Comparison Between Hulse And The Times
Only five months into World War I, on December 24 1914, an usual sound was heard throughout the war-trodden trenches of Belgium and France. The sound of silence. Although the war had only begun a few months before, the soldiers had already seen their fill of death, and many were weary of the horrific events in what seemed to be a futile war. Both British and German soldiers used their mutual religious holiday to hold a temporary cease-fire as a reprieve from the war. One of the common misconceptions of the truce was its very existence, as there were some troops reporting normal wartime activity throughout the Christmas season. With each soldier’s experience differing, letters written by Captain Edward Hulse, other letters sent in to The Times
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Newspaper, as well as the Sainsbury TV advertisement of 2014 all illustrate the Christmas Truce, showing common and contrasting experiences and the resulting conclusion that there was no one Christmas Truce. However, the various accounts of the truce cannot be forgotten and this leads to an understanding that while the Christmas truce is not a myth, it is neither an isolated incident limited to one battalion nor was it experienced the same way in different battalions. It took place in several sections along two-thirds of the Western front , each with their own truce and with their own informal rules of disengagement and therefore its own experience. No matter the differences, this armistice, known as the Christmas Truce, was for the soldiers that did experience it, as Captain Edward Hulse stated, “…the most extraordinary Christmas… you could possibly imagine.”
As a professional soldier, Captain Edward Hulse of the second battalion of the Scots Guards had a different view of the truce from the common soldier. He also wrote detailed accounts of his experience from his own perspective. “For some soldiers, the burial of the dead seems to have been the primary reason for, and the main feature of the Christmas Day cease-fire” , and this was especially the case for Hulse as he expressed his relief over his ability to decently bury his fallen comrades and being able to send word home to those who were without information of their loved ones. This was also emphasized in the Times newspaper excerpts, with the Germans showing the same respect for the dead that Hulse had seen, and in return the English admiring the Germans for that respect.
A theme in the sources that was found, and emphasized by Hulse and the Times, but not in Sainsbury’s advertisement, is the use of the soldier’s time during the truce.
The conditions of the trenches were de-moralizing for the soldiers, with deep mud and little protection from the elements, so the soldiers used the truce to build up their defenses and ensure their comfort for the next few months. The one aspect of the soldiers time that contrasted in its mentioning between Hulse and the Times was the repairs of the barbed wire in no-man’s-land. While Hulse reported using the time offered by the truce to repair the wire entanglements, with not one German firing upon them , the Times on the other hand, had letters written by soldiers stating that that was the only activity the Germans refused to allow them to …show more content…
do. A common part of Hulse’s letters that was not repeated in any of the other sources was his attempts to use the Truce for his battalion’s political gain. Not only did he try to gather intelligence of the German’s positions and sought paths available on no-man’s-land that were closer to the German’s trenches, but he also attempted to coerce the enemy’s soldiers to abandon their troops and join the British, which was successful through the defect of a German soldier. One can only conjecture that the Germans would have made their own attempts to gather intelligence, and it would have been difficult for the British to control them from crossing the halfway line as more men went out onto no-man’s-land to fraternize.
Another standard element of the majority of letters was the famous football game, which became the highlight of the fraternization with the Germans. In Hulse’s account of the truce, however, he never once mentions such an activity though he writes in rigorous detail about many other aspects that occurred that day.
While Hulse’s experience has many aspects that are common with other soldier’s recollections, it is not an encompassing view of the Christmas Truce that all soldiers would agree upon. Not like Hulse’s letters, the 2014 Sainsbury TV advertisement of The Christmas Truce was made for the modern English public to understand and relate to. Sainsbury’s website admits that their ad “is a fictionalized version of the events that took place” but they insist that they have “made every effort to ensure that the details are as authentic as possible”. This is true as the ad presents select events of the Christmas Truce, but then it compresses the information found from various soldiers’ experiences, and pulls out the most popular events, all the while commercializing for the English public.
“Once the truce was begun, soldiers from different parts of the line experienced varied activities during the truce” , but one of the most famous stories which was discussed extensively became the football match between the Germans and the English in no-man’s-land. Being the main element in many soldier’s correspondences, the football match became the focus of the commercial, taking up a large portion of screen time. While the event was widely popular due to its timing and uniqueness during the war, it was neither the focus of the truce, nor was it a large portion of the event as the commercial infers. In actuality, many truces did not include a football match, and only one excerpt from the Times mentioned the match in passing stating that the Germans had won 3-2. While Sainsbury re-creates the genuine fraternizing and reactions of the majority of the soldiers as depicted in soldiers’ letters, it takes away the important images and background that make up the war. There was no suspiciousness of the enemy, as Hulse comments in his work, and there was no attempt to repair trenches or see to the burying of their fellow soldiers, as this would have taken away from the aura of goodwill and light-hearted spirit that was necessary for a commercial to be successful. The Times Newspaper took excerpts from different soldiers’ letters to create its news.
