Two Letters Home, by Sir Edward Hamilton Westrow Hulse

British and German troops at the Christmas Truce (colourised).

Photo by Harold B. Robson (1914), colourised by Cassowary Colorizations, via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 2.0.

This photo (which has been repaired and artificially colourised) was taken by Harold Burge Robson during the Christmas Truce of 1914. He took several pictures of scenes and incidents with the Northumberland Hussars, which was among the regiments that made up the British Army’s 7th Division on the Western Front. This shows the Hussars in the Bridoux-Rouge Banc Sector, meeting with German soldiers and medical personnel in No-Mans’s Land December 25th, 1914. Captain Edward Hulse, who wrote the accompanying letter, was in the Scots Guards.

Two Letters Home

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They were three private soldiers and a stretcher-bearer, and their spokesman started off by saying that he thought it only right to come over and wish us a happy Christmas, and trusted us implicitly to keep the truce. He came from Suffolk, where he had left his best girl and a 3½ hp motor-bike! He told me that he could not get a letter to the girl, and wanted to send one through me. I made him write out a postcard in front of me, in English, and I sent it off that night. I told him that she probably would not be a bit keen to see him again. We then entered on a long discussion on every sort of thing. I was dressed in an old stocking-cap and a man's overcoat, and they took me for a corporal, a thing which I did not discourage, as I had an eye to going as near their lines as possible. [...]

I asked them what orders they had from their officers as to coming over to us, and they said none; they had just come over out of goodwill. They protested that they had no feeling of enmity towards us at all, but that everything lay with their authorities, and that being soldiers they had to obey. I believe that they were speaking the truth when they said this, and that they never wished to fire a shot again.

by Sir Edward Hamilton Westrow Hulse 1889-1915

Abridged.

From War Letters of Fallen Englishmen (1930), edited by Laurence Housman.

Précis

The Germans explained that all they wanted was to wish Hulse a Happy Christmas. One had spent time in England, and Hulse agreed to post a letter to this man’s girlfriend in Suffolk, unwelcome though it might be. Both sides said they wished the fighting would stop, though Captain Hulse made a mental note of the terrain for future reference.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

Why did Captain Hulse want to be mistaken for a corporal?

Suggestion

He suspected the Germans would distrust officers.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

The Germans said they did not want to fight. Hulse believed them. They blamed the politicians.

See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.

IDoubt. IIFault. IIIWar.

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