CHRISTMAS TRUCE

New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 8981, 2 March 1915, Page 7

CHRISTMAS TRUCE

INCIDENTS AT THE FRONT ENGLISH AND GERMAN SOLDIERS FRATERNISE. From Our Special CorrespondentLONDON, January 8. Letters arc only just arriving in London which show how Christmas Day was celebrated at the front. The Pope’s appeal for a general armistice on Christmas Day was rejected, but tho soldiers nevertheless carried out tho suggestion of their own accord wherever possible. The amazing accounts of the fraternising that took place between the trenches aro fully borne out by tho statements made by officers and men who have since come homo on leave. A British officer states that on Christmas Eve his section of the line, and he believes it was tbo same nearly ail along, arranged an unofficial armistice, each side agreeing not to shoot if tho other did not. That night lots of English and Germans met between tbo two lines and had talks, the Germans giving boxes of cigars to our men and we giving them hot tea and cigarettes. On Christmas morning there was a hard frost and a thick mist. When tho mist lifted onr troops saw the Germans sitting all along the top of their, parapet. ' So our men got right out in front of the trenches, and the Germans did likewise. Officers and men of the opposing hosts, mot jn the middle and fraternised. ' But neither side would let tho other over tho halfway lino. Most of the Germans could speak a little English, and there was not much difficulty in talking. Later on in tho day .the two sides actually organised football matches "and bicycle races between the trenches, the bikes being old machines without tyres found in tho ruins of neighbouring houses. Presents were exchanged, between tho men,. These consisted of all manner of odd things, sweets, cakes, braces, neckties, buttons, and so forth. AMIABLE FELLOWS. Tho Germans at this particular point belonged to the Saxon Corps. They 1 are amiable fellows who have none of the hatred of England that inspires the' Prussian breast. The .Bavarians'were equally-well disposed on Christmas Day. They hold another point along .the lino, and greeted our Tommies from their trenches on Christmas morning by shouting, without showing-themselves, however, “Englishmen, merry Christmas, . Englishmen.” Thereupon our men responded with shouts ot “Merry Christmas, Fritz,” and ‘‘Many. Happy, Returns.” Tho Bavarians shouted “You no shoot; wo no shoot.” " An English Tommy at once climbed over the front of his trench, and, taking his life in his hands, walked straight up to the Bavarians’ trench where ho handed them a Christmas, cake just sent out from home. It was accepted with grateful courtesy, aid the Tommy came back loaded with cigars. ,011 this all the men on both sides turned out, shook hands, swopped experiences by pantomime and such words as they knew, and sang songs to each other. It was a sort of al fresco , Christmas Day smoking con-cert-and Germans and- British vied with each other in applauding each other’s songs. According to ono account the Bavarians suggested that in future,, while they were* in the trenches, our men should fire high and they would do the like. Such episodes as these amaze and oven startle civilians. But they have made no difference whatever in the ferocity of tho fighting that has since (ensued, ahd i thfey are tho commonplaces of military history. Tho troops ot opposing armies have fraternised on occasion since the days of Caesar and Pompey and before. Similtir things' occurred in 1870 and in tho Peninsular and Crimea. Yet since these Christmas* stories have reached England one often hoars people speculating on the possibility of the rank and file of the opposing hosts ultimately chumming up and refusing to go on with the war. If that happened this war might indeed be the end of war, but it is the idlest fancy. FOND OF TRENCH LIFE. Mr Lees Smith, M.P., who has been at the front since the outbreak of war, asserts that a certain number of menu who must have the blood of the old) care dwellers still in their veins, have grown so accustomed to the existence of the trenches that they are always indignant when they are relieved. j “Men have complained to me,” ho says, “when for some reason,they have! been drawn from the fighting zone, 1 that they cannot sleep in tho unnatural quiet of a world whore no shells are. to bo heard in the night.” Mr Lees ■Smith was struck by something distinctive about ono of tho orderlies. He found that ho was one of our most distinguished playwrights—“ono whom I should certainly place among the first six English masters of tho art, and one, whose plays are being performed in Lon-1 don at the present time.” Mr Lcesi Smith describes the dressing of a badi wound. ‘.‘Thinking that the poor fellow who was to bo subjected to’tins torture —a Frenchman—nlTist bo more than usually nervous at finding himself surrounded by a solemn group, I said to him that ive had not coma there to hurt him. Ho replied, ‘Do, not bo, afraid of hurting mo ns much as youj like. This suffering will soon be over, but if I lose my log my wife and children will suffer for the rest of their lives.’ Poor fellow! His. courage did not help him. I have learnt since that his log was amputated at tho hip.”