CHRISTMAS AT THE FRONT
The Royal Christmas Message--A Christmas Communion--Services
Held Anywhere--Carol Singing--The Soldiers' Christmas
Day--Christmas in the Trenches--The Unofficial Trace--They did
not want to Fight--Strangest Story of All--The Strangest
Service.
Christmas 1914 will ever be remembered in this country. The message of
peace and goodwill spoken from our pulpits, and yet half the world at
war! Christmas carols, Christmas dinners, Christmas presents, and yet
our sons out there in the trenches, and our fleet keeping constant
watch at sea!
It was indeed a strange Christmas, and yet we could not forgo it, for
the Christmas message was needed more than ever before, and the poor
and needy and the little children must not be forgotten.
For weeks before Christmas we had been considering what we could do
for our sailors and soldiers on Christmas Day. Our King and Queen had
been busy sending out Christmas cards to their troops, bearing a
Christmas greeting, and the message, reproduced in facsimile from the
King's handwriting, "May God protect you, and bring you home safe."
All sorts of organisations had arranged for presents--they were sent
from the ends of the earth. The newspapers made appeals to their
readers, and arranged for the despatch of Christmas hampers and
parcels. Nearly every church remembered its own men at the front, and
sent kindly greetings and appropriate gifts. We were all thinking of
those who were fighting our battles, and we strove to give them a bit
of Christmas in the midst of the war. Not that we took any credit to
ourselves for this--it was the very least that we could do. They were
_of_ us, and they had gone out _from_ us. They were our very own, our
best and noblest, and they were doing all that men could do. They were
laying down their lives for their country--and for us, that we in
peace and plenty might quietly spend our Christmas as of yore, "none
daring to make us afraid."
And they? What of them? Well, our presents reached them. Not a ship
bearing our gifts was lost. They had our presents on Christmas Day. In
the trenches, in the rear of the firing line, in hospital and in camp
there was the Christmas distribution, and the men looked up and
thanked God that they were not forgotten on Christmas Day.
My purpose in this chapter is to tell how that strange Christmas at
the front was spent.
Let us first hear our chaplains' stories, and then listen to the men.
Bishop Gwynne of Khartoum is again serving as a Church of England
chaplain with our troops. He shall tell, first of all, how he spent
his Christmas.
"When I woke early on Christmas Day," says he, "the tiny window in my
small room at the farm-house was frosted over, and the rattle of the
ammunition waggon on the road sounded like trolleys over an iron way.
"Our first Communion was in the mayor's office (the church was denied
us), and was packed to the doors with generals, colonels, and
'Tommies.' We sang 'While shepherds watched their flocks by night.'
The celebration of Holy Communion within the booming of the guns,
where bodies were being broken and blood shed, brought vividly, as
nowhere else on earth, the message and meaning of the sympathy of God
in the sufferings of men, and each one was thrilled with the reality
of it all, as men of all ranks partook of the Holy Sacrament, and
thoughts turned homeward to those who thought and prayed at the same
service, convinced of the reality of the Communion of Saints.
"My next service was under the shelter of a haystack along the side of
a road, where a congregation of gunners in a semicircle sang the
Christmas hymns with real feeling in the keen frosty air. It was too
cold to keep them long, but I gave them the Christmas message, and
wished them every Christmas blessing.
"A couple of miles further on, I found a congregation of about two
hundred and fifty men assembled in the small theatre of a country
town. With deep reverence and great heartiness they followed the
service. These men were under orders for the trenches, and every word
in every prayer seemed so suitable--'Defend us thy humble servants in
all assaults of our enemies, that we surely trusting in Thy defence
may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the might of Jesus
Christ our Lord.'
"As soon as my first lot finished, another lot of two hundred and
fifty filled the room for another service. What struck me most was
that, though the surroundings were strange, the men showed no more
signs of emotion than if they were keeping Christmas at home. The
sounds of artillery every now and then accompanied our prayers, but we
all felt we were in our right place.
"I am convinced they envied not the man who sat down in comfort to his
Christmas dinner at home; they had no wish to change places with those
who, in luxury and ease, chose the easiest part in this time of war.
