Christmas in the Trenches (6 page)

Such activity, giving the men a little time out from the war, helped maintain morale even though many longed for the comforts and familiar surroundings of home:

Spent a very pleasant Xmas day, very different to the usual time – but a happy one nevertheless. We spent the time feasting and singing, some playing cards until 4am. Alf Gorton & F Dunn & self went to midnight mass – very nice – & it was such a beautiful evening to be out. What gave me most pleasure was thinking of home & picturing you all going round the usual Xmas routine.

Unfortunately our parcels did not arrive – in fact have not done so yet (
no body’s
) – but expecting same any minute. However, we bought a tin of salmon for our Xmas dinner, was a change from stew & we got our issue of Tommies Plum Pudding – very good – ‘but its not like being at home’. Whilst
enjoying
same I was picturing you round the bird, & other good things, the pudding &
sauce
& I could hear Ma saying to Mac ‘I wonder what poor Arthur is having for his Xmas dinner?’ Don’t you worry, I was OK & have another good time in view when my parcels arrive. A chicken arrived for Tom nicely cooked & pies, and a parcel for us all from Miss Wilkins – so we went short of nothing. I had lots of post in the way of letters & cards many thanks to everybody. Tom’s letter, Tot’s card, another nice letter from Bamford, J & J, L Gregson, Marie K – about a dozen in all – very nice – got them hung up here.
⁷
(
Pte Arthur Burke, 20th Manchesters
)

In many of the villages in which troops were billeted a sizeable civilian population could still be found. The Christmas period lent itself to the fostering of good relations between the locals and members of the BEF. For example, at Souastre the 10th Royal Fusiliers gave a Christmas tree to the children of the village; the war diary of the HQ, 111th Infantry Brigade, also located in Souastre, records that the day was a great success and should go far to keep up the good feeling between the villagers and troops.
⁸
But sometimes the behaviour of the troops could become a little too boisterous, especially when alcohol had been flowing freely, as happened in one billet in Lillers:

We felt like we could relax at times like these and indeed we did. Quite a lot of us were billeted in an attic over a large Estaminet in the square and four of us planned to celebrate by having Christmas dinner at a café which offered quite good fare for four or five francs. We had no money but were expecting a pay on Christmas Eve. We were not idle when out on rest and on Christmas Eve my section were unloading timber at the railhead . . .

Well the unloading of the timber was ended and we were off duty. We still had not been paid and on enquiry we found that we would not be paid. Christmas dinner had been ordered. The section officer was on leave in England, whatever could be done about it? We eventually managed to borrow enough from the Company Sergeant Major who was a very decent and understanding man. We had our dinner and thoroughly enjoyed it. Christmas night was memorable to me. There were almost 30 men in our attic billet which was approached from a bedroom by a very rickety stairway. Most of the chaps were drunk, one or two of them so much so as to be suffering from DTs. Who cares? We were out of the line anyway. The section officer had sent us a huge box of Christmas crackers from home. They contained all sorts of miniature musical instruments. The result was a collection of weird noises from would be musicians.

It was alright till tempers became frayed and then I am afraid we became out of hand. Sgt Kayton and Cpl P Brown quarrelled. Kayton was stood near the head of the stairs and sticking his chin out, invited Phil to hit him. Phil caught him right on the point of the chin and down the stairs he went. Kayton did not seem to be hurt but he was quiet and gradually everyone also quietened down too and we got to sleep. The landlord of the Estaminet had a young married daughter with a newly born baby and we had been asked to be quiet. She came to the top of the stairs next morning, glared around and simply said ‘Finish Christmas’. (
Cpl Bob Foulkes, 73rd Field Company, Royal Engineers
)

The year 1915 also witnessed the war spreading across southern Europe. Italy joined the Entente cause on 23 May, opening up a third front against the Central Powers. In October, British and French troops landed at the port of Salonika in neutral Greece in an attempt to keep Bulgaria out of the war and save their hard-pressed Serbian ally from inevitable defeat. However, of all the new fronts opening up, 1915 will perhaps best be remembered for the landing of British, French and
ANZAC
(Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) troops on the Gallipoli peninsula on 25 April, in an attempt to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. The failure of British and French warships to force their way through the Dardanelles in March, in a bid to reach Constantinople, led to an escalation of the campaign, which had been planned as a purely naval operation. The initial landings at Cape Helles and Ari Burnu, soon to be known as Anzac Cove, achieved some success but were not quickly exploited, allowing the Turks to bring in reinforcements and prevent any meaningful advance. Trench warfare soon set in and stalemate as on the Western Front was the result.

