Two Letters Home
A German soldier stopped the Great War so he could ask Captain Hulse to post a letter for him.
December 25 1914
King George V 1910-1936
‘All Together Now’, outside St Luke’s Church, Bold Street, Liverpool.
© Brian Deegan, Geograph. CC BY-SA 2.0.
‘All Together Now’ is a sculpture by Andy Edwards (1964-), located next to St Luke’s Church on Bold Street in Liverpool, which was left a shell by wartime bombing in 1941. It depicts a German soldier shaking hands with a British soldier, prior to one of the games of football that broke out between the opposing armies during the Christ mas Truce of 1914.
Introduction
The Christmas Truce of 1914 was one of the most poignant events in the Great War of 1914-18. The British had poured into Belgium to help drive the German invaders out, and in Flanders the two armies faced each other from trenches only a few hundred yards apart. In a letter to his mother on December 28th that year, Captain Hulse of the Scots Guards told how the spontaneous truce began.
Abridged.
Just returned to billets again,* after the most extraordinary Christmas in the trenches you could possibly imagine. Words fail me completely in trying to describe it, but here goes!*
On the 23rd we took over the trenches in the ordinary manner, relieving the Grenadiers, and during the 24th the usual firing took place, and sniping was pretty brisk. We stood to arms as usual at 6.30 am on the 25th, and I noticed that there was not much shooting; this gradually died down, and by 8 a.m. there was no shooting at all, except for a few shots on our left (Border Regt.). At 8.30 am I was looking out, and saw four Germans leave their trenches and come towards us; I told two of my men to go and meet them, unarmed (as the Germans were unarmed), and to see that they did not pass the halfway line. We were 350-400 yards apart at this point. My fellows were not very keen, not knowing what was up, so I went out alone, and met Barry, one of our ensigns, also coming out from another part of the line. By the time we got to them, they were ¾ of the way over, and much too near our barbed wire, so I moved them back.
* A billet is a dwelling, typically a civilian’s house, where soldiers are lodged temporarily (as distinct from the trenches). The soldier is said to be ‘billeted’ on the householder.
* This letter was written by Sir Edward Hamilton Westrow Hulse (1889-1915), Baronet, who was serving as a captain in the Scots Guards. His father, Sir Edward Henry Hulse, had been a Conservative politician, but he died in 1903 by his own hand, and his young son succeeded to the title. The boy went on to Eton College (a prestigious school) and then Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated with a degree in History in 1912. He joined the Regular Army, and was posted to Flanders. He was killed in action in France on March 12th, 1915, at the age of 25. His mother Edith, Lady Hulse, was the daughter of Sir Edward Levy-Lawson, who was owner and publisher of the Daily Telegraph.
