what happened to jim that ended any hope of playing football again?
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Even at the distance of a century, no war seems more terrible than World War I. In the four years between 1914 and 1918, it killed or wounded more than 25 1000000 people–peculiarly horribly, and (in popular stance, at least) for less apparent purpose than did any other war earlier or since. Yet there were still odd moments of joy and promise in the trenches of Flanders and France, and i of the most remarkable came during the first Christmas of the state of war, a few brief hours during which men from both sides on the Western Front laid down their arms, emerged from their trenches, and shared food, carols, games and comradeship.
Their truce–the famous Christmas Truce–was unofficial and illicit. Many officers disapproved, and headquarters on both sides took stiff steps to ensure that it could never happen again. While it lasted, though, the truce was magical, leading even the sober Wall Street Periodical to observe: "What appears from the winter fog and misery is a Christmas story, a fine Christmas story that is, in truth, the most faded and tattered of adjectives: inspiring."
The first signs that something strange was happening occurred on Christmas Eve. At 8:30 p.g. an officer of the Royal Irish Rifles reported to headquarters: "Germans have illuminated their trenches, are singing songs and wishing us a Happy Xmas. Compliments are being exchanged but am nevertheless taking all military precautions." Further along the line, the two sides serenaded each other with carols—the German "Silent Night" being met with a British chorus of "The First Noel"—and scouts met, cautiously, in no man's state, the shell-blasted waste between the trenches. The war diary of the Scots Guards records that a certain Private Murker "met a German language Patrol and was given a glass of whisky and some cigars, and a message was sent back proverb that if we didn't fire at them, they would not fire at us."
The same basic understanding seems to have sprung upwards spontaneously at other spots. For some other British soldier, Private Frederick Heath, the truce began late that same night when "all down our line of trenches there came to our ears a greeting unique in war: 'English soldier, English soldier, a merry Christmas, a merry Christmas!'" And so–equally Heath wrote in a letter habitation–the voices added:
'Come out, English language soldier; come out hither to us.' For some little time we were cautious, and did not even answer. Officers, fearing treachery, ordered the men to be silent. Only upward and down our line ane heard the men answering that Christmas greeting from the enemy. How could we resist wishing each other a Merry Christmas, fifty-fifty though we might be at each other'southward throats immediately afterwards? So we kept up a running conversation with the Germans, all the while our easily ready on our rifles. Claret and peace, enmity and fraternity—war'due south most amazing paradox. The night wore on to dawn—a dark made easier past songs from the German trenches, the pipings of piccolos and from our wide lines laughter and Christmas carols. Non a shot was fired.
A German trench in Dec 1914. Workmanship was far less sophisticated than it became later in the state of war, and the muddy weather were terrible.
Several factors combined to produce the conditions for this Christmas Truce. By December 1914, the men in the trenches were veterans, familiar enough with the realities of gainsay to take lost much of the idealism that they had carried into war in Baronial, and near longed for an end to mortality. The state of war, they had believed, would be over past Christmas, yet in that location they were in Christmas week nevertheless dingy, common cold and in battle. And so, on Christmas Eve itself, several weeks of mild but miserably soaking atmospheric condition gave way to a sudden, hard frost, creating a dusting of ice and snow along the front end that fabricated the men on both sides feel that something spiritual was taking place.
Just how widespread the truce was is difficult to say. It was certainly not full general—at that place are enough of accounts of fighting continuing through the Christmas season in some sectors, and others of men fraternizing to the sound of guns firing nearby. One common cistron seems to accept been that Saxon troops—universally regarded as easygoing—were the most likely to exist involved, and to have made the first approaches to their British counterparts. "We are Saxons, y'all are Anglo-Saxons," i shouted across no human's land. "What is there for usa to fight about?" The most detailed estimate, made by Malcolm Brown of U.k.'due south Imperial War Museums, is that the truce extended along at least two-thirds of British-held trench line that scarred southern Belgium.
Men from the Royal Dublin Fusiliers meet their High german counterparts in no human being'due south state somewhere in the deadly Ypres Salient, December 26, 1914.
Even and so, accounts of a Christmas Truce refer to a intermission of hostilities but between the British and the Germans. The Russians, on the Eastern Front, still adhered to the onetime Julian calendar in 1914, and hence did not gloat Christmas until January 7, while the French were far more sensitive than their allies to the fact that the Germans were occupying almost a third of France—and ruling French civilians with some harshness.
It was simply in the British sector, so, that troops noticed at dawn the Germans had placed small Christmas trees along parapets of their trenches. Slowly, parties of men from both sides began to venture toward the barbed wire that separated them, until—Rifleman Oswald Tilley told his parents in a letter home—"literally hundreds of each side were out in no human'southward land shaking hands."
