Newly discovered letter reveals what really happened during the 1914 Christmas Day truce

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

A newly discovered letter throws more light on the Christmas truce in 1914

The Christmas truce may have become one of the defining episodes that shapes our perception of trench warfare in the First World War, but a recently discovered letter shows how the event impacted on the soldiers on the front line in 1914.

According to a previously unpublished letter, discovered in Staffordshire County Council Archives written by a General on the day it happened, the news of the 1914 Christmas Day football match spread through the trenches like wildfire.

In the letter to his wife, written on Christmas Day, General Walter Congreve VC explains the extraordinary circumstances around the Christmas Truce of 1914 with vivid descriptions of soldiers sharing cigars, singing songs and walking about together in No-Man’s-Land.

Congreve, who led the Rifles Brigade, was positioned at British Headquarters near Neuve Chapelle in Northern France.

His letter reveals how it was the Germans who had called for a day’s truce, which was agreed to when one of his men bravely came out of the trenches to agree to it.

The letter reads: “…after lunch took down to the N. Staffords in my old trenches at Rue du Bois Mother’s gifts of toffee, sweets, cigarettes, pencils, handkerchiefs & writing paper.

“There I found an extraordinary state of affairs – this a.m. a German shouted out that they wanted a day’s truce & would one come out if he did; so very cautiously one of our men lifted himself above the parapet and saw a German doing the same.

“Both got out then more and finally all day long in that particular place they have been walking about together all day giving each other cigars and singing songs. Officers as well as men were out and the German Colonel himself was talking to one of our Captains.”

Congreve goes on to describe how one of his men “said he had had a fine day of it and had smoked a cigar with the best shot in the German army, then not more than 18.”

The letter also reveals how the truce wasn’t adhered to right across the line as Congreve describes how “2 battalions opposite each other… (were) shooting away all day and so I hear it was further north, 1st R.B. playing football with the Germans opposite them - next Regiments shooting each other.”

When was asked if he would like to venture into No Mans Land to meet the Germans himself, the general admitted to his wife that he demurred on the grounds that “I thought they might not be able to resist a General.”

Congreve, a career soldier who had been awarded a VC during the Boer War, survived the trenches but lost his left hand in June 1917 while in command of 13 Corps. He died on February 28 1927 in Malta aged 66.

Anthony Richards, Head of Documents and Sound at the Imperial War Museum said that although there were “various accounts of the Christmas Truce story” the newly discovered letter was “a particularly interesting addition”.

“Congreve’s description broadly matches those incidents known to have occurred at that time, with both sides fraternising in No Man's Land between the trenches.”

For the Staffordshire Regiment Museum, Joss Musgrove Knibb, whose book First Lines is a collection of previously unpublished letters, written by Staffordshire Regiment soldiers on the Western Front, said the letter added to the “comparatively small but incredibly important national cache of letters written during the days of the Christmas Truce”.

“Many details it contains are corroborated,” she said, “by a letter held in the Museum's archives written by Captain Reginald Armes, an Officer of the 1st North Staffords who also witnessed this extraordinary event.

“It is a treasure, made all the more remarkable that it has only come to light a century after the events it describes."

The Christmas Truce is believed to have been in place from Christmas Eve for around 48 hours, although in some sections of the line it is reported to have lasted much longer. The 1st North Staffords were in the Rue du Bois area in a section of trench known as 'Dead Man's Alley' from December 11th to December 31st.

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Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk//history-and-heritage/military-history/first-world-war/art508591-newly-discovered-letter-adds-to-knowledge-of-1914-christmas-day-truce