1914 - NUIT DE NOEL - Interruption des combats

[RIO Jean-Yves]

Bonjour Jacques.

Sur le sujet, se reporter entre autre au fil "Je n'irai pas voir "Joyeux Noel" lancé par notre camarade Lafaurie (dernière intervention le 11.11). A voir actuellement page 5 du Forum ...
Cordlt... de Bretagne.
J-Y

[Eric Mansuy]

Bonjour à tous,
Bonjour M. Sie,

J'espère ne pas interférer dans ce fil, mais comme "chacun sait" je travaile avec 11 élèves de Première sur le sujet des trêves et fraternisations depuis septembre dernier. En l'occurence, et puisque de nombreux participants à ce forum m'ont déjà fourni des éléments sur lesquels nous avons travaillé (qu'ils en soient ici remerciés ! ), me serait-il possible de vous demander à mon tour un scan de ce document ? Il serait d'autant plus intéressant que ces élèves n'ont jusqu'à présent jamais eu sous les yeux de représentation écrite, de première main (si j'ose dire), d'une fraternisation et n'ont étudié que des compte-rendus plus ou moins récents de ces événements.

En espérant que vous voudrez bien collaborer à notre projet,
Bien cordialement
Eric Mansuy

[Eric Mansuy]

Bonsoir,
Cela étant -pour avoir procédé de la sorte- il est tout à fait possible de commander Christmas Truce (voire Silent Night) grâce à Amazon.
Bien cordialement
Eric Mansuy

PS Mais ils ne contiennent pas de clichés de fraternisations "germano-belges" !

[Eric Mansuy]

Bonjour à tous,
Merci Jean-Claude pour cette lettre.

Jacques, si vous le souhaitez, et si vous lisez l'anglais, je peux scanner en cours de journée et mettre en ligne ce qui concerne les Belges dans les fraternisations des 24-25 décembre 1914 et se trouve dans Christmas Truce de Malcolm Brown et Shirley Seaton.

Bien cordialement
Eric Mansuy

[Eric Mansuy]

Bonjour à tous,
Bonjour Jacques,

Voici donc deux extraits de Christmas Truce, de Malcolm Brown et Shirley Seaton.

Bien cordialement
Eric Mansuy


What of the French and Belgians on Christmas Eve?
The Belgians in December 1914 held only a small section of the front, from just south of Nieuport on the Channel coast to the northern end of the Ypres Salient. One Belgian soldier’s account which was quoted shortly afterwards in the British newspapers spoke of ‘a severe cannonade’ on Christmas Eve, and of confessions being heard and communion administered in the clark and wretched cellar of a ruined house - there being nothing left of the local church except part of the tower. ‘We seemed to be living again at the time of the catacombs,’ he wrote. ‘Never shall I forget the touching ceremony, when amid the roar of the guns I took communion on Christmas Eve.’ Thereafter he returned to the line to spend Christmas there.

Christmas in the trenches! It must have been sad, do you say? Well, I am not sorry to have spent it there, and the recollection of it will ever be one of imperishable beauty. At midnight a baritone stood up and in a rich resonant voice sang ‘Minuit, Chrétiens’. The cannonade roared, and when the hymn finished applause broke out from our side and - from the German trenches! The Germans too, were celebrating Christmas, and we could hear them singing 200 yards away from us.

On the next day, in fact, there would be fraternization in this area.
There was much emotion at these midnight services, with their traditional and well-loved hymns. Robert de Wilde, Captain Commandant of the Belgian Artillery, described in his Journal de Campagne a mass held in an improvised sanctuary at Pervyse in the vicinity of the front line:

It was freezing. The stars were shilling superbly and the horizon was lit by multiple blue rockets launched from the German trenches.
The floor of a barn, with its huge double doors for background, straw on every side, draughts everywhere - that was the chapel. A wooden table and two candles stuck in bottles - that was the altar.
The soldiers were singing. It was unreal, sublime. They were singing: ‘Minuit, Chrétiens’, ‘Adeste fideles’, ‘Les anges de nos campagnes’ , all the songs we used to sing when we were little. The Christmases of long ago were coming to life again, all the things we had known in our childhood, the family, the countryside, the fireside, our eyes dazzled by the tree with its sparkling candles, all the things we now relive in our children.

(pages 71-72)
_______

Yet, as has already been shown, there were a number of incidents of seasonal friendliness involving the French and Belgians on Christmas Eve, and the same was true of Christmas Day itself. Likewise there were also outbreaks of bitter and unseasonal violence.
For the Belgian soldier who had attended midnight mass to the sound of gunfire, there was an astonishing change by the following mormng:

Now I am going to tell you something which you will think incredible, but I give you my word that it is true. At dawn the Germans displayed a placard over the trenches on which was written ‘Happy Christmas’ and then, leaving their trenches, unarmed, they advanced towards us singing and shouting ‘Comrades!’ No one fired. We also had left our trenches and, separated from each other only by the half-frozen Yser, we exchanged presents. They gave us cigars, and we threw them some chocolate. Thus almost fraternizing we passed all the morning.
Unlikely, indeed, but true. I saw it, but thought I was dreaming. They asked us to spend Christmas without firing, and the whole day passed without any fighting. At 8 o’clock in the evening we were relieved by other soldiers and returned to the rear without being disturbed.
Was it not splendid? Think you that we were wrong? We have been criticized here; it is said that we ought to have fired. But would it not have been dastardly? And then, why kill one another on such a festival day?

Robert de Wilde, Captain Commandant of Belgian Artillery, who had attended midnight mass in a barn at Pervyse, within sight of the flares fired by the Germans from their trenches, witnessed nothing unusual on Christmas Day on his front but recorded a memorable fraternization at nearby Dixmude, where the Germans and the Belgians were dug in on opposite banks of the river Yser. Sixty unarmed Germans emerged from their lines and sang carols, asked for a one-day’s truce, and threw across the river one of the treasures from the collegiate church of Dixmude - which they had previously purloined - as a pledge of good faith. ‘They have also thrown chocolate to us,’ wrote de Wilde. ‘We have responded with cigars, and the festival of Christmas has momentarily united in the same emotion enemies of yesterday and tomorrow.’

(pages 143-144)

[Eric Mansuy]

Bonjour à tous,
Bonjour Jacques,

Ravi d'avoir pu vous être utile.
De bonnes fêtes de fin d'année en Belgique également !

Bien cordialement
Eric Mansuy