing. I told them that if the Germans came out of their trenches next morning they were to be warned that if they did not get under cover they would be fired on ; if that warning was not sufficient, a few shots were to be fired over their heads, and that if that was ineffectual, they were to be fired upon.

Next morning out came the Boches. They protested loudly on being told to get back into their trenches, and it needed some shots fired over their heads to make them finally realize that we were in earnest. I was glad that I had given such orders, because that day almost similar instructions came from Army Headquarters.

As far as the Sainsbury's advert is concerned, it has made my eight year old grand daughter interested in the Great War. She asked me why the soldiers carried on fighting afterwards. Irrespective of accuracy or otherwise, that alone makes me give it the " thumbs up".

Phil (PJA)

[ph0ebus]

I apologize if this question treads on already well-worn ground, but has anyone looked at the Unit Histories of the German units that were there to see if the football match is mentioned in their accounts? What to those histories say about what happened there that day?

-Daniel

[Steven Broomfield]

I trust Lord Gnome will forgive me for sharing this piece from the latest example of his magnificent organ.

[Guest]

Shurely shome mishtake?

[Stoppage Drill]

" a foolhardy stunt by irresponsible soldiers who really should have known better."

Well, thank goodness that had never happened before, and never since, eh ?

[Stoppage Drill]

If I can find any I will buy the chocolate. The public response to the advert has been overwhelmingly positive, I believe, with predictable whinges from the usual suspects.

Edited 4 December , 2014 by Keith Roberts
off topic line removed

[Theletterwriter]

If I can find any I will buy the chocolate. The public response to the advert has been overwhelmingly positive, I believe, with predictable whinges from the usual suspects.

Stoppage Drill

Would you care to name who the usual suspects are?

Douglas

[Willywombat]

Well, thank goodness that had never happened before, and never since, eh ?

See my subsequent post (number 419) and you'll see I've covered this point!

As regards the ad - I've no great problem with it. Sure, it's fiction, but it has been well put together and I, too, have bought the choc!

[Black Watch]

I watched it expecting to hate it, but I thought it was great. I'll be expecting a bar of chocolate in my Xmas stocking this year.

[Guest]

I think one feels instinctively that in the conditions and circumstances of the Christmas Truce, men not knowing quite what to do and mostly not speaking each other's language would resort to some sort of game.

This is part of an interesting article in the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette - Friday 15 January 1915 British Newspaper Archives

" The following remarkable description by an officer at the front of how the British and Germans ceased hostilities at his part of the line on Christmas day was published by the Daily Mail ........... "

" ............. Almost at the same time a hare burst into view and ran along between the trenches. All at once Germans came scurrying from their trenches and the British from theirs, and a marvelous thing happened. It was like a football match, the hare being the football, the grey tunicked Germans the one side, and the kilted "Jocks" the other. The game was won by the Germans, who captured the prize. But more was secured than a hare-a sudden friendship had been struck up, the truce of God had been called, and for the rest of Christmas day not a shot was fired along our section. Dotted over the sixty yards separating the trenches were scores and scores of dead soldiers, and soon spades were flung up by comrades on guard in both trenches, and by instinct each side set to dig graves for their dead......... "

Mike

[John_Hartley]

I struggle to believe that article, Mike. Doesnt seem particularly credible that men would play a game in amongst "scores and scores" of bodies. And then decide to bury them.

That said, I rarely believe articles from the Mail.

[Guest]

Aberdeen Weekly Journal - Friday 08 January 1915

Pte Edward Duncan E company 6th Battalion Gordon Highlanders tells the same story in a letter to his mother dated 28/12/1914 Click

Edit (Don't think he mentions bodies) Actually he does, and football

Will transcribe it tomorrow.

Mike

[Guest]

Well it's near enough tomorrow?