Attacks across the confined spaces of the Gallipoli battlefields saw casualties mount rapidly. Conditions deteriorated during the summer with dysentery being rife among the troops. Some of those evacuated wounded or sick were lucky enough to be put on board hospital ships bound for Britain rather than Egypt. This gave the imperial motherland its first glimpse of the
ANZAC
s, who were making such a name for themselves at Gallipoli:

Just a line to let you know that I am out of the hospital, and am on six weeks’ furlough, and am having a splendid time. The weather over here is pretty rotten – rain or snow every day – but we are enjoying ourselves immensely. The people here are treating us very well; in fact, all England is open to us. I will tell you how I spent my Xmas – from the time I got up in the morning. I had a wash, then breakfast, went down to the reading room for a read and a smoke, down stairs to the barber’s for a shave, and then had my boots cleaned, after which we started out to have Xmas dinner with Sir George Reid at the Hotel Cecil (in the Strand), one of the largest and best hotels in London. And I tell you it was a dinner, too. There were about 900 Australians and New Zealanders present. You may guess what it was like when I tell you that any civilian that wished to be present had to pay 10/6. Sir George Reid and several other noted men gave speeches. Well, after we had had dinner and came out into the Strand again, several of us were accosted by a lady we did not know. She asked us if we would be good enough to go and spend the afternoon and have tea with her. Of course, we accepted the invitation, and were placed in taxis and driven off. We did not know where we were going, or whose house we were going to, but we were happy. However, it turned out alright, for it was Lady Wolsley’s place we went to, where we had a right royal time. We had just escaped from there when we were caught again, and put into taxis and whirled off to spend the night and next day with a Mr and Mrs Lauder, parents of a great musician who has just returned from a tour in Australia. So you can see we did not want for much. I am going to Scotland on Wednesday for the New Year, where, they tell me, the people are even better than what they are in England, so we must be in for a good time. I am going to stay with a Mrs Grey, in Edinburgh, while there. I think I will also go to Glasgow for a few days.
⁹
(
Pte Frank Scholes, 14th Battalion, AIF
)

Back at Gallipoli, in August, 25,000 men were landed at Suvla Bay in an attempt to capture the all-important high ground overlooking the Dardanelles by outflanking the main Turkish defences, but once again initial successes were not exploited and the last hope of strategic success in the campaign vanished. By late November, winter weather had begun to set in and gales, thunderstorms, torrential rain and blizzards made life in the trenches and dugouts a misery:

21 December 1915
: A thunderstorm and heavy rain last night did more damage than a month’s shelling. In many places fire and communication trenches were impassable and everywhere mud rendered movement slow and difficult. (
War Diary, HQ, Royal Naval Division
)

The coming of Christmas at least gave the hard-pressed troops something pleasant to focus on:

One night just before Christmas I was on duty in the Signal Office and the Commander was busy in his office which had now been partitioned off when he called out to me ‘Freeman can you cook a Turkey?’ I thought he was getting on at me on account of my performances with the Dixie on various occasions, so I said ‘Yes Sir, I think so.’ ‘Well’ he said ‘we got one for you.’ I was too much astonished to say anything for a moment and then thanked him as well as I was able for his kindness. He had, he told me ordered two to be sent from Tenedos and was going to give us one of them. There was great rejoicing in the camp when I told the others the great news! In the place of Haywood, who had returned to his battery, we had a new cook named Watson, he was a farmer before he joined up and knew how to deal with the insides of turkeys in the proper manner, he was quite pleased to take over the job from beginning to end, which suited the rest of us very well. We had had many discussions regarding our Christmas fare but never in our wildest flights of fancy did we think of a turkey – although I suppose it would be difficult to find a more appropriate place in which to eat the bird than Helles. I had a real home made Christmas pudding in a china basin, which had miraculously arrived unbroken in the post, but we decided to keep this for the new year as supplies were issuing tinned pudding. Altogether things looked very promising. Christmas Eve we were all very merry and bright and feeling very fit. Peattie and I made quite an ‘arty’ Christmas card for the Commander and Johnstone in which we all signed our names as a sort of memento of the time we had been together and Watson, who was proud of his skill in the making of pastry, insisted on manufacturing a large apple turnover on a plate for presentation to the Commander on Christmas day!

