Podcast Host (3:17)

Great. So we've got spontaneous acts of fraternization people coming together in 1914. So Alex, I wanted to ask you specifically about one story associated with the Christmas truce that people listening at home definitely will have heard of. So this is the legendary football match that took place between German and British soldiers on Christmas Day 1914. So in your words, what do people think happened on that day and why might the reality not be what people expect?

Alex Churchill (Historian) (3:53)

So I think what people think happened is the equivalent of a Premier League football match with thousands of people watching on a vast open space in no man's land where there were goal posts and referees and it was all organized and official. The first thing I always say to people is think about it. No man's land is full of shell holes. You're not going to get very far playing like on a full size football pitch because it's going to be full of holes. Also, where do officials come from? There's no neutrals there, there's no goal post, there's no. So I think there are isolated kick abouts and definitely footballs do appear. People did have footballs in the trenches. For instance, Chelsea Football Club sent 50 footballs to Chelsea fans that they knew were in the army and have a list of the guys that got them. Most of them aren't in the front lines. They're in like the lines of supply and lines of communication. So they might have had a better opportunity, but they wouldn't have been playing against the enemy. But Chelse, he didn't have any footballs left to train with because they accidentally sent almost all of them to the Western front and beyond. So yeah, people did kick footballs around. The word football does come up. The idea that sort of, I think there's a film, isn't there, with Sylvester Stallone randomly? I think that whole image of a giant football game and a big coming together is not on the Western front, I'm afraid. In 1914.

Podcast Host (5:17)

No, unfortunately. I mean it's a nice cinematic story, isn't it? But as you say, it's an exaggeration of what really happened. So where do you think this story comes from. And why does it appeal so strongly to us? I mean, here in the uk, it was even the focus of a supermarket Christmas advert in 2014. What is it about the football myth that so strongly appeals?

Alex Churchill (Historian) (5:44)

I think, first off, it is a romantic story, and it is kind of nice to think that everybody put down their guns on Christmas Day in 1914 and cuddled each other and decided not to fight a war. And there's historians as well that put forward the idea that it's some form of mass disobedience as well, and a refusal to engage. So I think that's where the myth starts to grow.

Podcast Host (6:07)

But, yeah, it didn't happen, so it didn't happen. Although. Although, as you said previously, you know, there were footballs on the trenches. People sent footballs on the trenches, and there were definitely isolated kickabouts that happened. So, leaving football aside, are there any case studies of fraternization, of putting down your weapons of a truce that you can tell our listeners about?

Alex Churchill (Historian) (6:35)

My favorite story about the Christmas truce is there was a territorial officer, so his day job. He was a languages master at Eton, and he taught French and German, and he had lived in Germany and his name was George Fletcher, and he loved the Germans and his line of trenches. He was serving with a Welsh Battalion in 1914 at Christmas, and he was actually really close to the enemy opposite. And in the weeks running up to Christmas, he kind of went on this relentless campaign. Two sides to it. One was to convince his Italian commander that they should pause the war and have a Christmas, and the other was to convince the Germans by shouting at them in German from his trench that they should organize a party. And I think the Germans were going to get the short end of the stick because they were supposed to bring the sausage and the beer. And George was like, we'll bring the plum pudding and we'll get to plum pudding and what foreigners make of it later on, I think, because there's some hilarious French responses to what you do with a plum pudding. But George tried to get this going and his commanding officer told him to stop being an idiot. And the Germans weren't really that responsive. I think there was some singing backwards and forwards in the days leading up to Christmas. So when people started popping over the trenches on Christmas Day in 1914, he was a bit miffed because nothing really happened on his front with the Welsh battalion, so he went for a wander. So he wandered down to a Scottish battalion next door, and actually, that's where he experienced the Christmas truce. And, yes, there were men running around with. And I think he swapped business cards with some Germans, they had a chat, they shared some cigarettes and then it kind of got a bit rowdy and the men were scampering in and out of each other's trenches and he saw one of the Scotsmen kind of like lumping back towards the British trenches with a heater under his arm that he'd either stolen or a German had given him. And I think George says at that point we kind of thought there's probably a lot of future reconnaissance that might do us in going on at the moment. And I think we need to be a bit more sensible about letting the enemy rampage around our lines. So they kind of put a stop and called everybody back. So that's a good example of what did happen. And it does have participation from both Germans and British.