Chase After Hare with Germans

Private Edward Duncan, E Company, 6th Gordon highlanders (TF) son of Mr George Duncan, Builder, Ardlui, Inverurie, writing home to his mother on the 28th December, in the course of a long and interesting letter, says :- We spent Christmas Day in the trenches, and it was one long to be remembered for a reason that you you can hardly credit. We had a day off with the Germans, and had fun along with them in chasing a hare and giving as well as receiving souvenirs. It seemed to be a mutual truce along our part of the line. Certainly, it was not official. The first that we knew about it was a few Germans putting their heads up above the trenches, and some of the boys saying that they were out to bury their dead. A few of the enemy soon appeared clear of the trenches, and before you could say "Jack Robertson" they all came out and over the trenches without their rifles. Our boys were soon swarming out to meet them and hand shaking ensued. We were not allowed to go near their trenches, so we carried their dead half across, and they carried our dead the same distance. Soon a hare made its appearance between our trenches and all joined in the chase. Not a man could refrain from laughing at the sight as the Germans mixed with us in the scramble. Spontaneous laughter re-echoed all around, an the hare got clean away, so there was no trouble over who was to have the soup. A good few of them could speak English, and one of them was once a Sunday School teacher in Blackpool. He said that they got bulletins issued to them every day, and they were told of a great German victory in Poland, and that they were to get 160 guns, which they had captured from the Russians, up to help them. They had been waiting patiently, but no guns had come their way so they are now fearing it was a bulletin of falsehoods. They are all fed-up, and wishing it was over. Some of them were exceedingly smart looking chaps, and gave our boys cigs and chocolate, as well as drinks of gin. They said that if we did not fire they would not, and the agreement was carried out. The day after Christmas they cried across if we would play them at a game of football but as no football was forthcoming there was no match. The first night we were in the trenches they were crying across to us and singing Christmas carols, and taking spasmodic turns of shouthing " Are we downhearted? No!"

Mike

[Derek Black]

Thanks for posting that Mike.

[Guest]

no problem Derek. Interesting that it's the German who gives Tommy the chocolate.

Mike

[Stoppage Drill]

I apologize if this question treads on already well-worn ground, but has anyone looked at the Unit Histories of the German units that were there to see if the football match is mentioned in their accounts? What to those histories say about what happened there that day?

-Daniel

There is an account by a German soldier - not an official account - about a soccer match with a Seaforths battalion.

[hazelclark]

There is an account by a German soldier - not an official account - about a soccer match with a Seaforths battalion.

Interestingly, the diary for the 1st Seaforth for December 1914 is missing.

Hazel C.

[Guest]

Interestingly, the diary for the 1st Seaforth for December 1914 is missing.

Hazel C.

1st 2nd Bn Seaforth Highlanders.

24th Dec 1914. RIVER DOUVE trenches. Usual sniping and shelling by field guns but not much damage. Germans ceased hostilities after dark and commenced celebrating Xmas by singing and shouting. Some of our men went right up to their trenches and obtained a certain amount of information. We put up a lot of wire during the night.

Map: BELGIUM, sheet 28 South West.

Casualty: 1 man killed.

25th Dec 1914. Hard frost, misty. Not a shot fired and we were able to walk about in the open even after the mist rose. Had some trouble in keeping the Germans away from our lines.

Put some more wire out and did a good deal of work by day.

Edit: 2nd B not 1st Bn

[Guest]

Count Gleichen, Brigade Commander of 15th Inf Bde which included the 1st Bn Norfolks and the 1/6th Bn Cheshires. He spoke highly of his Brigade Major (Weatherall) who wrote the account in the Brigade HQ diary posted earlier. Some interesting comments on his men's ability to embellish stories. This is from his published memoir;

"We quite enjoyed it, and on Xmas Day so did the Germans. For they came out of their trenches and walked across unarmed, with boxes of cigars and seasonable remarks. What were our men to do? Shoot? You could not shoot unarmed men. Let them come? You could not let them come into your trenches; so the only thing feasible at the moment was doneand some of our men met them halfway and began talking to them. We got into trouble for doing it. But, after all, it is difficult to see what we could otherwise have done, unless we shot the very first unarmed man who showed himselfpour encourager les autres; but we did not know what he was going to do. Meanwhile our officers got excellent close views of the German trenches, and we profited accordingly; the Boche did not, for he was not allowed close enough to ours.

Which reminds me that on one occasion, when going round the trenches, I asked a man whether he had had any shots at the Germans. He responded that there was an elderly gentleman with a bald head and a long beard who often showed himself over the parapet. "Well, why didn't you shoot him?" "Shoot him?" said the man; "why, Lor' bless you, sir, 'e's never done me no 'arm!" A case of "live and let live," which is certainly not to be encouraged. But cold-blooded murder is never popular with our men.

