Letter #12 December 27th, 1914 written by Charley to his Mom and Dad and his younger sister.
December 27, 1914 France
Just received
your very nice P.C. today. Was very glad
to hear that VV would be home for Christmas and when you write be sure to tell
me how she made out in her Exams. The
nurses had the Hospital all decorated up with evergreens at night they gave a
concert all of which help very much to cheer up the patients as there were a
lot that were not well enough to go home for Christmas. As yet we have not had any wounded Canadians
you see we were here a long while before the Canadians left Salisbury Plains.
Had a letter from Laws
and Ina today. They seem to be all in
good health and Ina said that she had got Ireland reinstated around the house
she sure is some girl I like to hear from her as I know just what kind of a time
she has had around there with Annie.
Things around here are
just about the same the allies are still progressing little by little. And some
of these days you will hear about the progress the Kawks are making and by the time Kitchener's
army gets here there will be something doing.
In all your letters you
keep asking me if I am in France. We
were the first of all the Canadians to land on the Continent (_censored_______________).
Had a letter from Ross saying he
had joined the second contingent and hoped to meet me in Berlin. He said he had
joined three weeks previous but had not told his mother and was not going to
tell they were leaving as he did not want to prolong the agony.
The weather here has
been very rainy the last few days but the people in this vicinity say that it
gets fine again about the middle of February
Well Mother
there is absolutely no news that I can tell more than you see in the
papers. Hoping this finds you and Father
in good health and business brisk the coming new year. Remember me to VV when you write her.
Chas.
The Christmas of 1914 must have been an extremely difficult time for the families of those serving and certainly for those on active duty.
Young men, brand new soldiers, enduring the trenches, the cold, the wet; and not really seeing the sense in it all. Men from all over the world enduring the shock and horror of losing friends and comrades in unimaginable scenarios. Most of them signed up believing they`d be home by Christmas.
It would have been just as difficult for those serving outside the trenches; the Nursing Sisters, the surgeons, the ambulance drivers, the postal workers, the medical dispensers, the dental assistants.
I sit at my computer today in the peace and quiet of my blessed life and I am thankful and humbled. Thankful that I live in a corner of the world where I am free to live the way I choose. Thankful that I am not hungry or frightened or cold. And I am humbled as I reflect on the millions upon millions of lives lost and turned upside down by that first 'Great War'.
The 'Christmas Truce' of 1914 is well known. It`s getting a great deal of press this year on the centenary of the First World War, with a good bit of sweetening and sanitizing. For some men in the trenches, the Christmas Truce was a brief ceasefire while both sides buried the dead who had fallen in no mans land. Wherever it occurred, with or without the singing of carols and exchange of small gifts, it was most certainly a moment of sanity and civility just before the gates of hell were flung wide open.
From the WW1
journals of Private Herr Lange of the German army, “The difficulty began after the
26th, when the order to fire was given, for the men struck. `We
can’t - they are good fellows, and we can’t.’ Finally the officers turned
on the men with, `Fire, or we do - and not at the enemy!’ Not a shot had
come from the other side, but at last they fired, and an answering fire
came back, but not a man fell. We spent that day and the next, wasting ammunition in trying to shoot the stars down from
the sky."
And from Captain C. I. Stockwell, Royal Welsh Fusiliers
“December
26th. There was a hard frost. At 8.30 I fired three shots in the air
and put up a flag with “Merry Christmas” on it and I climbed on the
parapet. The German captain put up a sheet with “Thank You” on it,
appeared on the parapet. We both bowed and saluted and got down into our
respective trenches, and he fired two shots into the air, and the War
was on again.”
(Here`s a diagram and a photograph of a WW1 trench)
Away From The Trenches
The following is a young woman's description of Christmas 1914 at the hospital where Charley worked. It's an excerpt from Chapter
18 of " Doing Our
Bit : Memories of War Service By a Canadian Nursing Sister" written by Mabel
B. Clint (1934)
Christmas 1914
Our first December 25th. was spent at Le Touquet. We had
sent as many patients as possible across the Channel, and the remainder were
not too numerous to entertain. On Christmas Eve we gathered in the central
hall, and sang carols from the staircase, where they could be heard by the
bed-patients, while all who could be up were gathered in wheel chairs and
benches on the floor below. This was a surprise feature, and pleased the men as
a reminder of the Eve at home. On Christmas morning there was an early
celebration of Holy Communion, to which many came. The patients each received a
Canadian Red Cross present from our stores, and were regaled with a good
dinner. Instead of the meal on a tray, a long table was set up in each ward and
the men enjoyed most of all the community repast. The Colonel visited every
ward, all being gaily decorated and wished his charges a merry Christmas. The
cards sent from the King and Queen to each man were distributed, and Princess
Mary's gift box.
The British Grocers' Federation contributed individual tins of
toffee, decorated with the Flag and portrait of the King, inscribed "To
our fighting heroes," while another Firm sent gifts bearing the legend:
"Good luck to our 'Contemptible little army'". So that even the
"All-Highest" had part in the merriment of the occasion. Special
cakes had been ordered by the sisters from Paris-Plage, and were elaborately
decorated, and much admired as well as otherwise enjoyed by our soldier guests.