Podcast Host (8:41)

I absolutely love that story. So obviously at the end, George realised that maybe fraternizing with the enemy might have some unintended consequences. You know, they're seeing their side of the line. Do you think when he was on his initial campaign to get his fellow men and the Germans to take up a celebration of Christmas, would it have been shocking? Would you know, would his comrades have thought it a bit strange that he was wanting to go and befriend the Germans?

Alex Churchill (Historian) (9:11)

I think with George, So yes, he wants to befriend them and he clearly likes the Germans, but then he also likes mocking them as well. So the thing that ultimately gets him killed in 1915 is the fact that the Germans have got this French flag that they have captured, that they have hung from a tree in the trenches of. I say trenches, but where he was, the water level was so high that actually what they had done was build parapets up so their lines were kind of above ground and they were dangling this French flag and mocking people with it. And so George decided to go on this one man trench raid where he stripped down to his underwear and crawled across no man's land and stole it back, raised it above his own trench and started mocking the Germans. And then a week later he was killed by a sniper. But that battered, discolored French flag is actually hanging in the chapel at Eton College. His father, they sent it to his father and his father gave it to the school. So it hangs just in a little corner of the chapel and his initials are on the wall next to it. So although he did want to fraternise and he did like Germans, I don't think people regarded him as bonkers because he clearly knew they were the enemy.

Podcast Host (10:18)

As well, sure, he still had a line there. So beyond stories of individual fraternisation like the one with George you've just talked about, what was the broad consensus on the different fronts on Christmas Day 1914? So did the fighting officially stop anywhere?

Alex Churchill (Historian) (10:38)

I think fighting didn't officially stop. I think people. So on the Western Front it's very much a spontaneity. So it's very much like. So for instance, Georgia's battalion couldn't be bothered and they didn't. But that's not to say that they wanted to fight the war that day. If you go onto the Eastern Front, it's really interesting to look at it because the Russians obviously are Orthodox and this is where it starts to get fuzzy because Christmas is a different day for the Russians. Cause they're still on older calendar at this point. So I think their Christmas is round about the 7th of January. But they consider, like the Russians as well at the beginning of the war were really opposed to shelling churches. Like the first thing that happens on the Western Front is that all of the church towers come down because they're brilliant for artillery observation on the Eastern Front. The Russians really don't want to do that. They think it's sacrilege. They really hold their religion dear. And so for that reason they have a deeply religious reason for not wanting to fight on Christmas Day, whatever day it falls on. And as well, I think you as well, on the Eastern Front, the religious connotations are much bigger. So they're actually just as likely to truce on the Eastern Front at Easter because the Germans really value Easter as well. But it's huge for the Russians. And whereas 1914 is like a one off on the Western Front because people start getting into trouble if they try and do it again. It continues to happen at Easter and at Christmas and they kind of. They let each other come out and bury their dead. And there's a lot more longevity to it on the Eastern Front than you find on the Western Front. And there's, I think, a much heavier weight of religion dictating how people behave as well, and why they decide that they don't wanna fight that day, or why they decide that it's kind of appropriate to let your enemy come out and collect his dead for a burial detail and things like that. Sure.

Podcast Host (12:22)

So when we're describing the Christmas truce or in fact, you know, some of the holiday truces that you've just described on the Eastern Front, it's more accurate to think of them as more temporary ceasefires for a day. You know, resting and tending to the de, rather than these widespread movements where enemies became friends.

Alex Churchill (Historian) (12:44)

It's weariness as well. I mean, the motivating factor is I just don't want to do this today. And that's understandable. I mean, you're living in a miserable trench in the middle of winter. Do you know what? You might sit there and go, I'm having a day off, I'm not doing this today. And that's perfectly valid. And it's a big motivating factor with soldiers as well, where they're just. Just don't want to kill people today.

Podcast Host (13:07)

Yeah, that makes sense. And one thing I'm curious about is we mainly, on the Western Front, at least I know you've mentioned on the Eastern Front that religion meant that truces would happen, you know, repeatedly and in later years. But on the Western Front, it only really happens in 1914. So what happens in the later years of the war? What happens in 1915 there?

