History in Colour: Christmas in the Trenches

by Admin · Published December 22, 2023 · Updated December 18, 2023

A snapshot from the past, colourised exclusively for The Southern Cross

German soldiers on the Western Front in World War I gather in their trench around a modest Christmas tree, probably one of the thousands which German Kaiser Wilhelm II sent to the front in a bid to boost morale.

Some of the cold and exhausted soldiers are reading letters from home. One soldier is playing the accordion, likely a German Christmas carol.

The first Christmas of the war, which had started a few months earlier in 1914, saw an undeclared ceasefire between British and German troops, known as the “Christmas Truce”.

Pope Benedict XV, who ascended to the papacy just a month after the outbreak of war, had issued an appeal “that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang”. The generals ignored Benedict’s hope, but soldiers in the trenches took the initiative themselves. They not only held fire but even emerged from their trenches to meet the enemy, shake hands, share a drink, and in some places even enjoy a game of football.

After Christmas, the killing resumed. There would be no more Christmas truce until the war ended in 1918.

Published in the December 2022 issue of The Southern Cross magazine