Football Poets

The 1914 Truce in Context

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 It wasn’t, in fact, a bolt from the blue,

¶ 2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Instead the 1914 Truce was part of a pattern,

¶ 3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 That both preceded that Christmas and continued beyond:

¶ 4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 There were ‘cushy’ sectors, involving ‘laissez-faire’,

¶ 5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 ‘Rest and let rest’, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’,

¶ 6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 ‘Mutual obligation element’,

¶ 7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 ‘Tacit truces’, ‘mutual understanding’,

¶ 8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 ‘Compromise, and be mighty glad to be alive’,

¶ 9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 Running along the British front line on the Western Front.

¶ 10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 There were respected rituals during the day:

¶ 11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 Breakfast bacon and ration party truces,

¶ 12 Leave a comment on verse 12 0 When as Ian Hay wrote in 1915:

¶ 13 Leave a comment on verse 13 0 ‘It would be child’s play to shell …ration wagons

¶ 14 Leave a comment on verse 14 0 and water carts…but on the whole there is silence…

¶ 15 Leave a comment on verse 15 0 if you prevent your enemy from drawing his rations…

¶ 16 Leave a comment on verse 16 0 he will prevent you from drawing yours.’

¶ 17 Leave a comment on verse 17 0 In addition, both sides faced General Winter:

¶ 18 Leave a comment on verse 18 0 A German officer commented in 1914:

¶ 19 Leave a comment on verse 19 0 ‘Friend and foe alike go to fetch straw from the same rick

¶ 20 Leave a comment on verse 20 0 to protect them from the cold and rain and to have some sort of bedding

¶ 21 Leave a comment on verse 21 0 to lie on – and never a shot is fired.’

¶ 22 Leave a comment on verse 22 0 Sometimes, defused rifle grenades were tossed into trenches,

¶ 23 Leave a comment on verse 23 0 Containing messages, sometimes weather truces

¶ 24 Leave a comment on verse 24 0 Led to salutations, conversations and jokes,

¶ 25 Leave a comment on verse 25 0 (‘”Waiter!”… fifty Fritzes stuck their heads up…”Coming Sir.” ’);

¶ 26 Leave a comment on verse 26 0 Sometimes, a deliberate policy of positive inertia

¶ 27 Leave a comment on verse 27 0 Was recognized and reciprocated,

¶ 28 Leave a comment on verse 28 0 Sometimes night patrols would studiously avoid each other.

¶ 29 Leave a comment on verse 29 0 Weaponry, even when used, could also send messages:

¶ 30 Leave a comment on verse 30 0 Rifle and machine gun fire might be aimed too high,

¶ 31 Leave a comment on verse 31 0 Hand bombing led to a signaled, invitational

¶ 32 Leave a comment on verse 32 0 And deliberate misplacing of explosives:

¶ 33 Leave a comment on verse 33 0 ‘their trenches…no more than ten or fifteen yards from ours…

¶ 34 Leave a comment on verse 34 0 was a good insurance against strafing on either side.

¶ 35 Leave a comment on verse 35 0 The mildest exchange of hand grenades or bombs…

¶ 36 Leave a comment on verse 36 0 Would have made life intolerable.’

¶ 37 Leave a comment on verse 37 0 Heavy artillery took a different line:

¶ 38 Leave a comment on verse 38 0 Here messages were sent by the fact that often,

¶ 39 Leave a comment on verse 39 0 The same spot would be shelled at exactly the same time each day:

¶ 40 Leave a comment on verse 40 0 ‘Twelve little Willies at noon to the tick,

¶ 41 Leave a comment on verse 41 0 Got our heads down, and go them down quick,

¶ 42 Leave a comment on verse 42 0 Peaceful and calm was the rest of the day,

¶ 43 Leave a comment on verse 43 0 Nobody hurt and nothing to say.’

¶ 44 Leave a comment on verse 44 0 ‘Nobody hurt and nothing to say’: