Aims & Objectives: You will learn: Theme: What is the meaning of Christmas? Know: What happened during the Christmas Truce in 1914? Understand: Why did the British and German troops hold an unofficial truce? Evaluate: Why wasn’t there a Christmas truce in 1915? Skills: Cause, Consequence, Source Analysis, Evaluation and Judgement. What Am I Looking For this lesson? Identify = What happened during the Christmas Truce in 1914? Describe = Why the British and German soldiers held an unofficial truce in 1914? Explain = Why the British and German soldiers held an unofficial truce in 1914? Analyse= Why wasn’t there a Christmas truce in 1915? Resources: Worksheet: The Christmas Truce You Tube Video Clips: The Pipes of Peace by Paul McCarthy & Oh What a Lovely War – Christmas Truce; Sainsbury’s Christmas Advert. History Documentary in the Remembrance Folder – Days that shook the World – The Christmas Truce Activities: Snowball, Spider Graph Summary, Venn Diagram & PEE’d Paragraph

FWWTrucePeaceUnofficial Great WarChristmasTrench‘No Man’s Land’ Pin up GirlsPostcardsCigarettesFootball Match PeaceCarolsGoodwillFamily Snowballing: Christmas Truce Key Words 2 Minutes to memorise today’s key words 2 Minutes to write down as many as you can remember 2 Minutes to snowball and share your answers Task 1 Using the key words answer the following questions: Group 1: Which key words do we normally think of at Christmas? Group 2: Which key words link back to the First World War? Group 3: What is the difference between an ‘official’ and unofficial’ truce? Task 2

The First World War In August 1914, the First World War began. It was to be one of the worst wars in history and when it ended in 1918, it was called for a time ‘The Great War’ or ‘the war to end all wars.’ During the First World War men fought in trenches on the Western Front that stretched for over a thousand miles from the English Channel to the Swiss border. The land in between the two opposing sides was called ‘No Man’s Land.’

‘No Mans Land’

Photographs of a Trench

Artist’s Impression of ‘No Man’s Land’ Hell by George Leroux

The Outbreak of the First World war When the First World War began many people thought that it would be a short war. Millions of men from all over the world joined their countries armies, believing it would all be over by Christmas. When it wasn’t, recruitment for the British Army went down as news about how brutal the fighting was started to filter home via letters and photographs sent home to love ones.

Numbers of British volunteers 1914 to 1916 Men queuing to join up in 1914 Why did the number of volunteers drop from the Summer of 1914 to Christmas 1914?

The Christmas Truce, On Christmas Day, 1914, there was an unofficial truce. German and British troops met in ‘No Man’s Land’, the area in-between each other’s trenches. They sung Christmas Carols, shared food, cigarettes, beer and swapped pictures of pin up girls. They also buried their dead and at one stage played several football matches, although it was more of a kick about than a football match. Picture drawn by a soldier of the Christmas Truce, 1914

The Christmas Truce, 1914 Photographs taken by soldiers from both sides during the Christmas Truce. These appeared in the newspapers several days later.

What happened during the Christmas truce in 1914? Source E: Diary of J Davy, Dec 1914 ‘I went out with a working party to repair the barbed wire. When we got in the trenches we found our infantry and the Germans out between the two lines talking to each other and exchanging things. Went over myself and exchanged postcards and cigarettes with a German officer… All day, German and British on top talking to each other… Most peculiar Christmas I’ve ever spent and likely ever to.’ Source F: Lance corporal RS Coulson of the London Rifle Brigade to his mother: On Christmas Day, men and officers went in between, and even entered each other's trenches and exchanged smokes and souvenirs. I am sorry we were relieved; it must have been a marvellous sight. All I could manage was a German cigarette given me by one of our platoon who accompanied our platoon officers to the line. One regiment, I hear, tried to arrange a football match for this afternoon, but I don't think that came off. We are opposed to Saxon regiments and the whole affair is most striking, when you consider that a week ago today there were some hundreds of casualties through the attack and the dead still lie between the trenches. By this truce we were able to get the bodies and the Germans were good enough to bring our dead out of some ruined houses by their trenches, so that we could give them burial here. What do both sources agree upon what happened? Play one of the You Tube Videos here: Pipes of Peace or Oh What a Lovely War – Christmas Truce

Football Match? One of the many accounts that came out of the Christmas Truce in 1914 is that both sides played a few rounds of football. Accounts disagree about whether this was a kick around or an actual football match. Don’t forget that ‘No Man’s Land would have been littered with unexploded bombs and dead bodies.’ Why are England V German football matches go important? Video Clip:

Photograph of site today of where the truce first began in 1914.

Why didn’t the Christmas Truce happen again in 1915? In your pairs and groups study these sources before reporting back to a class discussion. Source I: British Propaganda poster, showing a German Zeppelin bombing London, 1915 Source J: Propaganda Poster, 1915

Why didn’t the Christmas Truce happen again in 1915? In your pairs and groups study these sources before reporting back to a class discussion. Source K: Victims of a German mustard gas attack in The Germans were the first use gas as a weapon on the Western Front. Source L: Tommy goes to War by Malcom Brown, 1978 ‘Chlorine Gas produces a flooding of the lungs, it’s like drowning only on dry land. The effects are this splitting headache and terrific thirst, a knife edge pain in the lungs and the coughing up of a greenish froth off the stomach and lungs. Death soon follows in terrible agony.

Why didn’t the Christmas Truce happen again in 1915? In your pairs and groups study these sources before reporting back to a class discussion. Source M: Mr Huggins, history teacher, 2014 On 16 th December 194, the German Navy shelled both Scarborough and Whitby killing many innocent civilians. News of this was slow to reach the men in the trenches in However, British propaganda used it as a way of recruiting men in 1915 to get revenge on the Germans. Source N: British Propaganda Poster, 1915

Why wasn’t there a Christmas Truce in 1915? Watch Documentary: Days that Shook the World: The Christmas Truce: Remembrance Folder on school system