I was up at 6 o’clock on Christmas morning and after a wash outside in the moonlight, walked down to ‘W’ Beach to early service. The morning was dead calm and almost undisturbed by firing of any sort. A little way out to sea lay the two hospital ships, each with a line of green lamps running from stem to stern, looking as if they had on their Christmas decorations. Away to the right Achi – the still unconquered – was just a grey outline, an outline we knew by heart. Dotted about in all directions twinkled little points of light which might have been the reflection of the stars in still water – camp fires getting ready for breakfast . . .

The service was held in a marquee behind the ordnance stores. The pews were planks supported on biscuit boxes and the altar was of packing cases covered in front by a slip of cloth and lit by two candles. Two dim oil lamps hanging from the centre of the tent did their best. The simple words of the service went home to most of us I think. I was glad I went . . .

We also had a limited supply of French wine which had been swapped for superfluous jam. Again I say pity the poor soldiers at Gallipoli! The afternoon was quietly spent as you might imagine. After tea we made up a big fire, lit plenty of candles and enjoyed ourselves. We played cards, Peatties band played various selections as long as those who were not musical, shall we say, would let them; and we talked of many things. By 10.30pm most of us were in bed. I was on duty at the office at 1am again but we had got so used to getting up in the middle of the night that we did not worry about it . . .

At 1.30am an enterprising Taube came over in the moonlight and dropped a bomb about 50 yards from the redoubt, we found parts of it in the morning . . . and all was quiet except for a few rounds from Asia whistling overhead at intervals, destined for ‘W’ Beach.

So passed Christmas Day 1915; we had no idea that there was the slightest probability of leaving the Peninsula for good in just over a fortnight’s time. (
Cpl Stanley Freeman, Royal Naval Division Signals Company
)

The evacuation of the peninsula proved to be the most successful part of the whole Gallipoli operation. Between 18 and 20 December troops were withdrawn from Suvla Bay and Anzac Cove. The position at Cape Helles was retained slightly longer, but on the night of 8–9 January 1916, the last troops embarked. Only a handful of casualties were reported during the operation, confounding those who estimated that up to half the force would be lost in any withdrawal. On board the troopship
Knight of the Garter
Capt Herbert Winn (2/5th Gurkhas) summed up the feeling of many in a letter home written on 23 December:

Am rolling about at present in the above-mentioned boat. Everybody is bored to tears and feeling ill from over-eating and over-sleeping. We are not allowed on deck during the day for fear a submarine sees us and discovers there are troops on board. Not that anyone would have wanted to stroll about today as a driving rain is beating along the deck. Altogether things are not, just at the present moment, wearing a very pleasant aspect. Yet at the back of everybody’s mind there is the soothing thought ‘we have left behind those confounded trenches’ and this compensates for all.

As the Gallipoli campaign was in its final few months the 10th (Irish) Division and French 156th Division were withdrawn from that operation and sent to Salonika, where they landed between 5 and 10 October 1915. By the end of November these troops, along with the French 17th (Colonial) Division, were in the mountains of southern Serbia facing the Bulgarian 2nd Army. Here they were hit by the same appalling winter weather that affected those still at Gallipoli. This led to 23 officers and 1,663 men being evacuated. They were suffering from frostbite and exposure even before the Bulgarian offensive began on 7 December. Five days later all remaining British and French troops were back on Greek soil and moving towards the relative safety of Salonika. On 14 December, the decision was taken to fortify and hold Salonika rather than withdraw troops from the Balkans. By 20 December, when the last of the 10th Division returned to the city, they found the place beginning its transformation into a huge military encampment. On the British side the 22nd, 26th, 27th and 28th Divisions were in the process of arriving, signalling a major commitment to this new theatre of war.