On each end of the rifle we’re the same

“The ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame, / And on each end of the rifle we’re the same.”

It was the war that was supposed “to be over by Christmas”. It very nearly was. A spontaneous soldiers’ truce broke out along the Western Front on Christmas Eve 1914, four months after the start of hostilities.

British, French and German soldiers took these usually hypocritical Christmas sentiments for real and refused to fire on the “enemy”, exchanging instead song, food, drink and gifts with each other in the battle-churned wastes of “no-man’s land” between the trenches.

Lasting until Boxing Day in some cases, the truce alarmed the military authorities who worked overtime to end the fraternisation and restart the killing.

Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce
By Stanley Weintraub

[Corporal John Ferguson:] What a sight—little groups of Germans and British extending almost the length of our front! Out of the darkness we could hear laughter and see lighted matches . . . . Where they couldn’t talk the language they were making themselves understood by signs, and everyone seemed to be getting on nicely. Here we were laughing and chatting to men whom only a few hours before we were trying to kill!

A London Rifles entrepreneur, offering large quantities of appropriated bully beef and jam, acquired a prized Pickelhaube [spiked helmet], which was nearly impossible to conceal or cart home. The day after Christmas he heard someone shouting for him from the German side. They met in No Man’s Land. “Yesterday,” his new friend appealed, “I give my hat for the Bullybif. I have grand inspection tomorrow. You lend me and I bring it back after.” Somehow the deal was kept. (86)

[William Dawkins:] “The Germans came out of their protective holes, fetched a football, and invited our boys out for a little game. Our boys joined them and together they quickly had great fun, till they (I believe we were responsible) had to return to their posts. I cannot guarantee it, but it was told to me that our lieutenant colonel threatened our soldiers with machine guns. Had just one of these Big Mouths gathered together ten thousand footballs, what a happy solution that would have been, without bloodshed.” (113)

By now, most units faced resuming hostilities, however unwillingly. When the 107th Saxons cautioned the 1st North Staffs that shooting had to recommence, both sides showed authentic unwillingness. (140)

According to the woman to whom the German sergeant told his story. “The difficulty began on the 26th, when the order to fire was given, for the men struck. Herr Lange says that in the accumulated years [of his service] he had never heard such language as the officers indulged in, while they stormed up and down, and got, as the only result, the answer, `We can’t—they are good fellows, and we can’t.’ Finally the officers turned on the men with, `Fire, or we do—and not at the enemy!’ Not a shot had come from the other side, but at last they fired, and an answering fire came back, but not a man fell. `We spent that day and the next,’ said Herr Lange, `wasting ammunition in trying to shoot the stars down from the sky.’ (141)

During a House of Commons debate on March 31, 1930, Sir H. Kingsley Wood, a Cabinet minister during the next war, and major “in the front trenches” at Christmas 1914, recalled that he “took part in what was well known at the time as a truce. We went over in front of the trenches, and shook hands with many of our German enemies. A great number of people [now] think we did something that was degrading.” Refusing to presume that, he went on, “The fact is that we did it, and I then came to the conclusion that I have held very firmly ever since, that if we had been left to ourselves there would never have been another shot fired. For a fortnight the truce went on. We were on the most friendly terms, and it was only the fact that we were being controlled by others that made it necessary for us to start trying to shoot one another again.” (169-70)

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