Solstice 2005
The Christmas Truce
© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
12/21/05
On November 21, 2005, a very, very old Scotsman who spent nearly all of his life trying to forget his youth died.
Alfred Anderson was unique, not only because he lived to the age of 109, but because he was the last British eyewitness to one of the most extraordinary events in modern warfare: the infamous “Christmas truce” of 1914.
Alfred was a batman. Not the psychotic super hero with the affinity for barely nubile teens; a batman was an orderly to a British officer, in this case, Fergus Bowes-Lyon, whose sister was married to the man who was second in line to become King of England. Many years later, she became known as “the Queen Mum.”
Quite a few Scots went to war in that grim year. In a nation of 6 million, 690,000 went. Alfred, along with the rest of the British Expeditionary Force, were known as the “Old Contemptibles” – Kaiser Bill, the German leader, had referred to the BEF as “that contemptible little army” and the Brits delightedly adopted the slur with typically dry British wit. But to the rest of the world, they were the Tommies.
Alfred had a solid, if not spectacular, career in the military. He signed up in 1914 at the age of 18, and promptly got shipped off to the trenches of Europe. Fergus Bowes-Lyon got blown to bits in 1915, which meant that the comparatively easy task of being batman to a royal had come to an end, and into the trenches he went. He served with distinction, until he was hit in the back of the neck by shrapnel in 1916, ending his combat career. He recovered and spent the balance of the war training recruits on the Old Sod.
Over 80 years later, the French government bestowed their highest military honor, the Légion d’Honneur, upon him. It’s unusual to give such an honor, the equivalent of the American Medal of Honor or the British Victoria Cross, 84 years after the fact, and while Alfred’s service was solid and brave, there was nothing that remarkable about it. I suspect he was recognized by the French government not so much for his experience in battle as for his small role in the Christmas Truce.
In December 1914, the war was not yet the horrific, grinding nightmare that it was to become. In Britain, the war is best remembered for the poetry the men on the lines composed, and in December 1914, the poems still had a light and optimistic air, a sense of “carry on, lads, for God and the King.” However, it was becoming a morass, a Stygian hell of blood and mud and screams, and with winter closing in, the troops were uneasily aware that this war could turn into a right bloody slog.
In the early days of the war, vestiges of civilization were still seen on the lines. Nearby towns and villages were still standing, the surrounding fields hadn’t turned into morasses of frozen mud, and the troops themselves, while not comfortable, were not yet reduced to the level of using the frozen carcasses of their fallen fellows as impromptu chairs.
Morale was still high. At home, a vast war fever raged, and everyone pitched in to show the troops their support, and showered the soldiers with candies, cigarettes, warm clothes, letters of support and love, and news from home.
As is usually the case in war, fraternization between the sides was strictly forbidden. Even though both they were often less than fifty yards apart, and each could hear the shouts, screams, and sometimes even gossip and laughter from the other, the leadership on each side maintained the usual “defame the enemy” routine. Thus it was perfidious Albion versus the evil robotic Hun.
It was the robots who took the first steps toward the Christmas Truce. Long before the custom came to America and Britain, the Germans marked Solstice, then Christmas, by decorating evergreens, and German troops, doubtlessly desiring a little peace and quiet in which they could think of family and friends back home and consider their place in the universe, started putting up trees along their trenches in France and Belgium.
Because the lines were so close that each side could hear conversations among the soldiers from the other side, some informal communication had been built up, and the British and allied troops determined that the trees were not some sort of ruse meant as a trap.
Word of this inevitably reached Command, which was appalled. The allied Command promptly put out a directive reminding the troops that fraternization was treason, and warning of a possible sneak attack by the Germans on Christmas Day.
The troops were about as impressed with this as they were with anything else the Brass Hats came up with, and the two lines continued to tentatively work toward some sort of Christmas get together at dozens of points along the lines.
Both sides had a surfeit of goodies from home. The Brits had more butterscotch and plum puddings (same stuff that caused Aunt Tillie to utterly disgrace herself at that one Christmas dinner, I’m sure you remember), and the Germans had meerschaum pipes – apparently the Kaiser sent one to every soldier he had, whether the soldier smoked or not – and chocolate cake. Both sides had big surpluses of tobacco, the most valuable commodity on the lines.
Trade sprung up.
Along long stretches of those bloody, war-torn, mind-raped lines, the guns fell silent. Men gathered in the no mans’ land between the trenches to trade tobacco for chocolate and vice versa. Tentative conversations arose, about the weather, about soccer, about life at home. I would bet my last dollar that nobody talked about the war.
There are hundreds of stories from that magical day, of soccer matches, of choirs alternating among French, German and English as they sang Christmas carols. (One report had a sour soul on the English side shouting “We’d rather die than sing German.” To which a German shot back: “It would kill us if you did.” Incredulous newspapers reported troops from both sides getting together to celebrate the birthday of an English captain.
Even Regiments who were given direct orders not to participate in this found a way to do so without violating orders. One group stayed in their trenches, but hurled tins of beef and other food across no man’s land, shouting, “Here you go, you hungry bastards.”
The next day was December 26th, Boxing Day, and slowly, raggedly, the pounding of the artillery and the cries and screams resumed. An entire continent became a charnel house in a world gone mad.
A few decades back, I heard a piece of rhyme, and was told that it was an Inuit hunting prayer. To me, though, it always seemed to encapsulate the wry sense of satisfaction and relief we feel when we rise above ourselves and, for too-brief instants, realize the greatness we are capable of as a race. The rhyme went:
We do it right
Sometimes
We shine the light
Sometimes
We find the fish beneath the ice
Sometimes
The World War One vets, once a common sight in my youth with their brown wool uniforms and red paper poppies, are nearly all gone now. Worldwide, there’s probably less than 50 still alive. Within a decade, the last of them will be gone, and World War One, “The War to End All Wars,” will join the War of the Roses and the Civil War in the ranks of leaden prose in books filled with meaningless dates.
In Britain, they are talking about holding a state funeral for the last vet to die (there are only eleven of them left there), which is a big deal. The last state funeral held for a commoner was for Winston Churchill in 1965, and they are usually reserved for the deaths of Royals. I recognize they want to mark the passing of an era rather than honor an individual, but it still seems a bit daft to do this for an individual who, in a way, paid a lighter price than any other participant in that war.
This war, which shaped the minds of both John McCrae and Adolph Hitler, showed the world just how vile and nasty and futile humanity could be. This should never be forgotten.
But it also showed humanity in one of those all-too-rare lightning flashes of greatness.
You can’t think about the Christmas Truce and not, just for a moment, feel proud to be human.
The sun will come back.
Happy Solstice.
Don’t lose hope. Never lose hope.