The Trenches (10 page)

Jack held the flask in his hand, and then looked towards the German lines. I saw the look of doubt on his face. “I don't know,” he said. “Throwing a rock is one thing. It's hard to judge the weight of this, with the rum sloshing around inside it like that.”

“I'll throw it,” I offered.

Charlie gave me a doubtful look. “You reckon you can get it over there?” he asked.

“If a Hun can throw a rock, I can throw that the same distance,” I said.

Jack came down the ladder and handed me the metal flask.

“OK,” he said. “Over to you.”

I climbed up the ladder. Although there was still no shooting, I couldn't stop myself from hesitating before I put
my
head over the top of the trench, it had become such a force of habit.

Then I hauled myself over the top and stood there, looking out over the expanse of clayey, potholed, bomb-shelled ground, strewn with barbed wire. Everyone and everything else was below ground level.

I looked towards the German lines. “Where are you, Fritz?” I called. “We've got a Christmas present for you!”

A head with a German helmet poked up from behind the lines, about 70 yards away. “Here, Tommy!” he called. And he waved his arm.

I held the flask in my hand and measured the distance to the German lines in my mind.

I pulled my arm back, crouched, and then shouted: “Merry Christmas, Fritz! Have a drink on us!”

And then I let fly, swinging my arm round as hard as I could and putting as much force as I could into my throw.

The metal flask sailed up into the air, glinting as it caught the light from the sun's early rays. Then it came down … down … and disappeared into the German trench.

We heard a loud cheer go up from the German lines, and then the German's head popped back into view again. He was holding the flask and he waved it at me.

“Thank you, Tommy!” he shouted. “We will drink your health today!”

I
clambered down the ladder from the top of the trench, and the soldiers in the trench grinned broadly at me and clapped.

“With a throw like that, you ought to be playing cricket for England, lad,” said Jim.

Just then a young lieutenant appeared from the reserve trench, accompanied by a sergeant. “What's all this noise going on!” he demanded.

“Just exchanging Christmas presents with Fritz, sir!” said Jack. “A packet of cigs for a flask of rum.”

The Lieutenant didn't seem impressed.

He looked along the line at each of us, unsmiling, and then he said in clipped tones: “Fraternizing with the enemy is an offence liable to court martial. I'd stop it if you don't want to find yourself in serious trouble. Don't forget, tomorrow you'll be killing them again. And they'll be killing you.”

With that he turned and headed back to the reserve trench. The Sergeant gave us a look that seemed to say “Sorry, blokes, nothing I can do about it.” Then the Sergeant went after the Lieutenant.

Shorty looked down at the packet of German cigarettes that were now in his hand. There was one left in the packet. He took it out and put it to his lips.

“It's a present and it's Christmas,” he said. “It's more than I got from any general in this army, so I'm keeping it.”

And
then, strangest of all, we heard the sound of singing coming from the German trenches.

“It's a carol,” said Charlie. “They're singing ‘Silent Night' in German.”

It seemed so strange, being here in this place surrounded by so much death and destruction and misery, and hearing that beautiful sound carrying on the air, a song I'd known and sung ever since I was a child. I remembered Rob and me singing it when we were at junior school, every Christmas. I couldn't help it, but I found myself singing along with them, but in English. And Charlie joined in, and then Jack, and then we were all of us singing, English voices and German voices mixed together singing the same tune.

If I live to be a hundred, I'll never forget that special Christmas Day. No presents, no special dinner, nothing but men on opposing sides in a war joining together to sing just one carol.

Then it was over.

The rest of that day was strange. Still no bombs, no shooting, just me and my mates being kind of quiet together and thinking about our families back home. We wondered how they were, and if they were thinking of us out here. It struck me that I hadn't written a letter home for ages, not since I'd been at Base HQ. Mum would kill me when I got back home for not writing.

At
midnight exactly, the big guns started up again, from both sides. Christmas was over. It was just as the Lieutenant had said: once again, we were killing them, and they were killing us. Four years on, and we were still at war.

Epilogue

January 1918 – June 1919

My war ended on 6 January 1918 just outside Passchendaele. I was hit by a German shell. Once again, I was lucky to be alive, but this time my left arm and left leg were smashed by shrapnel. At the Casualty Station they talked about amputating both my leg and my arm, but again I was lucky: the doctor who treated me insisted that he could reset them enough so that they would mend. I would always walk with a limp, and it would take time before I could use my left arm again, but at least I wouldn't lose them.

I was sent back home to England. First I went to a military hospital on the northern outskirts of London at a place called Mill Hill. There I wrote home to Mum and Dad and told them what had happened and that I was alive, and I'd be returning home as soon as I was able.

I also wrote the hardest letter I've ever had to write. This one was to Mrs Matthews, Rob's mum, telling her how sorry I was about what had happened to him, and not to believe the worst of him. I told her how Rob was the bravest soldier I'd known all the time I was out there, and that what had
happened
to him was wrong. She wrote back. It was just a short letter, but she never had been very good at reading and writing. It meant a lot to me that she managed to write back.

I went back home to Carlisle in June. I was able to walk, even though I used a stick to help me get about. I thought my mum would be angry when she saw me again and say “I told you so!” when she saw me with my stick, but when I knocked at our door and she opened it, she threw her arms around me and burst into tears.

By September of 1918 everyone reckoned the War was as good as over. The Germans were in retreat on all fronts and our side was pushing forward all the time. The end came in November 1918 when the Germans finally surrendered.

In June 1919, they put up a monument in Carlisle with the names of the local men who'd gone out to the War and died. The name of Robert Matthews wasn't on it. I went along to see the local Council with Mrs Matthews and asked that they put Rob's name on it, but this little official with a small moustache said to us: “We don't put the names of cowards on the same memorial as brave men.” I got angry then and asked him which part of the War he'd fought in, knowing full well he'd stayed safely back in Carlisle the whole time, but Mrs Matthews asked me not to make a fuss, so I shut up and took her back home. But it didn't stop me feeling angry.

I still feel angry every time I pass that memorial, and one
day,
I swear, I'm going to make sure that Rob's name gets carved on that memorial. He deserves to be there, along with all the others who died out there in the mud of Flanders.

Historical
note

The roots of the First World War, which lasted from 1914 until 1918, can be traced back to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. During this war, France was defeated by Germany, and France's eastern provinces, Alsace and Lorraine, became part of a new and larger unified Germany. From that moment, Germany seemed determined to continue to expand and become the leading world power. Aware of Germany's intentions, other European nations – including Britain and Russia – began to prepare for war. For its part, France was determined to get Alsace-Lorraine back from Germany. Germany was aware of this, and also aware that it might also have to fight a war against the Russians who were military allies of France. The German strategy, developed by Count Alfred von Schlieffen in 1905, was that if war was declared, Germany would attack and defeat France first and then attack Russia.

The spark that ignited the War was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. As a result, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Two days later Czar Nicholas II put
his
Russian army in support of Serbia. Germany, acting in support of her ally, Austria-Hungary, demanded that Russia stand down. Russia refused and Germany declared war on Russia.

Putting the von Schlieffen strategy into action, on August 2 Germany demanded from neutral Belgium the right of passage through its land to attack France. Belgium refused, and on August 4, German troops invaded Belgium.

Britain was bound by a treaty to guarantee Belgium's safety if Belgium was ever attacked. Britain was also aware that if the Channel ports fell to an enemy, then Britain was at risk from invasion. So on 4 August 1914 at 11pm (London time), Britain declared war on Germany.

The reason it became a World War rather than just a European War was because all the major European powers, including Britain, Germany and France, were Empires with colonies overseas. Britain's colonies spread as far as Australia and New Zealand, Canada and India. All these colonies then joined the War in support of their “home” country. So, for example, soldiers from British units stationed in Africa were in conflict with soldiers from German units also stationed there, and so fighting broke out between them, although not with the same intensity as in Europe. Many of the British colonies also sent troops to Europe to fight in the War.

More alliances were formed as other countries across
the
world took sides and got drawn into the War. In 1917 America, which had so far been neutral, entered the War on the side of the two main Allies, Britain and France, although the main body of their troops did not arrive in Europe until 1918.

It was on the Western Front, in the fields of Flanders in Belgium that most of the casualties occurred. The casualty figures for the battlefield conflict alone were:

France:
1,385,300 dead, 3,614,700 wounded

Germany:
1,808,545 dead, 4,247,143 wounded

British Empire:
947,023 dead, 2,313,558 wounded

USA:
115,660 dead, 210,216 wounded

Total:
4,256, 528 dead and 10,385,617 wounded

– making 14,642,145 casualties in all

To put this into perspective (from the British side): it meant that 12 per cent of the total number of British soldiers who served on the Western Front were killed (that's one soldier in every eight), while nearly 38 per cent were wounded. In other words, half of all the British soldiers who went to France became casualties of the war.

The muddy quagmires that were the battlefields of the Western Front, which themselves contributed so much to the deaths of so many, were the result of the heavy shells used
by
both sides. The fields of Flanders lay on non-absorbent clay, and over generations a network of drains had been constructed just beneath the surface of the fields, to drain rainwater from the fields into the sea. The bombing smashed these drains. With the water unable to escape, the fields soon turned to mud.

During the years of war on the Western Front the front line swung backwards and forwards from time to time, but there was little decisive change. Sometimes the Germans would make advances, and sometimes the Allies – with often just a few hundreds yards being gained by each side. The stalemate between both sides on the Western Front, which included the battle at Passchendaele, continued until August 1918 when the Allies made a major breakthrough of the German lines at Amiens. From that moment the German military machine began to crumble. During August and September, major advances by the Allies pushed the German forces further back. By October 1918 the German leaders were sending out peace-notes to the Western leaders.

The War finally ended on 11th November 1918. On that day the Armistice was signed. Two days before this it had been announced that the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, had abdicated and had gone into exile, and a German Republic had been proclaimed.

The First World War was over.

However,
for one German soldier who served in the trenches on the Somme, it was just the beginning. A British shell had hit the trench and killed most of the German soldiers in it. This particular soldier was lucky and he escaped with just minor injuries. His name was Adolf Hitler.

Christmas truces on the Western Front

On the first Christmas Day of the War, 25 December 1914, there was an unofficial truce between the ordinary German and British troops in the opposing trenches. They came out of their trenches and met in No Man's Land, where they shook hands, wished one another a Happy Christmas, and exchanged souvenirs. Some even posed for photographs together.

Perhaps the most famous event of this 1914 Christmas truce was the football game between British soldiers and German soldiers played in No Man's Land.

After this truce of 1914, there were no further examples of such close fraternization between the men of both sides, although the other Christmas Days right up to the end of the war in 1918 were marked by a ceasefire by both sides, and an exchange of shouted greetings, and an occasional exchange of small gifts such as cigarettes.

Timeline

June 1914
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo. Austria attacks Serbia.

July 1914
Austria and Hungary at war with Russia.

August 1914
Germany declares war on Russia and France and invades Belgium. Great Britain declares war on Germany.