Alex Churchill (Historian) (13:30)

So in 1915, there's kind of rumblings from the authorities of saying, like, don't be doing that again. I think it's unique to 1914 because the war was only a few weeks old. I don't think they expected to be in those trenches for another four years. Also, as well, the armies are smaller as well. So you have things like Queen Mary organizes the Princess Mary gift tin, which you might have seen, which is a gold tin that went out to everybody and it had cigarettes in it and some chocolate, and you can pick them up on ebay and they're fantastic and they're way more valuable if they've still got the contents in them. But there was a little card in there as well, and one got sent to every soldier, which was a delightful idea for 1914. Couldn't do it in 1915, 16, 17, because the army just grows at such a rate that. Actually, I've seen letters in the Royal Archive where they start talking about it in about September 1915, saying, Are we going to do this again? And the postal authorities say, please don't. We can't handle it. We cannot handle that volume dumped on top of everything else, on top of all the other Christmas packages people are sending to the front, like with Christmas puddings in and cigarettes and presents, and people wanted to send their loved ones stuff. Like, we already have a massive volume of stuff, and we cannot cope with that as well. So that doesn't happen again as well. The authorities are more. I think they're more worn down by 1915 as well, so they're just like they don't want to play anymore. And I think there's an idiocy when you think about it, to spending all year trying to keep the enemy out of your trench and then letting them come in for a cigarette on Christmas Day and observe everything that's going on in your trench and where your machine guns are. So I think there's a sense to banning it. But there's one case study which is, again, this is another Etonian and he's an officer in the Scots Guard who gets in a lot of trouble. His officer service file is fat with disciplinary stuff that was taken against him in 1917 because it was reported that some of his men engaged in a truce with the enemy. So on the Western front, by the time you get to 1917, it's not only do they not want them doing it, but you get in trouble if you try. And as I said, on the Eastern Front, they're still participating in truces at this point. And on a much larger. It was always on a larger scale on the Eastern front than on the Western front. So, yeah, by 1917, you would actively be on disciplinary charges if you tried.

Podcast Host (15:54)

I guess from the perspective of military officers, you know, people higher up, truces must have been seen as a bit of a risk because they humanized the enemy a bit. You know, you suddenly start seeing your enemy as an equal or a peer. That could be potentially dangerous.

Alex Churchill (Historian) (16:12)

Yeah, you don't want. I mean, it's harder to shoot someone who you've shared a cigarette with or swapped a business card with, or who's given you a heater for your trench cause you're cold. So absolutely, it does humanize your enemy. And I think as well that you spend the entire year, again, dehumanizing the enemy. You call them the Hun, you've got nicknames for them, you treat them like monsters. You expose people to massive amounts of propaganda as well. So the idea that actually they're just like you from a military discipline point of view and a military efficiency point of view, you really don't want that happening.

Podcast Host (16:44)

And you see that a little bit earlier on, don't you? In the George example, what started as a well intentioned event, towards the end, he was starting to think, actually, are we giving our enemy some intel here that we shouldn't be? I've realised we haven't discussed how these truces or ceasefires unfolded. So how did that happen?

Alex Churchill (Historian) (17:05)

I think it's individual because they're spontaneous acts all the way up the front. If you're talking about the Western Front. It's just a case of each individual spot where they happen. So for instance, on George's front, I think he basically said it dawned, nothing happened, couple of people stuck their heads up, waved a white flag, and then someone decided to chance it. But it did require, and I think in George's story, the Germans come out first and then the British go, well, if they're coming out, then they're clearly not going to shoot us, so we'll go out. But it was a leap of faith for each individual thing because there was no structure to it and it wasn't planned. There was no sort of knowing what would happen. So you had to take this giant leap of faith in some cases and to come out over the Trents and just hope that on this day the German opposite you wasn't going to shoot at you.

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Podcast Host (21:05)

So Alex, earlier on in the podcast you mentioned a French officer receiving a plum pudding from British and you actually showed me a picture of this before we started the podcast and it is very entertaining. He's holding this Christmas pudding. He looks like he's taken a bite out of it and he looks quite, you know, kind of bewildered by what he's eating. So I wanted to ask you more about the plum puddings. So am I correct in thinking that these were sent to the trenches in the run up to Christmas 1914? What can you tell us about that?

