Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---------------------------------------------
[Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ]
[Here is the poem which was written about
the incident in the article below... Bill]
Christmas in the Trenches by John McCutcheon
My name is Francis Tolliver, I come from Liverpool.
Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school.
To Belgium and to Flanders, to Germany to here
I fought for King and country I love dear.
'Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung,
The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung
Our families back in England were toasting us that day
Their brave and glorious lads so far away.
I was lying with my messmate on the cold and rocky ground
When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound
Says I, "Now listen up, me boys!" each soldier strained to hear
As one young German voice sang out so clear.
"He's singing bloody well, you know!" my partner says to me
Soon, one by one, each German voice joined in harmony
The cannons rested silent, the gas clouds rolled no more
As Christmas brought us respite from the war
As soon as they were finished and a reverent pause was spent
"God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" struck up some lads from Kent
The next they sang was "Stille Nacht." "Tis 'Silent Night'," says I
And in two tongues one song filled up that sky
"There's someone coming toward us!" the front line sentry cried
All sights were fixed on one lone figure trudging from their side
His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shown on that plain so bright
As he, bravely, strode unarmed into the night
Soon one by one on either side walked into No Man's Land
With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand
We shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well
And in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell
We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from home
These sons and fathers far away from families of their own
Young Sanders played his squeezebox and they had a violin
This curious and unlikely band of men
Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more
With sad farewells we each prepared to settle back to war
But the question haunted every heart that lived that wonderous night
"Whose family have I fixed within my sights?"
'Twas Christmas in the trenches where the frost, so bitter hung
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung
For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war
Had been crumbled and were gone forevermore
My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell
Each Christmas come since World War I, I've learned its lessons well
That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we're the same
____________________________________________
[Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ]
.
.
----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Wagner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2001 8:36 AM
Subject: Last WWI "Xmas in the trenches" vet dies at 106 [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
---------------------------------------------
from
The New York Times
Bertie Felstead, Soldier Who Joined a Timeout in
War, Dies at 106
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Bertie Felstead, the last known surviving member of
the British battalion in World War I that laid down
its weapons to play soccer with the Germans in a
spontaneous and long-remembered Christmas truce of
1915, died July 22 in Gloucester, England. He was 106.
The truce lasted perhaps half an hour and it meant
nothing in the grand schemes of the Western Front
generals. But the gesture by Private Felstead's Royal
Welch Fusiliers and the Bavarian infantrymen who faced
them resonates in the British consciousness as a
poignant interlude of civility during a time of
unrelenting carnage.
On Christmas Day 1914, there were many instances of
British and German soldiers emerging from their
trenches to fraternize. Commanders on both sides
warned that this was never to happen again.
But it did happen the next year, on Christmas Day,
near the snowy village of Laventie, France, west of
Lille.
As Mr. Felstead recalled it two years ago, his
mortar battalion was shivering in its trenches on
Christmas Eve when it heard "All Through the Night" in
the German lines 100 yards away.
"It wasn't long before we were singing as well,
`Good King Wenceslas,' I think it was," he remembered.
"You couldn't hear each other sing like that without
it affecting your feelings for the
other side.
"Christmas Day, there was shouting between the
trenches, `Hello Tommy, Hello Fritz,' and that broke a
lot more ice. A few of the Germans came out first and
started walking over. A whole mass of us went out to
meet them. Nothing was planned.
"Some of them were smoking cigars and offered us
cigarettes. We offered them some of ours and we
chatted."
The soldiers got by in English, German, French and
sign language. "We weren't afraid," Mr. Felstead
remembered. "We just sheltered each other. Nobody
would shoot at us when we were all mixed up." An
informal soccer match began in the no man's land
between the trenches.
"Somehow a ball was produced," Mr. Felstead recalled.
"It wasn't a game as such more of a kick- around and
a free-for-all. I remember scrambling around in the
snow. There could have been 50 on
each side. No one was keeping score."
And then, as Harold Diffey, a fellow British
private, once recalled it: "After 30 minutes, a
vociferous major appeared yelling: `You came out to
fight the Huns, not to make friends with them.' So our
lads reluctantly returned, followed by a salvo from
our artillery."
Albert Felstead was born in Hertfordshire, north of
London, on Oct. 28, 1894. He was wounded in the Battle
of the Somme in 1916, later saw combat at Salonika,
then worked as a civilian storekeeper for the Royal
Air Force after the war. He is survived by two
daughters, five grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren
and two great-great-grandchildren. His wife, Alice,
died in 1983.
As a symbol of the World War I soldier and his
yearning for peace, Mr. Felstead was included in a
book by the photographer Carolyn Djanogly,
"Centurions" (Andre Deutsch, 1999),
portraying the people she considered to be the 100
most significant living Britons.
Asked in his last years what he thought of his old
enemy, Mr. Felstead remarked that "the Germans were
all right."
As he put it: "There wouldn't have been a war if it
had been left to the public."
______________________
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/30/obituaries/30FELS.html?ex=997884996&ei=1&en=535706f9
c3678a33
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger
http://phonecard.yahoo.com/
-------------------------------------------------
This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been
shut down
-------------------------------------------------
This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been
shut down
==^================================================================
EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA
Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This email was sent to: [email protected]
T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
==^================================================================
