Christmas in the Trenches Read online

  The troops quickly settled in and began organising recreation rooms, company dining halls and a battalion Sergeants’ Mess and Officers’ Mess. Between 9 and 16 December, much time was taken up with cleaning, painting and storing the unit’s equipment, including machine guns and limbers. Sports including boxing, football, running and tug-of-war were undertaken in the afternoons to select teams to enter Divisional and Corps level competitions. Preparations were also undertaken to run the army education scheme, for those men wishing to prepare for new careers after demobilisation. This relatively quiet, settled life in the village, with the knowledge that no more fighting was necessary, proved most welcome and a sort of halfway house between the army and the civilian life to which most men longed to return:

  Its quite a treat to be in a house, a fire going and sleeping between sheets and two army blankets per man. Although we are not quite free from our numerous friends.7 (Lt Emrys Richards)

  Sometimes lice proved not to be the only problem for the troops as life among civilians could have its drawbacks:

  19 December 1918: A great deal of commotion was caused by the presence of scabies. This was attributed to civilian sanitation. Although numerous latrines had been erected it was very difficult to ensure that the civilian places were not being used. However careful inspections and a liberal used of creasol soon got rid of the problem. (63rd Battalion, MGC, War Diary)

  But, on the whole, benefits more than outweighed any inconveniences and discomforts:

  Many thanks for parcel received quite safely, also letter dated 19th, everything was quite alright and very nice. It had been a long time in reaching me and the box had got broken a good bit but everything was there alright and in good condition and I thank you so very much for sending me such a nice parcel although I think it must have cost you a lot to send me so many things. I like them all very much it’s very kind of you to send them when you are so busy at home. You seem to know exactly what I wanted I think I should have plenty of everything to last until I get home now, I hope so anyway . . . I do so want to see you soon, this messing about here makes you feel more fed up than ever . . .

  Well my darling I hope you had as good a time as possible at Xmas. We had a fairly nice time here, rather quiet, but that didn’t matter. I made some mince pies for the Boys. Was up all Xmas eve till ½ past 4 in the morning and then got up and baked the meat for them. We should have had pork, but it was all condemned so it was a good job we didn’t get it, we had mutton and some geese, plum pudding and custard. So altogether we had a decent time, only I was a bit tired you may be sure. We had a French bake-house to use and the baker was up with me all night. We didn’t have much conversation as neither of us could speak much of the other’s language, but we managed to have a few words after a fashion.8 (Gnr William Young)

  Many troops once again shared their Christmas celebrations with their civilian hosts, especially in those towns and villages where they had become something of a permanent fixture:

  . . . our children’s party on the 6th was a great success. They all assembled in the village schoolrooms, it was to begin at 5.30 but at 4.0 they began to arrive! We expected about 120, when I went into the two rooms I counted over 90 in each, and a few more came in later. The Xmas tree was lighted up and we, that is the Officers and Sgts made a procession from the school to the old church (this is our canteen and concert hall etc) it holds about 350 sitting on forms etc. Each of us took a small girl and all the rest of the kids followed on. We walked round the tree and waited, about half the sergeants were in fancy dress, any kind of dress too! Then the adjutant and Green, one of the subalterns, came in dressed as Father Christmas and his wife. Here Father Christmas is not the bringer of toys etc but an old woman called ‘Bifara’ so our idea worked well. The adjutant made a short speech in Italian, and then began to give away the presents from the tree. We had bought 150 presents and there were about 100 decorations on the tree too. The place was packed, for odd parents had pushed their way in too. The noise was deafening for we had a made-up band of tin trumpets, bugles, drums, any odd things etc and they never ceased. The kids crowded round and I hope everyone got something. Then we took the tree away and gave them cocoa, biscuits, sandwiches of bread and bully beef, cheese and jam, over 1000 were eaten. Then we gave an entertainment of sorts and a dancing bear, elephant, horse, dancers etc all came in and performed and the kids were a bit frightened at first, but they soon got used to them. As they went away, we gave each two oranges and a card. They all really enjoyed themselves and I get smiles from each kid whenever I meet them now!9 (Lt Col Robert Clarke, 1/4th Royal Berkshires)

