Source: File: Ruheben
Camp festive card. Sketch depicting the card as they might have appeared in
1917 ‑ had the war ended that year. See an original image at: <https://www.worldwar1postcards.com/christmas-postcards.php>
[Accessed 15 December 2016]
Reaching a bridge
of 24 months from
First war Christmas, came 1916 festivities -
Situations of
moods had long changed,
Across bitter
stalemate of frontlines.
For the dead
there were no celebrations.
Many that had
once kicked a football
Across No Mans Land,
long laid below
Or scattered
across its poisoned mud.
Verdun, Somme and
many new names
Of battles marked
the bitter losses - any
Type of fraternisation forbidden by orders;
No football games
of Hun versus Tommy.
Yet such truces
of peace were not totally
Diminished - many
Germans called out
Across the void
to the Tommy and the Poilu
For 'Trêve de
Noël' and 'Weihnachtsfrieden.'
The French spirit
for 'live and let live' saw
Sectors sing to each
other in native songs,
Along with
exchanged gifts thrown across
Closest spaces of
their outermost trenches.
Still the season,
though subdued, continued.
Back in blighty
had been orgainsed programs,
To get Christmas
puddings to the front troops;
Though jokes
abounded, if they would arrive.
With frozen stalemate
in mud and the worst
Weather for more
that 30 years, shortages
Were taking a
grip - seasonal telegrams did
Not halt to tell men’s
families of their deaths.
Not to forget the
detained, held in camps from
Either side -
with those most talented devising
Festive postcards
- the artistic in the Ruhleben
Civilian camp held since 1914, drew designs.
In a card for
xmas two detainees stare beyond
The wire towards
the rising sun in hope of 1917;
A version shows them
dancing before a happy
Sun and posts
without wire, had the war ended.
A cherub builds
three blocks for each war year;
1916 atop 1915
and 1914 - while yet another
Card, a smirking
cherub kicks away the blocks -
Tentatively
wishing happy forebodings for 1917.
With many an unlucky
Tommy still on duty
In the trenches -
as witnessed by news reporters
Such as Philip Gibbs
- where after frosts, sleet
And snow found Christmas
Eve a mild day.
Winter sunshine
reflected across swamps
And flooded holes
described in poetic images;
As supply columns
churned their ways through
Mud, delivering
feast day supplies to troops.
Gibbs saw soldiers
as Noah like figures building
Colonies of huts,
with attempts to abate floods -
Figures
everywhere, splattered stiff with pale mud,
Emerged from lines
imbued with Christmas spirits.
By subdued
daylight Tommy's, Jocks and Anzacs
Sought out
trinkets in nearest of French village
Markets - while
on eve of feast day the reporter
Found a crowded restaurant,
ready to celebrate.
Characters at
every table; Tommy’s and Poliu
In salute of
Entente Cordiale; 'Bonne chance!'
'Nous Les Aurons'
and counter Christmas wishes
To old Fritz - here
and there sat puzzled faces.
Young faces of
1916 recruits, amid the mature
Old Contemptibles,
drawn into other temporary
Moods - away from
the easy warmth and light
He took a few
steps into darkness, to see blinks
Of horizon shells
- somewhere soldiers died.
by Jamie Mann.
Gibb. P.,1916. Tommy's Xmas Eve - Scenes And Contrasts - A
Memorable Picture. The Daily Telegraph, [online] 26 December 1916. P.7. Col.1-2. Available at: <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/12214032/Daily-Telegraph-December-26-1916.html>
[Accessed: 26 December 2016].
Source: File: Picture
Postcards From The Great War - WW1
Christmas Postcards by Tony Allen-
1914-1918. Available at: < https://www.worldwar1postcards.com/christmas-postcards.php>
[Accessed 26 December 2016]
Mann, J., 2016. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal
communication, 26 December 2016).
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