German soldiers celebrating Christmas in a trench in 1915. Photo: i.imgur.com

The spirit of Christmas 1915 was the second one to be celebrated during World War I. Although Malta was not in the frontline, there were thousands of wounded troops being treated in Maltese hospitals and convalescent camps around Malta. The convalescents were entertained and given presents. They were even visited by the

Governor and his wife.

This Christmas was not to see the many Christmas truces that were experienced during 1914, when troops on both the Western and Eastern Fronts commemorated Christmas by exchanging personal items and even playing football. However, there was at least one occasion that a football match was played.

In 1915 Christmas services were successfully held in churches by several denominations. On Christmas Eve the sick were entertained at the Theatre Royal (Royal Opera House) through the generosity of the Governor. The large gathering included the nursing staff and patients of several hospitals.

On Christmas Day the weather was fine; it was like in spring time. Valletta was crowded, especially Strada Reale (now Republic Street). The barracks hospitals and camps around Malta were decorated and there was a constant flow of visitors during the prescribed hours. The patients were given presents by the Red Cross Society and private entities.

The Governor, Lord Paul Methuen, Lady Methuen and Seymor Methuen visited the hospitals and camps.

The programme held at the Theatre Royal was arranged by Chev. C. De Lancelloti, with the help of several ladies and gentlemen.

On the European mainland, Christmas was also celebrated on both war fronts, especially the Western Front. Soldiers tried to keep up the Christmas spirit, although on the frontline.

Private Bertie Felstead of the Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Four days before Christmas Reuter’s Special Correspondent at the British Headquarters telegraphed a feature about preparations being done by the British soldiers on the Western Front. The Daily Malta Chronicle of December 30 published the said feature, titled ‘Christmas at the Front’.

The following are excerpts from the feature:“... What sort of a Christmas is it going to be in the trenches and behind them this year? The thought will be uppermost in the minds of millions at home. The answer must lie wery largely with the weather. The British soldier yields to no man in his consummate capacity for making the best of everything, whether it be in a very tight corner or in the cosiness of a homely billet. In the first place he now has the satisfactory consciousness of being in a situation to justify doing himself as well as possible.

“This time last year he realised that he was completely outclassed by his foe in men, guns and that essential factor of successful trench warfare, high explosives. Today he knows that the position is completely reversed in these conditions and that it is he who is now ‘top dog’. Dinner tastes better for the sauce of such knowledge. Then life in the trenches has, on the whole, been very much improved compared with twelve months ago. There is less exposure and a very much more adequate system for minimising the discomforts of the wet. It would be a faithless picture to pretend that existence in the lines is no longer fraught with hardships.

The fun was soon brought to a stop... a British sergeant major ordered his men back into the trenches

“Winter campaigning is inseparable from many, and often extreme, discomforts. But it may be truthfully said and I would emphasise the point as a cheery Christmas message to the multitudes of fond anxious ones at home that a retrospect across the past twelve months leads to very satisfactory conclusions.

“It is practically impossible to attempt anything in the nature of a detailed account of how the Army will spend its Christmas because the various units are making their own arrangements upon a very extensive scales. For instance, I have just heard of one corps that has ordered seven hundred chickens from Paris and which proposes to serve every man upon its strength with half of one of these birds hot from the field kitchens.

Officers and men of 26th Divisional Ammunition Train playing football in Salonika, Greece, on Christmas Day 1915. Photo: Imperial war Museum

“That vast abstraction, The Authorities to whose quality of kindly consideration appreciation seems to be instinctively grudged, have arranged that plum puddings, in the proportion of one pudding to two men, shall be issued to the entire army. Doubtless the colossal supplies from home of this and other seasonable luxuries, which are burying the field post office people in chin deep avalanches will give all so disposed every facility for emulating the dear little boy who when asked what he was crying for replied: ‘Because he could not eat any more’ ...”

It is interesting to note that in 1915 there was another Christmas truce that is less well-known than that of the previous year. According to The Economist it took place in the front line trenches at Laventie in Northern France and we know this especially from the sole survivor of this spontaneous Christmas truce that occurred on the western front. He was Bertie Felstead, who passed away on July 22, 2001, aged 106. He was even awarded the French Légion d’Honneur by President Jacques Chirac.

Felstead volunteered for service in 1915. Later in that same year he took part in the second, and last, of the Christmas truces while stationed near the village of Laventie in northern France. He was then a private in the Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Felstead recounted how the peace overture came on Christmas Eve from enemy lines. Soldiers there sang the Welsh hymn Ar Hyd y Nos in German, which was much appreciated by the opposing regiment in trenches about 100 metres away. The Royal Welch Fusiliers responded by singing Good King Wenceslas.

After a night of carol singing, feelings of goodwill had so welled up that at dawn Bavarian and British soldiers clambered spontaneously out of their trenches. Shouting Hello Tommy and Hello Fritz they shook hands in no-man’s-land and then exchanged gifts, including German beer, sausages, spiked helmets bully beef, biscuits and tunic buttons, followed by a game.

Felstead said that the game they played was a rough sort of soccer. It wasn’t a game as such, more a kick-around and a free for all. There could have been 50 on each side. He played because he really liked football.

Felstead did not remember how long it lasted… probably half an hour. But the fun was soon brought to a stop by a British sergeant major ordering his men back into the trenches and gruffly reminding them that they were there “to fight the Huns, not to make friends with them”.

Charles Debono is curator at the National War Museum.