Talking of anecdotes, and the trend of our men's minds, I heard that on another occasion a groom, an otherwise excellent creature, wrote home to his "girl" thus: "Me and the master rode out to the trenches last night. We was attacked by a strong German patrol. I nips off me horse, pulls out my rifle and shoots two of them, and the rest bolted." Not a single atom of truth in the story, except that he was nestling in a warm stable at an advanced village, whilst his master was shivering in the mud of the trenches that night. Another gem was a statement by a Transport officer's servant that he had shot 1200 Germans himself with a machine-gun. This was a man who, I verily believe, had never even been within earshot of a gun, much less seen a German, his duties being exclusively several miles in rear of the firing line. And, being a civilian up till quite recently, I am sure he did not know the muzzle of a maxim from its breech."

MG

[hazelclark]

1st Bn Seaforth Highlanders.

24th Dec 1914. RIVER DOUVE trenches. Usual sniping and shelling by field guns but not much damage. Germans ceased hostilities after dark and commenced celebrating Xmas by singing and shouting. Some of our men went right up to their trenches and obtained a certain amount of information. We put up a lot of wire during the night.

Map: BELGIUM, sheet 28 South West.

Casualty: 1 man killed.

25th Dec 1914. Hard frost, misty. Not a shot fired and we were able to walk about in the open even after the mist rose. Had some trouble in keeping the Germans away from our lines.

Put some more wire out and did a good deal of work by day.

Is that from the 1st Bn.Diary? I am aware of three people who were unable find the December 1914 Diary at Kew, and we all thought that it had disappeared.

Hazel C.

[Guest]

Is that from the 1st Bn.Diary? I am aware of three people who were unable find the December 1914 Diary at Kew, and we all thought that it had disappeared.

Hazel C.

Hazel. Apologies. I clicked on the wrong file. 1st Bn Diary does exist (WO 95/3941/1) but the December 1914 diary is missing. They must have been missing for some time as Westlake (1997) has a gap for December in his precis of the Battalion's operation. The other Seaforth Highlander battalion in theatre was the 1/4th Bn whose transcription for the relevant days is below:

24th Dec 1915. The 1/2 Bn did not occupy the trenches during the morning, The neighbourhood of C and G Coys' billets was visited by shrapnel about 1:30 pm . The 1/2 bn left for Vielle Chapelle ast 3 pm and was met on its arrival by the news that the Division was to be rested. Orders were received during the course of the night to march to Robecq on the 25th.

25th Dec 1914. A hard frost. The Battalion reached Robecq (some 10 m W of Vielle Chapelle) at midday and went into billets.

[John_Hartley]

By co-incidence, the extract from the diary of Lt Brockbank, 6th Cheshires appears in the current issue of the WFA Bulletin (pge 86). Although impossible to be sure on just one extract, it appears to be a contemprary diary, rather than a later journal or memoir. As such, his reference to the small ball and football being played must have credibility.

He also mentions that "nearly every man.....was out" and a "huge crowd was between the trenches". Years later, Ernie Williams referred to "hundreds" playing with the ball. Certainly large numbers were out, whether playing or not, and I'm not sure I want to discount Ernie's recollections of the kickabout as readily as some have.

[Guest]

By co-incidence, the extract from the diary of Lt Brockbank, 6th Cheshires appears in the current issue of the WFA Bulletin (pge 86). Although impossible to be sure on just one extract, it appears to be a contemprary diary, rather than a later journal or memoir. As such, his reference to the small ball and football being played must have credibility.

He also mentions that "nearly every man.....was out" and a "huge crowd was between the trenches". Years later, Ernie Williams referred to "hundreds" playing with the ball. Certainly large numbers were out, whether playing or not, and I'm not sure I want to discount Ernie's recollections of the kickabout as readily as some have.

This is consistent with the Brigade account which mentions 200-400 men. There can be little doubt there were large numbers.

[SteveMarsdin]

Given the number of pages it might be helpful if Steve could amend the title or opening post to include "see page 16" or similar so anyone new to the thread can find the historical adviser's (Taff)comments without having to read through 15 pages