| 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. JOHN McCUTCHEON.
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By the end of November 1914 the crushing German advance that had swallowed the Low Countries and threatened France had been checked by the allies before it could reach Paris. The opposing armies stared at each other from a line of hastily built defensive trenches that began at the edge of the English Channel and continued to the border of Switzerland. Barbed wire and parapets defended the trenches and between them stretched a “No-Mans-Land” that in some areas was no more than 30 yards wide.
Life in the trenches was abominable. Continuous sniping, machinegun fire and artillery shelling took a deadly toll. The misery was heightened by the ravages of Mother Nature, including rain, snow and cold. Many of the trenches, especially those in the low-lying British sector to the west, were continually flooded, exposing the troops to frost bite and “trench foot.”
This treacherous monotony was briefly interrupted during an unofficial and spontaneous “Christmas Truce” that began on Christmas Eve. Both sides had received Christmas packages of food and presents. The clear skies that ended the rain further lifted the spirits on both sides of no-mans-land.
The Germans seem to have made the first move. During the evening of December 24 they delivered a chocolate cake to the British line accompanied by a note that proposed a cease fire so that the Germans could have a concert. The British accepted the proposal and offered some tobacco as their present to the Germans. The good will soon spread along the 27-mile length of the British line. Enemy soldiers shouted to one another from the trenches, joined in singing songs and soon met one another in the middle of no-mans-land to talk, exchange gifts and in some areas to take part in impromptu soccer matches.
The high command on both sides took a dim view of the activities and orders were issued to stop the fraternizing with varying results. In some areas the truce ended Christmas Day in others the following day and in others it extended into January. One thing is for sure – it never happened again.
“We and the Germans met in the middle of no-man’s-land.”
Frank Richards was a British soldier who experienced the “Christmas Truce”. We join his story on Christmas morning 1914:
“On Christmas morning we stuck up a board with ‘A Merry Christmas’ on it. The enemy had stuck up a similar one. Platoons would sometimes go out for twenty-four hours’ rest – it was a day at least out of the trench and relieved the monotony a bit – and my platoon had g
one out in this way the night before, but a few of us stayed behind to see what would happen. Two of our men then threw their equipment off and jumped on the parapet with their hands above their heads. Two of the Germans done the same and commenced to walk up the river bank, our two men going to meet them. They met and shook hands and then
we all got out of the trench.
Buffalo Bill [the Company Commander] rushed into the trench and endeavoured to prevent it, but he was too late: the whole of the Company were now out, and so were the Germans. He had to accept the situation, so soon he and the other company officers climbed out too. We and the Germans met in the middle of no-man’s-land. Their officers was also now out. Our officers exchanged greetings with them. One of the German officers said that he wished he had a camera to take a snapshot, but they were not allowed to carry cameras. Neither
were our officers.
We mucked in all day with one another. They were Saxons and some of them could speak English. By the look of them their trenches were in as bad a state as our own. One of their men, speaking in English, mentioned that he had worked in Brighton for some years and that he was fed up to the neck with this damned war and would be glad when it was all over. We told him that he wasn’t the only one that was fed up with it. We did not allow them in our trench and they did not allow us in theirs.
The German Company-Commander asked Buffalo Bill if he would accept a couple of barrels of beer and assured him that they would not make his men drunk. They had plenty of it in the brewery. He accepted the offer with thanks and a couple of their men rolled the barrels over and we took them into our trench. The German officer sent one of his men back to the trench, who appeared shortly after carrying a tray with bottles and glasses on it. Officers of both sides clinked glasses and drunk one another’s health. Buffalo Bill had presented them with a plum pudding just before. The officers came to an understanding that the unofficial truce would end at midnight. At dusk we went
back to our respective trenches.
…The two barrels of beer were drunk, and the German officer was right: if it was possible for a man to have drunk the two barrels himself he would have bursted before he had got drunk. French beer was rotten stuff.
Just before midnight we all made it up not to commence firing before they did. At night there was always plenty of firing by both sides if there were no working parties or patrols out. Mr Richardson, a young officer who had just joined the Battalion and was now a platoon officer in my company wrote a poem during the night about the Briton and the Bosche meeting in no-man’s-land on Christmas Day, which he read out to us. A few days later it was published in The Times or Morning Post, I believe.
During the whole of Boxing Day [the day after Christmas] we never fired a shot, and they the same, each side seemed to be waiting for the other to set the ball a-rolling. One of their men shouted across in English and inquired how we had enjoyed the beer. We shouted back and told him it was very weak but that we were very grateful for it. We were conversing off and on during the whole of the day.
We were relieved that evening at dusk by a battalion of another brigade. We were mighty surprised as we had heard no whisper of any relief during the day. We told the men who relieved us how we had spent the last couple of days with the enemy, and they told us that by what they had been told the whole of the British troops in the line, with one or two exceptions, had mucked in with the enemy. They had only been out of action themselves forty-eight hours after being twenty-eight days in the front-line trenches. They also told us that the French people had heard how we had spent Christmas Day and were saying all manner of nasty things about the British Army.”
“Take the sign of the cross. At once you will have indulgence for all the sins which you confess with a contrite heart. It does not cost you much to buy, and if you wear it with humility, you will find that it is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
m taxes and even tithes. They also gained great wealth from the possessions of new recruits who had to sign their worldly goods to the Order, donations flooding in, and the ownership of land which included much of London and grand temples in Paris and Jerusalem. There are still remarkable ruins of castles built by the Knights in the Holy Land. In 1307 they even bought Yorkshire for the very cheap price of 1300 pounds and for a time they owned Cyprus. The Knights virtually invented banking, getting around the rule against usury, and lending money to monarchs and merchants. The clergy of the Holy Land disliked the Knight’s privileges and power because the revenue of their churches had been diminished, as the Knight’s revenues grew.
‘Guests of the Nation’, is a story revolving around the hostilities between England and Ireland during the struggle for Ireland to be a free and sovereign nation. The plot of the story involves two relatively new recruitment’s to the Irish army, Noble and Bonaparte, who discover the true nature of the reason why they are holding two captured British soldiers – Belcher and Hawkins. As told through the eyes of Bonaparte, the two Irish soldiers must ultimately witness and take part in the execution of the hostages that they have befriended. Standing silent and with duty to country, Jeremiah Donovan is the seasoned Irish veteran of the war that watches as the friendship develops between Belcher, Hawkins, Noble and Bonaparte. When four Irish hostages end up dead (killed by the British army), Donovan explains to Bonaparte that two hostages they hold will be killed in retaliation for the Irish lad’s death. Jeremiah Donovan’s character in ‘Guest of the Nation’ is that of the seasoned soldier of war that by his actions, displays to Noble and Bonaparte what war is really all about.
When anyone mentions witches, outside of Halloween, one place will usually come to the minds of most people – Salem. For some reason; perhaps because of the major publicity it has received over the years – through books, movies, and tourism, or perhaps because people need to remember what horror was brought about through sheer hysteria and gossip; Salem is the most talked about of all the worldwide witch trials.
ad visited . Perhaps it was the court that allowed hearsay and malicious gossip convict and kill innocent people. Perhaps it was the laws that covered the court and said the trials were “legal”. Whoever or whatever was to blame, the outcome was the same. Many innocent people were condemned to death – and their sentences carried out – whilst many others spent months in prison needlessly and never recovered from their experience.
His name has inspired fear, horror and revulsion throughout the centuries. He has been immortalized in books, film and television series. Vampires are mostly myth; but, Dracula is indeed real. Prince Vlad III was born in either November or December of the year 1431 in the town of Sighisoara in Transylvania. His father was the son of Mircea cel Batrin (Mircea the Elder). He was an important ruler of Wallachia, an area of Southern Romania which is situated north of the Danube and south of the Carpathian Mountains.
William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”, is a play that bridges the past with the present in terms of its content and dramatics. Many of the same attributes that people expect from a good movie or book can be found in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and in other plays that Shakespeare wrote. Hamlet has been regarded as Shakespeare’s most famous play, intriguing readers with its many underlying themes and symbols that can be related to a persons own life. Because of the many different ways a person could interpret the character of Hamlet, it continues to amaze and provide debate to readers today. The story line revolves around Hamlet, and his desire to avenge his father’s death when he discovers, from the ghost of his father, that his Uncle is responsible for his father’s murder. To complicate matters, his mother’s marriage to Hamlet’s Uncle, only 2 months after his father’s death, has left Hamlet deceived about his mother and what he thought her to be. While the story line in Hamlet is just as good as any modern day tale of a tragedy, complete with action, blood and gore, it is the underlying interpretation of Hamlet that has provided nearly 400 years of spirited debate. Shakespeare’s “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” is pertinent to us today based on the following three significant reasons.