Each letter is structured to formulate one story, however the soldiers do not come from the same battalion, nor were they situated in the same area along the Front. Although the burial session was an important and common feature throughout all areas that witnessed the truce, “the number of soldiers detailing the burial sessions rivals the proportion of troops recalling stories of talking and trading with the Germans” . As a member of the London Rifle Brigade was quoted in the Times, “Cigarettes, cigars, addresses, etc., were exchanged, and every one, friend and foe, were real good pals.” This is the same with Hulse, as George Paynter another captain of the Scots Guards, gave a scarf, and received in return warm woolly gloves. This was also a theme in Sainsbury’s ad as the English soldier gives his one bar of chocolate to the German soldier, leaving himself with only a cracker to eat, helping their slogan ‘Christmas is for Sharing’. The length of the truce also varied based on the soldier’s experience and the construction of the truce. Hulse continuously told the Germans that the truce had come to an end, yet they refused to commence firing, in fact when Hulse returned to the trenches on New Years Eve, he stated that “the 158th German regiment have not yet fired a shot since Christmas” . On the other hand, one excerpt in the Times stated that they “mutually agreed not to reopen hositilities
before midnight” , while another stated that “The Germans were all for the truce lasting for 48 hours, but we stuck out for midnight on Christmas”.
In constructing the news, the Times only highlights the events that would have been common news throughout the public, and therefore would appeal to the public, similar to how Sainsbury made their advert, discarding any information that differs within the articles. “Although the Times got many of the details about the armistice correct, its decision to cast the episode in those dramatic terms imposed a moral on the narrative of the cease-fire that had not been drawn by those who had participated in it.”
“The Christmas Truce was by no means a standard behaviour all along the Western Front; at least eight British soldiers were killed on Christmas Day” , and of the accounts of the soldiers who did experience the Christmas Truce of 1914, no two are the same. The various soldiers from different regiments and battalions expressed vastly contrasting experiences that range “from simple agreements not to fire upon the opposing side, to prearranged armistices for the sole purpose of burying the dead, to all out fraternization with exchanges of food, tobacco and alcohol” . The Christmas truce “was a brief reprieve from fighting that neither a civilian nor a soldier could have anticipated, and was at times only seen as merely a myth or a small incident blown widely out of proportion due to its fiction-like characteristics”, this truce was experienced by soldiers and was a singularly pleasant moment in an otherwise bitter war. “When viewed through the eyes of the different soldiers, it becomes clear that there is no one fully encompassing experience of the truces.”
“The diversity of views produced a fragmented discourse of the war during the first two decades after it ended, and the Christmas Truce remained part of that narrative battleground, credited with meanings as varied as the attitudes of those who wrote about it.”
Newspaper, as well as the Sainsbury TV advertisement of 2014 all illustrate the Christmas Truce, showing common and contrasting experiences and the resulting conclusion that there was no one Christmas Truce. However, the various accounts of the truce cannot be forgotten and this leads to an understanding that while the Christmas truce is not a myth, it is neither an isolated incident limited to one battalion nor was it experienced the same way in different battalions. It took place in several sections along two-thirds of the Western front , each with their own truce and with their own informal rules of disengagement and therefore its own experience. No matter the differences, this armistice, known as the Christmas Truce, was for the soldiers that did experience it, as Captain Edward Hulse stated, “…the most extraordinary Christmas… you could possibly imagine.”
As a professional soldier, Captain Edward Hulse of the second battalion of the Scots Guards had a different view of the truce from the common soldier. He also wrote detailed accounts of his experience from his own perspective. “For some soldiers, the burial of the dead seems to have been the primary reason for, and the main feature of the Christmas Day cease-fire” , and this was especially the case for Hulse as he expressed his relief over his ability to decently bury his fallen comrades and being able to send word home to those who were without information of their loved ones. This was also emphasized in the Times newspaper excerpts, with the Germans showing the same respect for the dead that Hulse had seen, and in return the English admiring the Germans for that respect.
A theme in the sources that was found, and emphasized by Hulse and the Times, but not in Sainsbury’s advertisement, is the use of the soldier’s time during the truce.
The conditions of the trenches were de-moralizing for the soldiers, with deep mud and little protection from the elements, so the soldiers used the truce to build up their defenses and ensure their comfort for the next few months. The one aspect of the soldiers time that contrasted in its mentioning between Hulse and the Times was the repairs of the barbed wire in no-man’s-land. While Hulse reported using the time offered by the truce to repair the wire entanglements, with not one German firing upon them , the Times on the other hand, had letters written by soldiers stating that that was the only activity the Germans refused to allow them to …show more content…
do. A common part of Hulse’s letters that was not repeated in any of the other sources was his attempts to use the Truce for his battalion’s political gain. Not only did he try to gather intelligence of the German’s positions and sought paths available on no-man’s-land that were closer to the German’s trenches, but he also attempted to coerce the enemy’s soldiers to abandon their troops and join the British, which was successful through the defect of a German soldier. One can only conjecture that the Germans would have made their own attempts to gather intelligence, and it would have been difficult for the British to control them from crossing the halfway line as more men went out onto no-man’s-land to fraternize.
