ONLINE: The Christmas Day Truce 1914 with Gordon Corrigan
13 Dec

The presentation will be live and online. 

We welcome back Gordon Corrigan who will talk to us about the Christmas Day Truce of 1914.

Truces and armistices, brief halts in the fighting, temporary fraternisations, all are as old as warfare. They might be called in order to exchange prisoners, retrieve wounded or bury the dead, or, as in 1914, in celebration of a festival common to both sides. The difference in 1914 is that what occurred was widely publicised, and in many cases exaggerated.

On Christmas Day 1914 all along the Western Front (and on the Eastern Front too) there were sporadic instances of carol singing by both sides, leading to meetings in no-man’s-land, fraternisation, exchange of gifts and even at least one football match.  After a press embargo was broken in the neutral USA the British press reported it pretty much as it was, with pictures, the German press criticised what had happened, without pictures, and the French press said it was treason and only happened on the British sector.

This talk explains what really happened and not only what its effects were, but what they were thought to be.

Members wishing to participate will need to register: details of how to register will be circulated via The Western Front Association's newsletter 'Trench Lines'. If you are not a subscriber to 'Trench Lines' please subscribe now. 

To subscribe to Trench Lines, go to the homepage of The Western Front Association website and complete your details in the 'Newsletter sign up' box. 

It is also possible to register by clicking this link: The Christmas Day Truce 1914

The talk will be undertaken using the 'Zoom' software which is freely available. It may not be necessary to load the software to your PC / iPad etc: but we would recommend doing so if you wish to participate in this event.

Please Note : > Once registrations hit capacity (we have a 1000 limit on the webinars) then you won't be able to register. If this happens, you can still watch the event via the Facebook Live Stream (subject to any technical hitches) on our Facebook page. Alternatively, these are loaded to our YouTube channel where they can be watched a few weeks after the event.  

Featured Image: The Illustrated London News illustration of the Christmas Truce: 'British and German Soldiers Arm-in-Arm Exchanging Headgear: A Christmas Truce between Opposing Trenches'.

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ONLINE: The Christmas Day Truce 1914 with Gordon Corrigan, office@westernfrontassociation.com
13 Dec 2021 20:00