General Sir Walter Congreve’s letter confirms Christmas Day truce of 1914
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Version 0 of 1. The Christmas Day truce is remembered as a flowering of humanity during the carnage of the First World War. But while comradeship briefly flourished between British and German troops in 1914, such feelings did little to warm General Sir Walter Congreve’s heart. A newly discovered letter written by the general details how deadly enemies shared cigars and played football in No Man’s Land – but also reveals how the decorated officer declined an offer to join in, based on the firm belief that he would prove too tempting a target for a German bullet. The document will go on display today in Staffordshire, offering almost 100 years to the day a candid account of how a spontaneous Christmas peace broke out in some sectors of the Western Front while elsewhere the rain of bullets continued. Sir Walter, who had won the Victoria Cross in the Boer War, recounted to his wife how he had visited British trenches in the village of Neuve Chapelle, near Arras, on Christmas Day and received reports of the cessation of hostilities. He wrote: “I found an extraordinary state of affairs – this a.m. a German shouted out that they wanted a day’s truce & would one come out if he did. “So very cautiously one of our men lifted himself above the parapet & saw a German doing the same. Both got out then more & finally all day long in that particular place they have been walking about together giving each other cigars & singing songs.” Describing how officers including several captains and a German colonel had joined the temporary ceasefire, Sir Walter added that he was reluctant to take part for fear that shots might be fired at such a high-ranking officer. He wrote: “I was invited to go & see the Germans myself but refrained as I thought they might not be able to resist a general.” The letter shows that while his subordinates may have suspended their martial instincts, Sir Walter maintained the official stance that the enemy was there for one thing – to be killed. The general, who survived the war but lost his son at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, continued: “My informant, one of the men, said he had had a fine day of it & had smoked a cigar with the best shot in the German army, then not more than 18. They say he’s killed more of our men than any other 12 together but I know now where he shoots from & I hope we down him tomorrow. I hope devoutly they will.” The document was donated to Stafford’s Record Office in the 1970s but was recently discovered by archivists preparing for the war’s centenary. |