Christmas 1915

[Oasis]

It was the first Christmas day of war when the soldiers on the western front began to sing and came out from the trenches, exchanging itself cigarettes and cakes in the no-man's land. Some of they improvised short soccer matches. “I remember silence, an unnatural one. We shouted `Merry Christmas' even if nobody felt happy. Silence it ended in the early afternoon and the killings began all over again”. The small miracle of humanity made fly into a rage military HQs, that took iron countermeasures in order to avoid it to repeat. It was thus that the day of Christmas of 1915, only the noise of the grenades was heard.

Merry Christmas to everybody !!!

Toni

[sunbury2]

Henry Williamson in his series "A Chroncile of Ancient Sunlight" about pre WW1 Britian through to the end of WW1. Williamson fought from 1914-1918. In his book covering 1915 ( A Fox Under My Cloak) he wrote that on Christmas Eve the Guards Division brought their Band to the frontline to play Christmas Carols. At midnight they called in the artillery.