  For troops on occupation duty, their relationship with the civilians they came into contact with was more circumspect, as until recently they had been enemies. Additionally, the role of a foreign occupying force is to visibly keep law and order and to enforce a peace settlement on a defeated country. Such a task, when backed up by years of wartime propaganda, painting the enemy in the blackest terms, made the civilian populations of Austria, Bulgaria, Germany and Turkey very wary of the Allied soldiers. In some areas revolutionary activity had led to a near breakdown in law and order and Allied forces drew up plans accordingly. For example, the 2nd King’s Own Royal Lancasters disembarked at Chanak in Turkey on 10 November 1918, having sailed from Salonika three days before. After disabling the guns of various forts in the area they posted companies to forts, road junctions and piers. On 7 December instructions were issued for the defence of Chanak town in the event of civil disturbances. These plans covered both small-scale spontaneous riots and organised political or religious insurrections for which previous warning had been received. In the former situation four platoons, at least 25-men strong and armed with Lewis guns, were to be at the ready. Of these, one platoon would be responsible for guarding the street in which the divisional commander’s house was located, while another would move directly to the scene of the disturbance and clear the streets. All other men of the battalion were to stand to arms in their billets on hearing the alarm. In the case of large-scale unrest two full companies were to be sent into the town to hold key points. All roads into Chanak were to be patrolled and all other approaches picqueted. The rest of the battalion were to stand to arms in their billets and await orders. Troops on patrol were to ensure all civilians were confined to their homes and there were strict instructions not to come into conflict with Turkish troops, police or civilians if it could be at all avoided. To reinforce this, machine guns were only to be fired on the order of an officer.

  This is not to say that occupying forces always had their hands nervously close to the trigger. The 7th Ox & Bucks Light Infantry moved to the Bulgarian port of Varna on 17 December and soon found themselves mixing freely with the locals. At times, however, their situation appeared rather strange:

  The Colonel and Maj Salkeld and I attended a very swagger reception given at the Bulgar Naval and Military Club in honour of ourselves and the French. It struck one as rather ludicrous to see our late enemies standing stiffly to attention when our National Anthem was played. Thanks to Maj Salkeld and Bonner (who had been appointed Foraging Officer) the men had thoroughly good Christmas dinners, with turkeys and geese.

  On the 26th December Ker took No. 2 Company over to Balcik (a small town in the Dobrudja on the Black Sea), where they were required to assist in the establishment of the Rumanian civil authorities: this was no easy task, and as was ultimately proved, the whole Battalion was hardly strong enough to carry out this work . . .

  The rest of us, in spite of frequent alarms and excitements as to moves in all directions, went on enjoying life in Varna: especially those of us who made friends with Bulgarian families . . .

  On New Year’s Eve all the officers attended a civic function in our honour; it was a most priceless affair, especially the efforts of some of us to find a language in which to converse with our hosts.10 (Capt A.T.W. Stukeley)

  Even during the advance into Germany some units found ways in which to bre
ak the ice with the anxious watching civilians:

  On Christmas Eve we stayed in a village schoolroom with some of the bandsmen. There came quite a heavy snowstorm during the evening with three or four inches of snow. About midnight some of the bandsmen were getting up and soon we heard the strains of ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’ and other carols, in the snow. This was done by the band as a surprise. So the next morning, Christmas Day 1918 we had only four miles to complete the march. On approaching the town quite a crowd had come out to see us march in, including a crowd of German girls. We looked at them, they looked at us and then one of our chaps took a rest. He bent down made up a snowball and threw it amongst the girls. They knew it was only done in fun and they quickly retaliated and soon we were in the midst of a snowball battle and that is how the Hampshire Regiment occupied the town of Merkermisk [Mechernich].11 (Pte George Watts, 2/4th Hampshires)

  The Hampshires were part of the 186th Brigade of the 62nd Division, the only Territorial Force formation to move into Germany on 15 December 1918, as part of the Rhine bridgehead force. Pte Watts, like many others, was billeted with a German family over the Christmas period:

  We went into a little back room and started our Christmas dinner (such as it was). The folk in the house were having their dinner of meat scraps and potatoes in the main room and the old lady kept coming and wanting us to come in with them but my mate was a bit awkward and said ‘Why don’t they leave us alone’, but after a while, we went in with them. They had a Christmas tree and were trying to make merry. There was the old man of the house and his wife, four daughters and one son. I had a mouth organ and started playing ‘The Merry Widow Waltz’. They knew that and were delighted. They got hold of us and danced round the Christmas tree and soon we were all friends (not enemies). This was to be our home until the first week of March. The weather kept frosty and bright. There was a large lake frozen over and we spent Sunday afternoons having fun on the lake sliding etc. Then there was tobogganing down a steep hill by moonlight.

