Christmas 2025
That time again...
In 1914, there was a much celebrated truce on some parts of the Western Front on 25 December.
This painting, very much post-war, may or may not be an accurate depiction of what happened between the lines that day. The "Christmas Truce" of 1914 did not happen again in any subsequent year, which the careful scholar must regard as…curious. Did the blood get to be too much?
In Steele’s Battalion: The Great War Diaries, Ned wrote this on 25 December 1917:
25th December, Camp Steele, Etaples, France.
Another Christmas away from home; was in Mexico last year. The boys found a tree, decorated it with shell casings and ammo strips. They scrounged a piano from somewhere. Someone had a squeezebox; another a fiddle; another a guitar; others played the spoons and harmonicas.
The YWCA and Red Cross gals joined us for the party, sang hymns and carols and dance hall tunes all night. The cooks prepared goose, found cranberries and made stuffing with some sort of sausage.I couldn’t have had a better Christmas anywhere.
They had a new verse to “Mademoiselle from Armentières:”
“You might forget the gas and shell
But you’ll never forget the Mademoiselle!
Rinky-dinky parley-vous!”I only hope we won’t still be doing this next Christmas.
And they didn’t.