Communication could be difficult. German-speaking British troops were scarce, but many Germans had been employed in Britain before the war, frequently in restaurants. Helm Clifton Stockwell, an officer with the Royal Welch Fusiliers who found himself occupying a trench opposite the ruins of a heavily shelled brewery, wrote in his diary of "one Saxon, who spoke excellent English" and who "used to climb in some eyrie in the brewery and spend his fourth dimension asking 'How is London getting on?', 'How was Gertie Millar and the Gaiety?', and and so on. Lots of our men had blind shots at him in the dark, at which he laughed, one night I came out and called, 'Who the hell are yous?' At once came back the answer, 'Ah—the officeholder—I expect I know yous—I used to be caput waiter at the Great Cardinal Hotel."
Of course, but a few men involved in the truce could share reminiscences of London. Far more common was an interest in "football game"—soccer—which by then had been played professionally in Britain for a quarter-century and in Germany since the 1890s. Perhaps it was inevitable that some men on both sides would produce a ball and—freed briefly from the confines of the trenches—take pleasure in kick it about. What followed, though, was something more than than that, for if the story of the Christmas Truce has its jewel, information technology is the legend of the friction match played between the British and the Germans—which the Germans claimed to have won, three-2.
The first reports of such a contest surfaced a few days afterward; on January i, 1915, The Times published a letter written from a doctor fastened to the Burglarize Brigade, who reported "a football match… played between them and us in front of the trench." The brigade's official history insisted that no match took place considering "it would have been most unwise to permit the Germans to know how weakly the British trenches were held." Only there is enough of evidence that soccer was played that Christmas Day—by and large by men of the same nationality, but in at to the lowest degree three or four places between troops from the opposing armies.
A faded photo of the 133rd Royal Saxon Regiment's pre-war football game team was one of the souvenirs presented to Lieutenant Ian Stewart of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. Stewart remembered that the Saxons were "very proud" of their team'south quality.
The about detailed of these stories comes from the High german side, and reports that the 133rd Royal Saxon Regiment played a game confronting Scottish troops. Co-ordinate to the 133rd's War History, this match emerged from the "droll scene of Tommy und Fritz" chasing hares that emerged from under cabbages betwixt the lines, and so producing a ball to boot almost. Somewhen, this "developed into a regulation football game match with caps casually laid out as goals. The frozen ground was no not bad matter. Then nosotros organized each side into teams, lining upwards in motley rows, the football in the center. The game ended 3-2 for Fritz."
Exactly what happened betwixt the Saxons and the Scots is difficult to say. Some accounts of the game bring in elements that were actually dreamed up past Robert Graves, a renowned British poet, writer and state of war veteran, who reconstructed the encounter in a story published in 1962. In Graves's version, the score remains 3-2 to the Germans, but the author adds a sardonic fictional flourish: "The Reverend Jolly, our padre, acted as ref too much Christian charity—their outside left shot the deciding goal, just he was miles offside and admitted it as soon as the whistle went."
The real game was far from a regulated fixture with xi players a side and ninety minutes of play. In the one detailed eyewitness account that survives—albeit in an interview non given until the 1960s—Lieutenant Johannes Niemann, a Saxon who served with the 133rd, recalled that on Christmas morn:
the mist was slow to clear and suddenly my orderly threw himself into my dugout to say that both the High german and Scottish soldiers had come out of their trenches and were fraternizing along the forepart. I grabbed my binoculars and looking cautiously over the parapet saw the incredible sight of our soldiers exchanging cigarettes, schnapps and chocolate with the enemy. Later a Scottish soldier appeared with a football which seemed to come from nowhere and a few minutes afterwards a real football game match got underway. The Scots marked their goal mouth with their strange caps and we did the same with ours. It was far from easy to play on the frozen basis, but nosotros continued, keeping rigorously to the rules, despite the fact that it simply lasted an hour and that nosotros had no referee. A great many of the passes went wide, merely all the apprentice footballers, although they must have been very tired, played with huge enthusiasm.
For Niemann, the novelty of getting to know their kilted opposition matched the novelty of playing soccer in no human'southward state:
U.s.a. Germans actually roared when a gust of wind revealed that the Scots wore no drawers under their kilts—and hooted and whistled every time they defenseless an impudent glimpse of one posterior belonging to one of "yesterday'southward enemies." But after an hour'due south play, when our Commanding Officer heard about it, he sent an gild that we must put a stop to it. A little after we drifted back to our trenches and the fraternization ended.
