when the time
came we shook hands and saluted each other, returning to our trenches. I
went up into the trenches on Christmas night. One wouldn't have thought
there was a war going on. All day our soldiers and the Germans were
talking and singing half-way between the opposing trenches. The space
was filled with English and Germans handing one another cigars. At night
we sang carols." Another records how souvenirs and food were exchanged,
and how jollification and football were indulged in with the Germans.
But "next day we got an order that all communication and friendly
intercourse must cease." The Germans had said frankly they were tired of
the war, the English soldiers wished to be their friends, but far away
were a few elderly men who wanted the fighting to go on.

Into what depths the need of exacerbating hate may lead one is shown by
the following extract from a telegram headed, "British Headquarters,
France," which I take from the _Daily News_ of December 23, 1915:

No doubt the Bosches will have plenty of Christmas trees, as
they did last year, but, without attaching too much credence to
the reports of an increasing difficulty in maintaining their
rations. I think it is quite safe to say that they will fare
very much more frugally than our own men. But may not their own
consciousness of the fact result in an outburst of "strafing?"
The principle that the next best thing to not getting well
served yourself is to spoil the other fellow's enjoyment is a
good sound Hunnish axiom. There will certainly be no amenities
nor anything in the nature of a truce so far as the British are
concerned. All ranks are bidden to remember that war is war and
that the Germans invariably have some sinister motive in all
they do, especially under the guise of a gush of friendly
sentiment.--Reuter.

The last sentences must surely, in any generous heart (if the moral
destruction of war has left us such), produce a feeling of acute shame.
In all the multitude of truces that occurred at Christmas, 1914, I have
not seen a single case of German treachery reported. What is it that is
feared in the truce? "In some places," said a German officer, "we have
had to change our men several times. They get too damn friendly."[50]
"If we don't take care," said an English officer that Christmas, "there
will be a permanent peace without generals or c.o.'s having a say in the
matter." Is that th