  Not everyone could boast of such an enjoyable time as some units were still on the move. In the Balkans the 26th Division moved into the Dobrudja region of Rumania. This area had been annexed by the Bulgarians in 1916 and British troops were now required to oversee the peaceful re-establishment of Rumanian rule over a population containing a sizeable minority of ethnic Bulgarians. The weather at this time was severe and many troops lacked adequate winter clothing, shortages being made up from local sources where possible. On the march with the Division was the 107th Field Company, working hard to maintain the poor roads and repair bridges destroyed over previous months by retreating German and Bulgarian troops:

  We did not know whether we would spend Xmas at Giurgiu or not. However, we determined to be as prepared as possible for it, and the surrounding villages were scoured for turkeys, geese etc. The turkeys cost about 40 lei, or about 22s, as compared with a peace time price of about 4s for a good large bird. Chickens, however, were a reasonable price – about 1s 6d each. We got about seven turkeys, a duck, and eighteen chickens (the natives would not sell their geese) when, just a few days before Xmas, we received orders to embark on barges, to go down the Danube to Silistra. Our prospects for Xmas Day did not look very rosy, especially when we heard that we had to take three weeks’ rations – iron rations of course – with us! However we brought our poultry with us – alive. Turkeys, 7; ducks, 1; chickens, 18; were taken on to the establishment of the Company and rationed accordingly.12 (Capt Melville Rattray)

  The sappers embarked on barges on 23 December and crossed the Danube to Rustchuk to draw rations. They spent Christmas Eve being towed along the river by a Bulgarian tugboat, arriving at Silistra at 1830 hrs:

  Consequently . . . Xmas Day was to us an ordinary working day. Any attempt at properly celebrating the day would have to be carried out in adverse circumstances, for we were in the unsuitable condition of ‘shifting’, and making a new camp; everything was in an unsettled state, and there was plenty of work to do. Though we had the turkeys, we had nothing in which to roast them, and proper ‘jollifications’ could not be organized while we were busy unloading barges, making many journeys with equipment and three weeks’ rations to our new camp, and settling down in it. Consequently it was decided to wait till we had got properly settled down, and to hold our ‘Xmas’ on New Year’s Day. It was merely a postponement and not an abandonment of the event . . . Thus our first ‘peace’ Xmas – though we made up later – was as far as the actual date itself was concerned worse than our ‘war’ ones. It was just an ordinary working day, and bully beef was our Xmas fare – with no extras!13 (Capt Melville Rattray)

  As the New Year approached, the Company, along with most of 79th Brigade, were well billeted in and around Silistra. More turkeys and even some geese had been purchased and a number of pianos, discovered in a former Bulgarian barracks, had been distributed among units, allowing evening sing-songs to take place. All now awaited their belated Christmas celebration when at 2300 hrs on New Year’s Eve word came from 79th Brigade HQ to expect disturbances the following day:

  Consequently, on New Year’s morning all paraded with steel helmets, armed for all eventualities, and piled arms, ready to move at a moment’s notice – an inauspicious start to the New Year of Peace! However, preparations for celebrating the day were not interrupted on that account, and all had a good ‘Xmas’ breakfast, remarking that it would be bad for any ‘rioters’ who disturbed them. As the day wore on and all was quiet, it became apparent that there was nothing doing in the ‘disturbances’ line, and the celebrations of the day were continued with. The annual Xmas football match between the Sappers and Drivers was played, and on this occasion the Sappers by no means had it all their own way, winning an even match by 1–0. Then all settled down to an excellent dinner of turkey, goose, plum pudding, beer, etc, and with a free issue of cigarettes and canteen goods, followed in the evening by a rum issue and a concert – accompanied on the piano – all spent an enjoyable day.14 (Capt Melville Rattray)