A gramophone had arrived from England, and during the afternoon English
residents at Le Touquet paid a visit with a present of tobacco, always welcome,
and gave a concert in the evening. The day was fine and bright, and cheered the
spirits of those who were spending their first Christmas at war. Canadian
nurses in Boulogne were invited to dinner at our Mess, and the officers and
sisters dined together, with toasts to Canada.
Another Nursing Sister, Miss Alfreeda Attrill describes these past few weeks at Charley's hospital. Her letter was published in the Winnipeg Evening Tribune ~ January 9th 1915
Miss Attrill writes:
No 2 Stationary Hospital, 1st Canadian
Expeditionary Force Via Boulogne France Formerly Golf Club
Our hospital is now in running order. It was formerly a Gold
Club hotel at Le Touquet. The wards are named after the provinces of
Canada. There are four floors, three
wards on each floor, excepting the basement, which has but one ward, New
Brunswick, not yet opened, and dental surgery dispensary and stores departments.
Our patients arrived about mid night the third of December.
For a week I was not attached to any particular ward, doing general relieving,
day or night and taking stock of linen, etc.
When the second convoy of sick and wounded soldiers arrived I was
assigned in charge of forty six beds.
The majority of the cases in this ward just now are medical. I am glad
to say that all are doing very well. Each day there is an improvement. Some were sent home to England last week All
are looking forward in anticipation of Christmas in the hospital. They say it seems like unto heaven after the
long weeks of four months in th trenches and so home-like. The soldiers are such good patients, never a
grumble or a groan, even from the most ill and suffering. Always a smile from “Tommy” when an inquiry
is made as to his wants or comforts. One of our patients was fortunate enough
to have his father come over from England to visit him. You never saw such a delighted boy and
pleased father who was overjoyed to find his son doing so nicely and to see the
first Canadian hospital establishment in France. Miss Hudson is sister in charge of the Prince
Edward Island ward.
Many Frost bitten.
A great number of the surgical cases have frost bitten feet.
The medical ones are such as would develop from exposure over fatigue and
infection.. Our location is very
beautiful. It is not far from the
sea. When daylight noises have ceased we
can hear the roar of the ocean and often at night the boom of the guns. The
contour of the country is rolling with clumps of pines sand dunes bare and wet
sloughs all intersected with well-built turnpikes or high roads. There are two
villages quite near to which the nursing sister sometimes walk or ride
horseback. We have good, well cooked
food, our sleeping quarters are comfortable and we enjoy the work.
Alfreeda J Attrill
Nursing sisters CAMC
From the Toronto Mail and Empire. Jan
2015
A letter written by Captain Reginald Pentecost, a chief physician who, with other members of the
No. 2 Stationary Hospital of the First Canadian Expeditionary Force, is
stationed in Le Touquet northern France.
"A
Mutual Truce
Many
remarkable stories have been told us by the latest train-load of wounded
soldiers of how Christmas Day in the trenches was spent. In some regions there was a mutual truce
declared between our men and the Germans, and during this they each got out of
their trenches and shook hands and exchanged greeting and presents. In one place where our engineers were
building a pontoon bridge the Germans sent a note saying that they would agree
not to fire if the English stop building the bridge for a few hours, although
they had several Maxim guns trained on the spot. At the end of the time they left a note
pinned to a board saying, “We are leaving and another regiment is taking our
places, so you are no longer safe” And
in a quarter of an hour, sure enough the same place was literally orn to pieces
by gun fire. This seems extraordinary
does it not, when you consider how bitterly they fight under ordinary
circumstances? These are but a few of
the incidents which tend to relieve a little of the horrible side of modern
warfare.
On Christmas Day we had very few cases in the
hospital, but those who remained, about 150 in number, had, I think, one of the
jolliest Christmases they have ever experienced. They all took an interest in decorating the
hospital, and as we are near a pine forest there was plenty of green to set off
the red bunting and flags which were given to us by various people and
societies in England. Some of the soldiers had real artistic ability and
could draw very well, so we had many
sketches and rough drawings made of cotton and paper, and stuck on the blankets
and bunting. Two of them were mottoes
reading, “Success to our Canadian Comrades” and “Best Wishes of the Royal Warwick’s
to Col. Shillington and Officers. Each
man had a red stocking tied to the foot of his bed by the nurses, which were
filled with small toys, candies, nuts and some useful presents at the
bottom. It was very amusing when each
man awoke in the morning and saw his stocking.
One would awaken another in the next bed and say: Jack wake up. Look at
the blooming things I got” and then they would pull out a small horn and blow
it. In the afternoon we had a concert at
which many of the prominent London entertainers, who came over to entertain the
wounded, sang, while many men took part and recited different pieces by Kipling
or sang rollicking songs as only the British Tommy can. One of the men composed and recited a poem on
the occasion."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources:
Thanks to M.K Tod (www.awriterofhistory.com)
and Gary Bachman's notes in the comment section to this article
Charley volunteered in August 1914 as a Private with the Canadian Expeditionary Forces. 