In a few hours they would be in the forefront nearest their country's
foe, and that was the place of honour this Christmas Day. Their hearts
were warmed as I told them how many were thinking of them and praying
for them to-day, but they needed no pity. They were where they would
be,--where the bravest and best always want to be,--fronting the enemy
who threatened their hearth and home.
"When the last lot went, I prepared for the Holy Communion on the
theatre stage, and nearly a hundred came back to receive the Blessed
Sacrament--officers, non-commissioned officers, and men kneeling on
the muddy floor, remembering, worshipping, receiving into their hearts
by faith, the vital power to fight, and, if need be, to suffer and die
for the righteous cause. The Cross of Christ seemed to be so real, and
its meaning so clear, to men who are really living away from the
world's conventionalities, and up against death and the other life.
"On the way back to my billet I found my unit on the road, having
orders to move off, and I had to march along with them until dark,
when we were all crowded into a farm with outbuildings large enough
for our men. We had our goose and plum-pudding at nine P.M., and after
a chat round a wood fire, lay down to rest at midnight."
I have ventured to quote Bishop Gwynne's letter _in extenso_ from the
_Guardian_, as it tells us so delightfully how one chaplain spent his
Christmas Day, and how worthily he earned his Christmas dinner. What
an insight it gives us also of the power of religion in our British
Expeditionary Force!
The Rev. E.R. Day, M.A. one of the senior Church of England chaplains,
has a similar story to tell. He says that on Christmas Day there were
no fewer than seven hundred communicants from one regiment and four
hundred from another, and the service was held in a ploughed field
with a packing-case for the Lord's Table. He adds that during the war
he has conducted these Communion services in the back room of a
public-house, in a stable, in a loft, in a lean-to shed, and in the
open air--anywhere where room could be found.
Another Church of England chaplain, writing to the _Church Times_,
describes an attempt he had made to hold "Early Communion" at 6.30 on
Christmas morning. He had done his best, with the assistance of the
Army Service Corps, to provide all the accessories of a High Church
celebration, candles, &c., but that was a failure--no one came. We are
not surprised, for Thomas Atkins, as a rule, does not care for these
accessories. He succeeded better, later in the morning, on the
straw-littered floor of a soldier's billet. As he quaintly says, "It
seemed fitting that as He first came among the straw, He should come
to His soldiers to-day as they knelt on the straw."
The Rev. J.D. Coutts, Wesleyan Chaplain with the First Division,
describes another service. He says:
"I preached a Christmas sermon, and the men sang as only men can sing
when they are having a good time. We went through the whole service in
the small red book, the men reciting the responses with enthusiasm.
After the service we held a Communion Service. We took Communion in
the Town Hall of an old French town, and it will remain in my memory
for a long, long time. Two planks on trestles formed our communion
table.... An access of solemnity came upon us, and we knew ourselves
to be standing in the presence of God. Seldom has it been given me to
take part in such a service.
"This morning in going out to visit the regiment at dressing stations,
I met a regiment returning from the trenches. There were not a hundred
and fifty of them. The rest were put out of action in taking some
trenches; they won their trenches, but were enfiladed. I thought of
our Communion Service, for not one of the men whom I knew did I see."
I might go on recording many of these Communion services, but these
will serve as specimens of similar services held throughout the
Expeditionary Force. We at home and they abroad were one in this act
of commemoration and communion. We at home thought of them and they of
us, and said "Amen" to the prayer contained in the communion hymn,
part of which I copy from the United Free Church of Scotland _Record_.
Here with hearts that would be calm
In the lifting of the psalm.
Hearts that would in quiet prayer
Cast on Thee their load of care,--
All our loved ones o'er the sea
We remember, Lord, to Thee.
In the trenches, on the field,
Lord, be Thou their Strength and Shield--
And for them the Wine outpour,
Give them Bread from out Thy store--
Let us feel while here we pray,
They are one with us to-day.
The Rev. Owen S. Watkins gives us another picture of Christmas at the
front. The 14th Brigade had gone into the trenches, so those who were
left sat disconsolately round the fire on Christmas Eve, and one of
the number said, "Well, one thing's certain, we shan't hear any carol
singers this year," but the words had hardly been spoken, when there
came the sound of singing,--"Hark, the herald angels sing," "While
shepherds watched their flocks by night," and so on through all the
old familiar carols. Some of the musical members of the Ambulance had
formed a carol party and proceeded to serenade the General and the
others who were in the village. It made them all realise that
Christmas was indeed here. Mr. Watkins then proceeds to describe
Christmas Day:
"Christmas Day dawned bright and frosty, truly seasonable weather, and
welcomed by the troops as far better than the pouring rain. For the
chaplains it was a busy day. In the course of the morning Mr.
Winnifrith held two celebrations of Holy Communion, conducted two
Parade Services in the Brigade, and performed the last sad rites for
three men who had been killed during the night. My work was found in
the 13th Brigade, who were resting in the billets we had just vacated,
and a good deal of my morning was spent in the effort to keep my horse
on his feet, for the roads were like glass, and my journey occupied
twice as long as I had anticipated. I had arranged for the service to
be held in the village school, but the congregation was far too large
for that, and when I arrived I found they had decided to hold the
service in the school-yard, which was packed as close as men could
stand with a congregation which swayed and made a noise like thunder
as they stamped their feet on the stones to keep them warm.
"On my arrival the stamping ceased, and we at once began the
service--Scottish Borderers and Yorkshire Light Infantry most of them
were--and in spite of the bitter cold, both officers and men joined in
the singing with a zest and heartiness which was most inspiring. My
address was of necessity brief, but throughout the service there was
that influence which it is the preacher's joy to feel.
"In the afternoon I held a service in the schoolroom of the village
where our ambulance was billeted. It was attended by men of all
denominations who had been unable to attend any of Mr. Winnifrith's
services, and was chiefly composed of our own men and gunners
belonging to some heavy batteries in the neighbourhood, some of whom
had walked a couple of miles to attend the service. Once again I
realised the joy of leading God's people in worship, and felt that,
however unusual the surroundings, the true spirit of Christmas was
resting upon us.
"In the evening the men feasted, had a singsong, and generally made
merry, whilst in the officers' mess we also tried to celebrate
Christmas in the old-fashioned way, but soon settled down to the
fireside quietly to talk of other days and other scenes, and to think
of those who missed us at this festive season."
We have seen how the chaplains spent their Christmas Day. How did the
Christian men spend theirs? Perhaps one picture will suffice. Our old
friend Sergeant-Major Moore shall draw it for us. On Christmas Eve he
was occupied nearly all day giving out Christmas presents to the men.
His regiment had come out of the trenches on the 23rd, and the men
were, many of them, in a terrible condition. They had been standing in
the water for days and numbers were frost-bitten. But how they
appreciated their gifts! It was indeed good to see a cart-load of
gifts, all of them sent direct from the homeland to this one Christian
sergeant-major for distribution. Christmas Eve was spent in a barn,
and as the sergeant-major spoke to the men, at least one soldier gave
himself to Christ.
Christmas morning broke fresh and clear, and the staff-sergeant had a
splendid menu for the day, provided so far as extras were concerned by
friends from the homeland. Breakfast--Tea, sugar, and milk (the last a
great luxury), bread, English butter, ham, tinned sausages, and cake.
Dinner--Roast-beef, potatoes and cabbage, plum-pudding. Tea--Tea,
sugar, _milk_, bread and butter, ham, honey, sardines, shortbread,
Christmas cake, and chocolates afterwards.
Not a bad menu that for men fresh from the trenches! Let it not be
supposed, however, that all fared so well. The Rev. A.D. Brown,
chaplain with the Indian Cavalry Division, mournfully records: "We
spent Christmas Day on the trek. My Christmas dinner consisted of
bully beef and bread and butter."
But these men of the King's Own Yorkshire L.I. fared well, and the
sergeant-major finishes his characteristic letter by saying: "After
tea I had still a few parcels of comforts, chocolates, &c., which you
so kindly sent me, and with a few tracts and Christmas letters, I
visited the barns to find out those lonely ones who had not received a
letter or parcel from the homeland, and before I left for my billet
again I had the joy of knowing that, as far as I knew, every lad of
the battalion had received a parcel of cheer, and many were the
thanks, and 'God bless you, sir,' that night. Yesterday being Sunday
we had three services in barns and a few hymns and prayers in a
fourth, there not being time for more. It would cheer many a mother to
hear her boy out here singing the old gospel hymn she taught him in
his childhood days. Again, on the part of the men, thanking you for
your splendid gift. Good-day! 494!"
