actions--and
the Division, with slight outside help, managed the whole affair.

Twice in the winter there was an attempted _rapprochement_ between the
Germans and ourselves. The more famous gave the Division a mention by
"Eyewitness," so we all became swollen with pride.

On the Kaiser's birthday one-and-twenty large shells were dropped
accurately into a farm suspected of being a battalion or brigade
headquarters. The farm promptly acknowledged the compliment by blowing
up, and all round it little explosions followed. Nothing pleases a
gunner more than to strike a magazine. He always swears he knew it was
there the whole time, and, as gunners are dangerous people to quarrel
with, we always pretended to believe the tale.

There are many people in England still who cannot stomach the story of
the Christmas truce. "Out there," we cannot understand why. Good
fighting men respect good fighting men. On our front, and on the fronts
of other divisions, the Germans had behaved throughout the winter with a
passable gentlemanliness. Besides, neither the British nor the German
soldier--with the possible exception of the Prussians--has been able to
stoke up that virulent hate which devastates so many German and British
homes. A certain lance-corporal puts the matter thus:[26]--

"We're fightin' for somethink what we've got. Those poor beggars is
fightin' cos they've got to. An' old Bill Kayser's fightin' for
somethin' what 'e'll never get. But 'e will get somethink, and that's a
good 'iding!"[27]

We even had a sneaking regard for that "cunning old bird, Kayser Bill."
Our treatment of prisoners explains the Christmas Truce. The British
soldier, except when he is smarting under some dirty trick, suffering
under terrible loss, or maddened by fighting or fatigue, treats his
prisoners with a tolerant, rather contemptuous kindness. May God in His
mercy help any poor German who falls into the hands of a British soldier
when the said German has "done the dirty" or has "turned nasty"! There
is no judge so remorseless, no executioner so ingenious in making the
punishment fit the crime.

This is what I wrote home a day or two after Christmas: From six on
Christmas Eve to six in the evening on Christmas Day there was a truce
between two regiments of our Division and the Germans opposite them.
Heads popped up and were not sniped. Greetings were called across. One
venturesome, enthusiastic German got out of his trench and stood waving
a