Letters home told Christmas truce story
Historian has uncovered accounts how war’s enemies traded handshakes, carols
It was Christmas morning near Ypres, and the men of the Toronto Regiment were waking up in their chilled, fetid trenches.
Swells of chlorine gas had floated across no man’s land a few days earlier. Shells and sharpshooters’ bullets before that.
But on this mild Christmas Day, there was only the sound of young voices singing “The Maple Leaf Forever” — in German accents.
The Christmas truce occupies a special place in First World War history.
Tales have been told for more than 100 years of battle-weary men clambering out of the trenches on Dec. 25, 1914, to exchange gifts, sing carols, even play soccer with their erstwhile enemies.
Popular history holds that, after that first chummy Christmas in the trenches, the two sides hunkered down for war, never again trading their rifles for peace on earth.
But letters from the Western Front, sent home by Canadian soldiers, are helping one historian tell the highly censored, largely forgotten story of Christmas truces throughout the war.
“To my great surprise, there was almost an avalanche of (letters) coming down on me,” said Thomas Weber, chair of history and international affairs at the University of Aberdeen.
“It seemed that everyone thought . . . it was an interesting curiosity but nothing more than that.”
One of those letters was written by the Toronto Regiment’s Capt. Stephen Hobdey, about the Ypres truce in 1915.
“The men of one of our battalions walked halfway across no man’s land and were met by two Germans with whom they shook hands, and exchanged buttons and addresses,” he wrote. “There was a great deal of cheering from both sides.”
Since 2010, Weber has been collecting old correspondence and family stories from around the globe, in an effort to publish a history of First World War truces — a topic that, until now, many experts had got wrong, he said.
“We have fallen victim to war censorship of the time,” said Weber, a German who works in Scotland but spends part of each year in his wife’s hometown of Toronto.
“If you want to make sure that the men of your country are willing to fight and risk their lives . . . you would want to make sure that you present the other side as a worthwhile and serious enemy to fight.”
Military authorities, trying to preserve the “us versus them” narrative, condemned and covered up Christ- mas truces, Weber said, but they weren’t able to censor every letter home.
Shortly after Christmas 1916, Toronto-born Pte. Ronald MacKinnon wrote to his sister from Vimy Ridge.
“We had a truce on Xmas Day, and our German friends were quite friendly,” wrote MacKinnon, who was killed in action at Vimy around April 9, 1917.
“They came over to see us and we traded bully (corned) beef for cigars. Xmas was ‘tray bon,’ which means very good.”
For Sgt. A.C. Livingston, who survived the war and settled in rural British Columbia, the Vimy truce mingled with more solemn memories.
“When dad spoke of the war it always made his eyes fill, remembering all the young men who did not make it home,” said his daughter, Pat Widdifield.
There were some stories of tenderness and humour from that Christmas at Vimy Ridge, though.
“Silent Night” being sung over no man’s land by Canadians and Germans. The trading of unwanted Canadian rations for German tobacco.
“The Canadian troops figured they were coming out ahead on the (gift) exchange because the prime thing they used their cans and crates of bully beef for was to line the bottom of the trenches to keep them out of the ever-present mud,” said Widdifield.
Not all veterans were as forthcoming about the truces, said Weber.
“It was not a very good story, when you realize that maybe half your village didn’t come home, to say, ‘Well, I had a jolly old time with the Germans over Christmas,’ ” Weber said.
While doing research in Britain, Weber found one regiment’s official diaries from the front, describing friendly interactions with the Germans. But when those diaries were published as a book after the war, all mention of fraternization had been cut out.
During the war, officers were known to have sharpshooters or artillery open fire the moment soldiers began to get too friendly with the other side.
Still, the men in the trenches went out of their way to share goodwill at Christmas.
For Weber, these interactions are a source of insight not just into the history of war but the complexity of human conflict.
A willingness to fight for your country does not preclude the ability to see your enemy as a human being, or to share moments of warmth at Christmas, Weber said.
“Maybe it’s human nature, not just in the First World War but also today.”