[Illustration: IN THE TRENCHES.]
It is now time we got nearer the firing line and asked how our soldier
lads in the trenches spent their Christmas. It is a strange sight
which meets our gaze. I confess that when I first read the stories of
that Christmas truce I thought that the reporters were romancing. But
there was no romancing after all. Truth is stranger than fiction, and
this was truth.
The French do not seem to have observed Christmas Day as did the
British. The French _Eye-witness_ records: "On Christmas Day the
Germans left their trenches shouting 'a two days' truce.' Their ruse
did not succeed. All were shot down." It is evident, however, that on
some parts of the field there was fraternisation between even the
French and the Germans.
The British soldiers took the law into their own hands, and
unofficially themselves proclaimed a truce. In some cases the
initiative lay with the Germans, and in others with the British; but
in nearly every case, all along the line, the informal truce was
accepted, and British and Germans fraternised. The Angels' Song was
heard again, this time over the blood-stained trenches, and the
bursting of the shrapnel ceased, the whizz of the bullets was heard no
more, and, instead, the sound of Christmas carols dominated the firing
zone.
The period of this truce varied in different parts of the firing line.
One officer states: "The Germans looked upon Christmas Day as a
holiday, and never fired a shot, except a few shells in the early
morning to wish us a happy Christmas, after which there was perfect
peace, and we could hear the Germans singing in their trenches. Later
on in the afternoon my attention was called to a large group of men
standing up half-way between our trenches and the enemy's, on the
right of my trench. So I went out with my sergeant-major to
investigate, and actually found a large party of Germans and our
people hobnobbing together, although an armistice was strictly against
our regulations. The men had taken it upon themselves. I went forward
and asked in German what it was all about and if they had an officer
there, and I was taken up to their officer, who offered me a cigar. I
talked for a short time and then both sides returned to the trenches.
It was the strangest sight I have ever seen. The officer and I saluted
each other gravely, shook hands, and then went back to shoot at each
other. He gave me two cigars, one of which I smoked, and the other I
sent home as a souvenir."
Corporal T.B. Watson, Royal Scots (Territorials), says: "We were all
standing in the open for about two hours waving to each other and
shouting and not one shot was fired from either side. This took place
in the forenoon. After dinner we were firing and dodging as hard as
ever: one could hardly believe that such a thing had taken place."
Private J. Higham, of the Stalybridge Territorials, tells of a truce
that lasted throughout Christmas Day.
"On Christmas Day the Germans never fired a shot, and we were walking
about the trenches. In the afternoon about three o'clock the ----, who
were on our right, started whistling and shouting to the Germans whose
trenches were only four hundred yards away. They asked them to come
down.... After about ten minutes two Germans ventured out, and the
---- went to meet them. When they met they shook hands with each
other, and then other Germans came, and so we went up to them.... I
was a bit timid at first, but me and a lad called Starling went up and
I shook hands with about sixteen Germans. They gave us cigars and
cigarettes and toffee, and they told us they didn't want to fight but
they had to.... We were with them about an hour, and everybody was
bursting laughing at this incident, and the officers couldn't make
head or tail of it. The Germans then went back to their trenches, and
we went back to ours, and there was not a single shot fired that day."
"Elsewhere," says a subaltern writing to the Press Association, "I
hear our fellows played the Germans at football on Christmas Day. Our
own pet enemies remarked that they would like a game, but as the
ground in our part is all root crops, and much cut up by ditches, and
as, moreover, we had not got a football, we had to call it off."
One incident recorded by the _Manchester Guardian_ from the letter of
an officer is surely the strangest of all--the story of a friendly
haircut.
"At eleven P.M.," says the officer, "on December 24, there was
absolute peace, bar a little sniping and a few rounds from a machine
gun, and then no more. 'The King,' was sung, then you heard 'To-morrow
is Christmas; if you don't fight, we won't,' and the answer came back
'All right!' One officer met a Bavarian, smoked a cigarette, and had a
talk with him about half-way between the lines. Then a few men
fraternised in the same way, and really to-day peace has existed. Men
have been talking together, and they had a football match with a bully
beef tin, and one man went over and cut a German's hair."
I might multiply these extracts indefinitely, but sufficient has been
said to show the spirit in which our lads and the Germans spent
Christmas Day. I do not wonder that one soldier, after saying that
some German officers took the photographs of our men between the
trenches, adds, "I would not have missed the experience of yesterday
for the most gorgeous Christmas dinner in England."
If the strangest incident of that strange Christmas Day was the
cutting of a German soldier's hair by one of our lads, surely the
strangest service was that conducted by the Rev. J. Esslemont Adams,
Chaplain of the United Free Church of Scotland, of whom I have already
had occasion to write.
I piece the story together from various reports that have been sent to
Scotland, and then add Mr. Adams' own brief comments. He is attached
to the Gordon Highlanders, and on Christmas morning visited the
trenches to wish his men a happy Christmas. The Gordons had recently
relieved the Scottish Borderers, and there were several dead bodies of
the Borderers lying midway between the British and German trenches,
the result of the last charge. Only about a hundred yards separated
the trenches.
On Christmas morning some of the Germans astonished the Gordons by
appearing on the top of their trenches, but the Gordons did not fire
on them, and instead an officer went out to suggest that, as they had
a "Padre" with them, and there were also several German dead, they
should have a truce for a burial service. It was arranged, and the
Germans lined up on one side of the chaplain and the Gordons on the
other. The service began with the hymn "The Lord is my Shepherd," and
then the "Padre" prayed. After the burial of the dead, of whom there
were about a hundred, Mr. Adams gave an address, which was interpreted
sentence by sentence by an interpreter sent forward by a German
officer.
The service over, the German officer shook hands with Mr. Adams and
offered him a cigar. Mr. Adams begged leave not to smoke it, but to
keep it as a souvenir of that unique occasion. The officer consented,
but said he should like some little memento in return. Hardly knowing
what to give, Mr. Adams took off his cap and gave the officer the
Soldier's Prayer he had carried in its lining since the war began. The
German officer read it, put it in the lining of his helmet, saying, "I
value this because I believe what it says, and when the war is over I
shall take it out and give it as a keepsake to my youngest child."
Then the men gathered together, exchanged keepsakes, and spent their
Christmas in perfect unity. Not a shot was fired that day, nor on the
next. It seemed as though each side was reluctant to fire again, after
the sacred service of Christmas morning.
During a brief visit home Mr. Adams occupied the pulpit of his own
church--the West U.F. Church, Aberdeen. In the course of a sermon full
of interest he referred to his strange service on the battle-field.
The Aberdeen _Daily Journal_ thus reports what he said:
"There had been some weird stories told about Christmas Day. He was
not going to deny these stories. He was not even going to deny the
cigar incident, but was going to show the cigar. Christmas Day made
him understand something of the size of God. The day ended for him
with the vision of a great German regiment standing behind their
commanding officer bareheaded, and not so far distant as one gallery
from the other of that church, British officers with their soldiers
bareheaded, and between them a man reading the Twenty-third Psalm. In
the name of the One Christ, these two foes, the most awful the world
had ever seen, held Christmas. It was the fear of God--the need of
God--that did it all."
I have told the story in the simplest language, without any attempt to
give it colouring, because it seems to me it speaks for itself. It
tells that deep down beneath the uniform, beneath all that makes man
true Briton or true German, there is the bond of brotherhood. They
were Scotchmen, these Gordons, and I wonder if they thought of the
lines of their Scottish poet:
Man to man the warld o'er,
Shall brithers be for a' that.
Is it not a grim tragedy that men who can thus fraternise on Christmas
Day should a few hours after be sending each other to their death? We
look forward to the day, and pray God it may not be far distant, when
war shall cease.
Here at home and there on the battle-field, Christian men unite in the
prayer:
Not on this land alone,
But be God's mercies known
From shore to shore:
And may the nations see
That men should brothers be,
And form one family
The wide world o'er.