  Not all British troops in the territory of their former enemies were part of the occupation forces. In various locations men who had been prisoners of war were still awaiting repatriation. The poor transport network in places such as Anatolia in central Turkey and the vacuum left by the collapse of national and regional governments across the former Central Powers made the process of returning these men home a slow one. At Langensalza prisoner-of-war camp, between Mühlhausen and Erfurt in Germany, 2,000 British and a number of French prisoners had started on the journey of repatriation. Even so, this still left a large number of men facing Christmas in the camp:

  As Christmas drew near an attempt was made to cheer us up somewhat and on the Sunday evening before Christmas there was a carol service in the church, the men joining heartily in the singing of carols. A Cpl of the Royal Artillery sang ‘The Holy City’ as a solo, the men joining in the chorus. Altogether it was a very helpful service and the hut was full. What the German sentry thought who stood outside I often wondered. The contrast on returning to the huts was great. There men were gambling, swearing and singing ribald songs. The service did not appeal to all the men and I overheard one NCO remark ‘This after that!’

  When Christmas day came it required a very big effort of will power to get the Christmas spirit and in spite of the Christmas morning service most felt terribly homesick, especially at the service, although two men in the choir very valiantly sang, ‘Good King Wenceslaus’, but somehow it all went flat. Nevertheless the group did its best afterwards to shake off the feeling, which like seasickness required an effort of will.

  Just before the service a Russian came into our hut with a bottle in his arms that looked very much like a bottle of champagne and Paddy spotted it. The bottle was full and sealed and Paddy was determined to beat the Russian in a bargain over it and we all thought it would help in celebrating the Christmas dinner and so Paddy bargained. ‘Hello Ruskie, what have you got there?’ Ruskie, ‘A bottle of champagne.�
�� ‘Don’t believe you,’ said Paddy, ‘but anyhow what will you take for it?’ ‘A bar of soap,’ said Ruskie. Soap was precious, ‘Oh no,’ said Paddy, ‘I will give you a packet of tea.’ The Russian refused but after a good deal of bargaining Paddy eventually got it for a ¼ lb tin of cocoa . . .

  After the service on Christmas day we set to and prepared the Christmas dinner. There was plenty of food and the menu was:

  Stewed up pork and beans

  Maconochies Prepared Dinners

  Consisting of meat, potatoes, beans or peas and parsnips.

  Tinned ham or bully beef.

  Christmas Pudding.

  The pudding was a great success the ingredients being boiled rice well mixed up with tinned rice and a spoonful or two of cocoa and sugar. It was not exactly Christmas pudding as generally understood but we succeeded in getting the colour right. Then came the champagne and the usual toasts, but when it was poured into our cups, although it fizzed all right we all felt suspicious and a tasting found it to be ordinary mineral water that could be obtained in the canteen. Poor Paddy. What he said about the Ruskie could not be written, but he swore by all saints that if he caught him he would boil him in mineral water. After dinner the afternoon was spent in walking it off round the camp and kicking a football about.

  A concert in the evening and a quiet talk and read by a light, improvised out of dripping with a bit of rag soaked in the said dripping, and Christmas day was finished.

  We were cheered up next morning with the news that another 2000 would leave camp on the Saturday. (Rfm Harry Gore, 12th Rifle Brigade)

  The inmates of Langensalza camp were not alone in having dealings with Russians that winter. During 1918, the Allies had begun to commit troops to far-flung parts of the former Tsarist Empire in an attempt to curb German territorial ambitions and to secure large stockpiles of arms and munitions that had been sent to aid the Russian war effort. Once Germany surrendered, the threat of their pre-eminence in the region was at an end. However, the Allied governments, rather than pull their forces out of Russia, became embroiled in a muddled and half-hearted attempt to support anti-Bolshevik ‘White’ forces. At the north Russian ports of Archangel and Murmansk could be found some 30,000 men, almost half of whom were British, under Gen Edmund Ironside. In south Russia former members of the British Salonika Force could be found at Sevastopol in the Crimea, Batoum in Georgia and even Baku on the Caspian Sea; the latter two locations being important for their oil. Troops from Mesopotamia were also involved in these operations, forming the largest contingent of the occupation force at Baku. Finally, there was a multinational Allied force, under Gen Alfred Knox, operating in Siberia along the Trans-Siberian Railway from the port of Vladivostok. For the troops in Siberia and northern Russia the harshness of the winter climate kept military operations to a minimum as the major battle was simply to keep warm: