Catastrophe 1914 has 2,502 ratings and 318 reviews. Matt said: Max Hastings is one of the better World War II writer-historians working today. 24 JULY 1914: Early this morning. Good Quotations by Famous People. 13th September To 13th October 1914. A good deal of shelling all around. The Battle of the Aisne map from the Official History.
Christmas Day truce 1. Letter from trenches shows football match through soldier's eyes for first time.
German snipers shot and killed two British soldiers while the famous Christmas Day truce of 1914 broke out around them, it can be revealed 100 years on.
A First World War soldier’s account of the Christmas truce of 1. Captain A D Chater was serving with the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders when peace came briefly to the British and German trenches on the Western Front. His letter to his “dearest mother”, describing the famous moment former enemies risked their lives to walk out into no- man’s land to wish each other a happy Christmas and play football, has been released by Royal Mail with his family’s permission.“I think I have seen today one of the most extraordinary sights that anyone has ever seen,” he wrote.“About 1. I was peeping over the parapet when I saw a German, waving his arms, and presently two of them got out of their trench and came towards ours.“We were just going to fire on them when we saw they had no rifles, so one of our men went to meet them and in about two minutes the ground between the two lines of trenches was swarming with men and officers of both sides, shaking hands and wishing each other a happy Christmas.“Christmas truce: Captain A D Chater's letter He details regiments on both sides using the brief respite from shelling to bury their dead “lying between the lines”. Joint burial services were held for German and British soldiers, he said, and former enemies posed for pictures together to commemorate the occasion as he took the chance to improve his “dug- out” with a new fireplace and straw.“I went out myself and shook hands with several of their officers and men,” Captain Chater wrote.“From what I gathered most of them would be glad to get home again as we should – we have had our pipes playing all day and everyone has been walking about in the open unmolested.”Cigarettes and autographs were exchanged between some men, while others simply enjoyed the first opportunity to stretch their legs without facing machine guns in months.“We had another parley with the Germans in the middle,” Captain Chater wrote, expressing hope that the fragile peace would continue, for a short time at least.“We exchanged cigarettes and autographs, and some more people took photos.“I don’t know how long it will go on for – I believe it was supposed to stop yesterday, but we can hear no firing going on along the front today except a little distant shelling.“We are, at any rate, having another truce on New Year’s Day, as the Germans want to see how the photos come out!”Captain Chater said the truce even held when a British soldier fired into the sky by mistake but as reports of the unofficial ceasefire emerged, military leaders on both sides of the conflict were enraged by the apparent “softening” of attitudes, which was quickly stamped out.
Anyone defying orders faced court martial and execution and the fighting started again. A simple wooden memorial cross marks the field outside Ploegsteert Wood, where British and German soldiers played football during the World War One Christmas Day truce in 1.
Getty)Captain Chater painted a vivid picture of the brief goodwill in a war he said contained “so much bitterness and ill feeling”. But it did not last.“This extraordinary truce has been quite impromptu,” the letter continued.