Scottish soldier's letter reveals Christmas spirit refused to die in trenches of WW1

Published on Wednesday 15 December 2010 14:43

STORIES of British and German troops playing football and exchanging gifts in no man's land during a Christmas ceasefire are among the most enduring images of the First World War.

• A portrayal of the Christmas Day meeting in 1914

After the 1914 truce, incensed High Commands of both armies are said to have issued strict orders preventing future ceasefires during the Great War.

But now a leading Scottish historian claims to have uncovered fresh evidence challenging the long-held belief that the truce was a one-off phenomenon and pointing to a series of others throughout the war.

Thomas Weber, a historian at Aberdeen University who published a book on Hitler in the First World War, claimed yesterday that festive truces took place every Christmas along the front but had been downplayed in official war records.

Dr Weber said: "The suggestion is that after the first Christmas there was no repeat because of the circle of violence and its ensuing bitterness that then set in. In fact, soldiers never tried to stop fraternising with their opponents during Christmas."

He stressed: "I'm not saying that brutalisation did not occur at all, but more commonly what happened was that soldiers in the heat of battle fought ferociously but, after the battle and after the adrenaline had gone, remorse tended to set in and there are many incidents recorded where soldiers tried to help injured soldiers from the other side. It is because of this kind of sentiment that continued Christmas truces were possible."

Dr Weber said he also believed that the key factor in whether a ceasefire took place lay with who was facing German troops in the trenches. Festive truces were far more likely to occur with British soldiers than with French troops.

He said: "The existing popular version of why truces occurred says that what was ultimately important was whether Allied troops were facing 'good Germans' like Bavarians or 'bad' Germans like Prussians and Saxons.

"But actually it seems it doesn't matter whether the Germans were northern, southern, Catholic or Protestant - the influential factor was whether they were facing British - including Canadian and Australian units - rather than French troops."

Dr Weber revealed that his recent discovery of a letter written by a soldier of Scottish descent serving with a Canadian regiment had helped provide further proof of the extent of the Christmas truces held during the First World War.

He came across the letter when he travelled to Canada last month to talk about the research behind his book Hitler's First War and spoke of the attempted Christmas truce between German and Canadian troops at Vimy Ridge in 1916.Dr Weber was approached after his lecture by a member of the audience whose uncle, Ronald MacKinnon, originally from Fauldhouse in West Lothian, had been deployed at Vimy Ridge at the time. The official version of events, according to the war diary of MacKinnon's unit, states that the Germans tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a Christmas Day truce. Dr Weber said: "The letters Private MacKinnon wrote home to his sister tell a rather different story."

Dr Weber added: "The letter was a fantastic find and clearly demonstrates that there was an attempt to downplay these small-scale Christmas truces when they happened. Officers had to report to a higher chain of command so had an interest in downplaying events in the official version in their war diaries."