Alex Churchill (Historian) (21:39)

So first of all, the plum pudding thing is rampant from Douglas Haig at the top gets a plum pudding sent to him earlier in 1914, I think, and enjoys it so much because they keep they ship quite well. So he had eaten it and he felt awful about asking his wife for another one because obviously his men can't just demand Harrods or Fortnum and Mason plum pudding sent to them. And JM Barrie as well, he had the Llewellyn Davis boys, who he had adopted after they were orphans prior to the First World War. And George Llewellyn Davis was in the trenches in 1914 and 15, and he sent him huge hampers from Fortnum and Mason to share around. And it was very much like, you didn't get your package and just hog it all yourself. Cause that made you not nice. So you would share it with everybody. And he sent him enough stuff for all the offices in his battalion. But these plum puddings were everywhere. And one of my favorite images of Christmas, so I have an image of a Frenchman and I think the caption just says like a Frenchman has been given a plum pudding by the British. And he's kind of sitting there and he. And he's eating it like a sandwich because he doesn't quite know what to do with it. So I've always loved that picture and I tweet it out every Christmas and I put it on social media yesterday or the day before. I was just rambling through a whole collection of French caricatures and satirical art that was produced in the First World War. And I found this single page. It is essentially, it's about eight different bits. It's a comic strip of French people trying to figure out what to do with a blonde pudding. And the guy's like, oh, pour some rum on it. Oh, I've set fire to it. And then in the end it just ends up like someone throws it and it hits him in the head and knocks him out. And they don't get it. It's similar if you've got any French friends and you ever want amusement, feed them baked beans because their faces are hilarious. And it's the same with the plum pudding. So, yeah, I think there's some cross cultural differences that when you start sharing stuff around and giving things to your neighbors, they're kind of. I don't even know what I'm looking at right now.

Podcast Host (23:30)

I guess plum pudding was. Is a really good food to send to the trenches because, you know, it's made of dried fruit, it's made of nuts, it's got lots of booze in, probably would keep for quite a long time. And it's very, very calorific.

Alex Churchill (Historian) (23:45)

Yes. It's not going to go off, is it? So it. Because it's all steeped in alcohol. So it was a perfect thing. I mean, and they're like a Brick. And I think that's one of the stills in the comic strip as well with, like, the guy says it's like a brick. So, yeah, it was. It was the perfect thing to send out. So, yeah, they kept very well on people. And then things like jars of jam and I think. So George Llewelyn Davis Hamper had foie gras in and stuff like that. So I think it depended on whether or not you had a wealthy playwright as your effective adopted dad, depended on whether you got the good stuff. But, yeah, people like Fortnum and Masons and Harrods would send out these huge hampers to order to the trenches.

Podcast Host (24:22)

Are there other domestic Christmas traditions that soldiers in the trenches tried to uphold? You mentioned plum pudding, but what else did people enjoy?

Alex Churchill (Historian) (24:34)

So on the Western Front, definitely there's the bird. So we had some great images. So I think I've. Anytime you see a picture of a soldier with a turkey, they look very smug if they've managed to get a turkey or a goose for Christmas. So there's great image of some officers in a dark dugout having a Christmas dinner as best they can on the Western Front. And then there's one from 1916 that's a bit odd, like. And it shows. I think it shows the development of the war and how people just became kind of like, numb to the horrors that they saw because they're sitting in a shell hole eating their Christmas dinner and there's actually a grave right next to them. And I don't think they didn't know it was there. Perhaps it was someone that was dear to them and they wanted to be with him for Christmas dinner. That wouldn't surprise me either. So, yeah, they're sitting in a shell hole, presumably quite a way behind the lines, otherwise they'd be insane. But, yeah, there's a grave right there. Like, literally, he's like, basically at the table with them with this wooden cross. So. Yeah. But places like Gallipoli, for instance, there are no shops, so you. There's no chance of finding a turkey on Gallipoli. And then, yeah, plum pudding would probably last to get sent out there. I'm not totally sure what the efficiency of the postal service was like for Gallipoli, but there's no kind of behind the lines where you can go shopping and buy stuff like there is in France and Belgium.

Podcast Host (25:52)

I'm really curious because the Christmas truce feels to me like a really World War I story. And that might be because of some of the myth making around it, especially around the football match. Idea. Why don't we hear about similar acts of fraternization in World War II or later conflicts?

Alex Churchill (Historian) (26:10)

I think, first of all, you do see stuff. So I did an article last Christmas and I went through wars and found it. And I found one from the Korean War where there were some notes going backwards and forwards and actually Christmas cards going backwards and forwards as well. And they didn't shoot at each other. For the purposes of the Second World War, you don't have those static trench lines. It's mechanized warfare. It's a different kind of warfare. You don't get that kind of environment like George Fletcher had, where you're 10ft away from an enemy and you can talk to him like, okay, so the. Yes, there was some static warfare in 1939, but the French were in the Maginot Line, so they're deep, deep underground. It's not like you can just stick your head up and lob a sausage over to your neighbour. So I think it's a different type of warfare, which is why you don't see that kind of spontaneous large scale, like, all over the front. You don't see it happening.

Podcast Host (27:02)

So one thing we've not talked about yet is what was going on back on the home front at Christmas time. And I know, for example, you've got a story to tell us about the British Royal Family and what they were doing during Christmas.

Alex Churchill (Historian) (27:16)

So ordinarily, obviously, the Royal Family spends Christmas at Sandringham. George V kind of let that go for the duration of the war to be nearer to London in case he was needed. And in 1916, actually, what was really interesting was that the Royal Family decided they were absolutely going to war that day. And George V's children kind of came of age in the First World War. So I think. Think David would have been 20. That's the future Duke of Windsor when the war started. And then the youngest, Johnny, would have been like nine, but the other five should do my count. Now, hang on. David, Bertie, Mary. Yeah, the other five all went to work with their parents on this day. And what they did was they went to a hospital in London, I think it was Wandsworth or Clapham, and they each got given a floor. And this was a huge deal for the likes of. Of Prince Harry, who would have been. So he was born in 1901, I think, so he's only 15. George was slightly younger than that. Mary had come of age. She was born in 1897, so she was slightly older. But this is very much their introduction to public life. Happens in the First World War. And on this day, they each got assigned a floor of the hospital. So the King was on one floor, the Queen was on another floor. And actually they were just told to go and meet the wounded soldiers and just be humans, be people, talk to them. This would be the only time they meet a member of the Royal Family. Just be nice. So I think you had Harry, I know, was. Definitely went down well, and George as well. The younger ones, they absolutely love to see these younger members of the Royal Family spending their Christmas Day on the hospital floor with them. I don't think they sent the children into any of the wards with the seriously wounded people, but, yeah, they sat with them, they talked, they gave them autographs, and I think, yeah, just basically spent the day with the wounded soldiers instead after they'd gone to church.

Podcast Host (29:08)

I mean, it's a really nice thing to do, isn't it? And I suppose in the eyes of the public, they would look quite good doing that. So what else was going on on the home front at Christmas? Obviously, ordinary people at home were hugely affected by what was going on.

Alex Churchill (Historian) (29:23)

I think so, because I think we always think about the soldiers in the trenches during the war and we don't think about the impact on other people. So obviously the wounded weren't at home, weren't with their families, a lot of them, and they're in hospital and they're suffering, but also as well as civilians, as the war goes on, people get more and more poor and stuff gets harder and harder to come by. And I think there's a great image of one of the big stores in Paris giving away toys in 1917 for children and just acknowledging this kind of deprivation that's descended on civilian life as well, like at Christmas. So you see these kind of. Of charitable endeavors, and there's a big one in 1914 where the Americans obviously aren't in the war at that point, and they fill a ship with toys and games and books for children, and they say it's just a private enterprise. And they send the ship to Europe to distribute to Belgian children, I think French children and British children as well, who. Who may not have anything because of the war. Because obviously the war is a huge disruptor to the economy as well. And I think 1914 is in that gap before you've shifted onto a wartime economy and got everybody into new kinds of employment. So in 1914, there's a big spike in people losing their jobs and things closing down. Just the one stat that sticks out of my head, there's a town in France, where their entire business was lace making. And I think there's like 30,000 people in the town and half of them are unemployed because suddenly nobody wants people handcrafting lace. So by 1915, they may have gone and got new jobs in factories, but in 1914, there was a spike in a lot of people being out of unemployment in Berlin. There's stories of all the domestic servants clustering around because they don't have anywhere to go and anywhere to work. And before they got rooted into wartime employment, there's a lot of hardship. So there's drives like that in 1914 as well.