Another standard element of the majority of letters was the famous football game, which became the highlight of the fraternization with the Germans. In Hulse’s account of the truce, however, he never once mentions such an activity though he writes in rigorous detail about many other aspects that occurred that day.
While Hulse’s experience has many aspects that are common with other soldier’s recollections, it is not an encompassing view of the Christmas Truce that all soldiers would agree upon. Not like Hulse’s letters, the 2014 Sainsbury TV advertisement of The Christmas Truce was made for the modern English public to understand and relate to. Sainsbury’s website admits that their ad “is a fictionalized version of the events that took place” but they insist that they have “made every effort to ensure that the details are as authentic as possible”. This is true as the ad presents select events of the Christmas Truce, but then it compresses the information found from various soldiers’ experiences, and pulls out the most popular events, all the while commercializing for the English public.
“Once the truce was begun, soldiers from different parts of the line experienced varied activities during the truce” , but one of the most famous stories which was discussed extensively became the football match between the Germans and the English in no-man’s-land. Being the main element in many soldier’s correspondences, the football match became the focus of the commercial, taking up a large portion of screen time. While the event was widely popular due to its timing and uniqueness during the war, it was neither the focus of the truce, nor was it a large portion of the event as the commercial infers. In actuality, many truces did not include a football match, and only one excerpt from the Times mentioned the match in passing stating that the Germans had won 3-2. While Sainsbury re-creates the genuine fraternizing and reactions of the majority of the soldiers as depicted in soldiers’ letters, it takes away the important images and background that make up the war. There was no suspiciousness of the enemy, as Hulse comments in his work, and there was no attempt to repair trenches or see to the burying of their fellow soldiers, as this would have taken away from the aura of goodwill and light-hearted spirit that was necessary for a commercial to be successful. The Times Newspaper took excerpts from different soldiers’ letters to create its news.
Each letter is structured to formulate one story, however the soldiers do not come from the same battalion, nor were they situated in the same area along the Front. Although the burial session was an important and common feature throughout all areas that witnessed the truce, “the number of soldiers detailing the burial sessions rivals the proportion of troops recalling stories of talking and trading with the Germans” . As a member of the London Rifle Brigade was quoted in the Times, “Cigarettes, cigars, addresses, etc., were exchanged, and every one, friend and foe, were real good pals.” This is the same with Hulse, as George Paynter another captain of the Scots Guards, gave a scarf, and received in return warm woolly gloves. This was also a theme in Sainsbury’s ad as the English soldier gives his one bar of chocolate to the German soldier, leaving himself with only a cracker to eat, helping their slogan ‘Christmas is for Sharing’. The length of the truce also varied based on the soldier’s experience and the construction of the truce. Hulse continuously told the Germans that the truce had come to an end, yet they refused to commence firing, in fact when Hulse returned to the trenches on New Years Eve, he stated that “the 158th German regiment have not yet fired a shot since Christmas” . On the other hand, one excerpt in the Times stated that they “mutually agreed not to reopen hositilities
before midnight” , while another stated that “The Germans were all for the truce lasting for 48 hours, but we stuck out for midnight on Christmas”.
In constructing the news, the Times only highlights the events that would have been common news throughout the public, and therefore would appeal to the public, similar to how Sainsbury made their advert, discarding any information that differs within the articles. “Although the Times got many of the details about the armistice correct, its decision to cast the episode in those dramatic terms imposed a moral on the narrative of the cease-fire that had not been drawn by those who had participated in it.”
“The Christmas Truce was by no means a standard behaviour all along the Western Front; at least eight British soldiers were killed on Christmas Day” , and of the accounts of the soldiers who did experience the Christmas Truce of 1914, no two are the same. The various soldiers from different regiments and battalions expressed vastly contrasting experiences that range “from simple agreements not to fire upon the opposing side, to prearranged armistices for the sole purpose of burying the dead, to all out fraternization with exchanges of food, tobacco and alcohol” . The Christmas truce “was a brief reprieve from fighting that neither a civilian nor a soldier could have anticipated, and was at times only seen as merely a myth or a small incident blown widely out of proportion due to its fiction-like characteristics”, this truce was experienced by soldiers and was a singularly pleasant moment in an otherwise bitter war. “When viewed through the eyes of the different soldiers, it becomes clear that there is no one fully encompassing experience of the truces.”
“The diversity of views produced a fragmented discourse of the war during the first two decades after it ended, and the Christmas Truce remained part of that narrative battleground, credited with meanings as varied as the attitudes of those who wrote about it.”