The game that Niemann recalled was only one of many that took identify up and downwards the Forepart. Attempts were fabricated in several spots to involve the Germans—the Queen's Westminsters, ane private soldier wrote home, "had a football out in front of the trenches and asked the Germans to ship a team to play us, only either they considered the ground too hard, as it had been freezing all night and was a ploughed field, or their officers put the bar up." Simply at least iii, and perchance four, other matches apparently took place between the armies. A sergeant in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders recorded that a game was played in his sector "between the lines and the trenches," and according to a alphabetic character dwelling house published by the Glasgow Newdue south on Jan 2, the Scots "won hands by iv-1." Meanwhile Lieutenant Albert Wynn of the Purple Field Artillery wrote of a friction match against a German team of "Prussians and Hanovers" that was played about Ypres. That game "ended in a draw," simply the Lancashire Fusiliers, occupying trenches close to the declension almost Le Touquet and using a ration-tin can "brawl," played their ain game against the Germans, and–according to their regimental history–lost by the same score as the Scots who encountered the 133rd, 3-2.
It is left to a fourth recollection, given in 1983 by Ernie Williams of the Cheshire Regiment, to supply a existent idea of what soccer played between the trenches really meant. Although Williams was recalling a game played on New Year'southward Eve, after there had been a thaw and plenty of rain, his description chimes with the little that is known for sure most the games played on Christmas Day:
brawl appeared from somewhere, I don't know where, simply it came from their side… They made up some goals and one young man went in goal and then information technology was just a general kickabout. I should think in that location were a couple of hundred taking part. I had a go at the brawl. I was pretty good then, at nineteen. Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was no sort of ill-will between us…. At that place was no referee and no score, no tally at all. It was simply a mêlee—nix like the soccer that yous see on television receiver. The boots nosotros wore were a menace—those great big boots we had on—and in those days the balls were made of leather and they soon got very soggy.
Of course, non every homo on either side was thrilled by the Christmas Truce, and official opposition squelched at to the lowest degree i proposed Anglo-German soccer match. Lieutenant C.Eastward.M. Richards, a immature officer serving with the East Lancashire Regiment, had been greatly disturbed by reports of fraternization betwixt the men of his regiment and the enemy and had really welcomed the "return of good old sniping" late on Christmas Mean solar day—"just to brand sure that the war was still on." That evening, however, Richards "received a indicate from Battalion Headquarters telling him to make a football game pitch in no homo's land, by filling upwards shell holes etc., and to challenge the enemy to a football lucifer on 1st January." Richards recalled that "I was furious and took no activity at all," but over time his view did mellow. "I wish I had kept that signal," he wrote years later. "Stupidly I destroyed it—I was then angry. Information technology would now have been a adept souvenir."
In about places, upwardly and down the line, it was accustomed that the truce would be purely temporary. Men returned to their trenches at dusk, in some cases summoned dorsum by flares, simply for the about role determined to preserve the peace at to the lowest degree until midnight. There was more singing, and in at least ane spot presents were exchanged. George Eade, of the Rifles, had become friends with a German language artilleryman who spoke skillful English, and as he left, this new acquaintance said to him: "Today we accept peace. Tomorrow, you fight for your country, I fight for mine. Good luck."
Fighting erupted again the adjacent day, though there were reports from some sectors of hostilities remaining suspended into the New year's day. And it does not seem to have been uncommon for the resumption of the war to be marked with farther displays of mutual respect between enemies. In the trenches occupied by the Imperial Welch Fusiliers, Helm Stockwell "climbed upwardly on the parapet, fired three shots in the air and put up a flag with 'Merry Christmas' on it." At this, his reverse number, Hauptmann von Sinner, "appeared on the German language parapet and both officers bowed and saluted. Von Sinner then too fired 2 shots in the air and went back into his trench."
The war was on again, and there would be no further truce until the general ceasefire of November 1918. Many, perchance shut to the majority, of the thousands of men who celebrated Christmas 1914 together would not alive to run into the return of peace. But for those who did survive, the truce was something that would never exist forgotten.
Sources
Malcolm Chocolate-brown & Shirley Seaton. The Christmas Truce: The Western Front end December 1914. London: Papermac, 1994; The Christmas Truce 1914: Performance Plum Puddings, accessed December 22, 2011; Alan Cleaver and Lesley Park (eds). Not a Shot was Fired: Letters from the Christmas Truce 1914. Whitehaven, Cumbria: Operation Plum Puddings, 2006; Marc Ferro et al. Meetings in No Human'south State: Christmas 1914 and Fraternization in the Great War. London: Constable & Robinson, 2007; "The Christmas Truce – 1914." Hellfire Corner, accessed December 19, 2011; Thomas Löwer. "Demystifying the Christmas truce." The Heritage of the Slap-up War, accessed December 19, 2011; Stanley Weintraub. Silent Nighttime: The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914. London: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-story-of-the-wwi-christmas-truce-11972213/
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