Christmas in the trenches 1914

[downbeatplumb]

And then the senseless, useless, pointless butchery continued for another four years. A Christmas miracle if ever there was one.

Boru

It ended on new years eve with this.

the Cameronians, to whom Hogmanay was traditionally an uproarious occasion, were ‘petrified’ to see ‘Private McN.’, who had been unwisely left in charge of a company rum jar, ‘minus his equipment, lurching along in No Man’s Land to the cheers and laughter of the Germans who sportingly did not fire. The entreaties and orders of friends passed unheeded, the delinquent merely pausing occasionally to take a mouthful of rum from the jar he was carrying. Pursuing his unsteady way, McN. came opposite the trenches of the adjacent battalion, where he received a peremptory warning to come in, or he would be arrested ... he took another “swig” and coolly remarked “Come oot and fetch us” - an offer which was, needless to say, declined’. Finally, writes Captain Jack, Private McN. collapsed into the British lines to sleep it off - and that was the last of the truce of 1914.