Podcast Host (31:17)

I suppose another thing to mention is that on the home front in 1914, there was this. This home by Christmas idea, this widespread belief that World War I would be a short conflict. Many people in the run up to Christmas 1914 thought that all of the men would be home by then. Was this still in people's minds in December 1914?

Alex Churchill (Historian) (31:41)

I think by Christmas, people had kind of resigned themselves to the fact that clearly it wasn't over. So the big fight for the British on the Western Front sort of ends at mid November, beginning of November, and then peters out by mid November and people aren't coming home and it isn't over. So I think people have had some weeks to come to terms with the fact that the war isn't gonna be over. But there's definitely a sense of, well, next year everyone will be home and then I think, by Christmas 1917. So there's a definite line in the beginning of 1970s where the mood everywhere drops because people have just had enough. They've had enough of this war. There's no end in sight and they've kind of lost that enthusiasm then. They're not saying, like, everyone will be home by Christmas this year. They're kind of like they realize they've been sucked into this terminal thing with no way out. So people get less and less inclined to say that as the war goes on. But I think, yeah, in 1914, there's definitely a sense in many countries of people saying, oh, everyone will be home to next year and this will all be behind us.

Podcast Host (32:48)

I realise we're coming to the end of our conversation now, and my final question is about why we're so drawn to stories like the Christmas truce, especially stories that have been mythologized, like the football match, you know, it's not quite as accurate as we might think. Why do we enjoy these stories? Is it because they offer some meaning, beauty or hope in a conflict that was obviously otherwise very Overwhelmingly tragic, I think.

Alex Churchill (Historian) (33:20)

So don't forget that the First World War was the first global industrialized conflict and it was dehumanizing as well. So it's the first war really, where you started getting people getting telegrams saying, your son is missing in action and we don't know where he is and there's no answers. Think about it. Waterloo, you know where they are because it's one battlefield in one place. So he must be there somewhere. And there's maybe some comfort in that. But here you've got people waiting for years on end to find out even what's happened to their family and they're trying to rectify this in their heads that the authorities that put their loved one there can't tell them what happened to him. So it's massively dehumanizing. And I think it's one small element that we can cling to that shows that actually people were still human and still reasonable and still felt in all of this. So I think that's why people needed that romantic notion to cling to and why it did fire the imagination so much.

Podcast Host (34:20)

Thank you, Alex. It's been really interesting having you on the podcast today and for our listeners at home, if you've enjoyed listening to Alex bust the myth about the Christmas football truce match, I really recommend that you go onto the History Extra website or the History Extra app and both of links to these are in the description below where you will find our World War I Myths and Misconceptions Academy series. So this is a six part video series that Alex recorded with us earlier in the year and she goes through several myths about the First World War, from Franz Ferdinand all the way through to when the war ended. She covers it in six video episodes and it is really interesting stuff. So go and check that out. The links, as I said, are in the description of of this podcast. Alex, just to wrap up, if people want to know more about the football trees specifically, where should we point to.

Alex Churchill (Historian) (35:14)

Them, I would tell you to go online and look up anything written on it by TAF Gillingham. T A double F Gillingham. He's a historian. He runs this great place up in East Anglia called Great War Huts and he's written some really good stuff, some myth busting stuff, but also telling you what did happen as well. So he's put a lot of it into writing, whereas I haven't. So I recommend anything that he writes.

History Extra Narrator (35:36)

That was Alex Churchill. If you enjoyed hearing from Alex today, don't forget to check out her first World War myths and Misconceptions video series over on the History Extra app. Find a link in the episode description and we hope you all have a peaceful and relaxing festive season. We'll be back on Boxing Day with a look at the first King of England.

VRBO Advertiser (36:02)

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Shopify Advertiser (36:47)

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