When the war began, nearly five months ago, it was to be glorious, and the warring nations
all saw a war that would be over by Christmas. And now, hundreds of thousands of men had
been butchered- civilians too- and many more horribly wounded or maimed. The war was anything
but over and today it’s Christmas.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week we saw Russian plans for an invasion of Hungary dashed with the conclusion of the
battle of Limanowa. On the Western Front, the Allies were just about to begin a huge
offensive as the weather worsened, there were skirmishes in Africa, and British seaside
towns were bombarded by the Germans, with British civilians killed by enemy forces for
the first time since the 1600.
It was pretty much a truism that the abysmal December weather was always on the side of
the enemy when you were the one attacking, and the rainfall often made the trenches that
now ran the length of the western front almost impossible to inhabit and brought in a whole
slew of new problems.
Thousands of British soldiers were invalidated for trench foot, which often resulted in amputation,
by Christmas because the ground in the British sector had become, according to commander-in-chief
John French, “only a quagmire.” General Smith-Dorrien went further, and said “...there
appeared to be no stones or gravel, and rain converted the soil into a sort of liquid mud
of the consistency of thick porridge... to walk off the roads meant sinking at once....”
Any structures built, like parapets, would slowly subside and to maintain any cover at
all meant constant labor. And even if you maintained cover, quite often you were unable
to attack, since if the fire step had washed away you couldn’t stand high enough to fire
over the parapets.
And still the men had to fight, as the Champagne offensive, which would continue for months,
began. This was the first major allied attack on the western front since trench warfare
took over. But the winter conditions just increased the misery and the desperation off
both attacker and defender.
On the 18th, the Indian corps attacked the Germans at Givenchy and, after initial successes
taking the German front line trenches, were met by enemy soldiers coming up a communication
trench with their hands up in surrender. Right behind them, though, were machine guns ready
to fire on any soldier foolish enough to show himself.
At the same battle, the Highlander troops attacking beside the Indians were unable to
fire since most of their rifles had been clogged by mud from the waist deep water of the trenches.
They were captured.
Two days later, the Germans recaptured what had been lost. This pattern of give and take
would repeat itself for months, in spite of the allied numerical advantage, with men dying
every single day for the smallest of temporary gains.
The desperation of the attacks created great cynicism. Commander French issued orders December
21st for instant fire on any white flag shown by Germans on the western front or any white
flag raised on a German ship, and if in doubt whether a ship is helpless or not, it should
be sunk.
And then suddenly, it was Christmas.
On Christmas Eve, a young lieutenant, Sir Edward Hulse, wrote in a war diary, ”A scout
named F. Murker went out and met a German patrol and was given a glass of whiskey and
some cigars, and a message was sent back saying that if we didn’t fire at them, they wouldn’t
fire at us.” That night, there on the front, the guns went silent.
The next morning, one of the most remarkable scenes in the history of warfare occurred.
German soldiers came walking across no-mans land toward the British lines and the British
soldiers went out to meet them. What followed I imagine many of you have heard of already.
The enemies hung out. It was a Christmas truce. They exchanged souvenirs, cigars and chocolate,
even played football. Arrangements were made in some places to bury the dead that still
littered the battlefield. This truce took place almost everywhere in British no mans
land, and at many places in the Belgian and French sectors. In nearly every case it was
initiated by German soldiers.
Here’s a very interesting scene I read about in Martin Gilbert’s “the First World War”
though it originally comes from Bruce Bairnsfather’s book of trench tales: “the last I saw of
this little affair was a vision of one of my machine gunners, who was a bit of an amateur
hairdresser in civil life, cutting the unnaturally long hair of a docile Boche, who was patiently
kneeling on the ground while the automatic clippers crept up the back of his neck”.
Commander French, when he heard of this conduct, issued orders to prevent it from ever happening
again, but it didn’t happen all along the line anyway, though. In Alsace, the French
attacked the German positions, and actually nine British seaplanes attacked the German
zeppelin sheds at Cuxhaven on Christmas Day.
Though in general, Christmas Day was a brief respite for the men on the western front,
on the newest front in the Caucasus such was not the case.
Back in November, the Turks had badly beaten back the Russian Bergmann Offensive but the
Russians had now regrouped at Sarikamis. The Turks were based at Erzurum.
The Russians were worried that the Turks would try to take the strategic fortress of Kars,
but the Ottoman strategy was fairly simple: to make one large envelopment of the Russians
using three different corps. There were some big difficulties here, though. One, it was
winter and in winter northeastern Turkey is COLD. Two, the war zone was well over 1,000
kilometers long, which is a hassle in good conditions, but this was all at a plateau,
like, 2,000 meters high and the only way to really get through was the high mountain passes
or the smaller tracks where artillery couldn’t go. There was also the Russian advantage that
they held the Sarikamis railway line.
The Ottoman forces totaled around 150,000 but they were poorly equipped and many had
no winter clothing. The Russian Caucasus army was by contrast well equipped but a large
part of it had been shipped to fight on the Eastern Front, leaving around 65,000 regular
troops. These were now bolstered by Armenian or Greek volunteers who saw service with the
Russians as a means of securing territory with a Russian victory.
Actually, the Tsar himself visited the Caucasus front December 20th and in his search for
allies told the head of the Armenian Church, “a most brilliant future awaits the Armenians.”
This immediately endangered hundreds of thousands of Armenian lives since Turkey got the idea
that it’s own large Armenian population was a possible source of treason.
Turkish maneuvers began on the 22nd, and though there were some initial successes, by Christmas
day the men were marching over 12 hours a day through the snows of the mountain passes,
exhausted, suffering frostbite, and dying of hypothermia. They hadn’t even gotten
to the battle yet.
This was very much a week of transition, it seems, on all of the fronts. In the East,
it was calm as both sides regrouped for further winter offensives, with the exception of the
Austrian garrison, over 100,000 strong, still under siege behind Russian lines at Przemysl
after well over a month. In the west, a great offensive had begun, but for one day there
was a remembrance of peace and brotherhood, and in the snows of Turkey the week brought
nothing but misery, as the Ottoman Imperial army marched through the mountains to meet
the might of the Russians.
Today’s my day of quotes, apparently, so here’s something from Peter Hart’s “the
Great War”:
“By the end of 1914 it was evident that Alfred von Schlieffen had been both right
and wrong. He was right that if the war continued for a substantial time Germany’s enemies
would use their sheer press of numbers to defeat her. But in seeking a swift victory
the Germans had lost their best chance of maximizing lesser tactical gains and then
negotiating peace from a position of relative strength. In seeking outright victory in the
summer of 1914 the Germans had in the end fallen short. The war was set on a grim path
of attritional fighting, with all sides engaged in attempting to degrade the opposition forces
to the level that they could no longer resist. With all sides able to draw on millions more
men it was nigh on impossible to secure an easy victory. Far too many would die before
the war would be resolved.”
This Christmas- today- spend a moment thinking of the millions of men fighting 100 years
ago, from all of the warring nations, watching their comrades killed, freezing in the mud,
maybe starving in the snows, falling into despair as their world was destroyed around
them, and hope, or pray that we can learn enough from the horror that world went through
to prevent it from ever happening again.
On Christmas Eve 1914, one of the strangest events in military history unfolded when 100,000
soldiers on the Western Front laid aside their arms, their orders and their prejudices and
embraced. If you want to see our Special on the Christmas Truce than click here to watch
it.
And if you have ideas for more Special Episodes than let us know in the comment section below.
And click subscribe to never miss an episode.