'It was peculiar talking the Germans': The Sunderland eye-witness who saw the 1914 Christmas Day truce
A Sunderland soldier witnessed the famous Christmas Day truce which brought a halt to the frontline fighting.
The remarkable words of Sgt C Dobson can be retold after they first appeared in the Sunderland Echo 110 years ago.
‘While you were enjoying Christmas, I was in the trenches’
He wrote: “We went in on December 25th, so while you were enjoying Christmas, I was in the trenches. There was a vast difference during those four days, for instead of keeping sniping at one another we had a very peaceful Christmas.
“Somehow or other there was an armistice arranged and we were talking to the Germans, who met us midway between the trenches.
“This gave each side an opportunity to bury the dead, who had lain there since the time we made the attack.
“It seemed peculiar to be talking to the Germans, for some of them could talk English. We listened to them singing on Christmas night, and some good singers they have.”
‘Some of them even gave our men chocolate and cigarettes’
But Sgt Dobson’s account tells how the truce was night confined to Christmas Day.
“On Boxing Day it was still the same; they were out of the trenches and some of them even gave our men chocolate and cigarettes.
“Our four days duty finished on Boxing night and we got out without a shot being fired. We are billeted in a farm, having four days’ rest at the end of which we will be in the trenches again trying to shoot one another.”
Our thanks go to historian Derek Holcroft who reminded us about the Wearside connection to that infamous day.
Wearside’s fascinating tales of the past
We can also remind you of other great stories that Derek has previously shared with us including;
The football team which played in red and white in front of crowds up to 4,000 people.
They were known as Sunderland Royal Rovers and played until the outfit disappeared during the First World War.
Charles Sedgwick was an electrical engineer and had been working at Hylton Road power station in Sunderland before moving to Blackpool.
He got married in Liverpool on April 4, sailed on Titanic, and his wife Adelaide was due to sail from Liverpool a few days later to join him.
The Sunderland bridegroom who stopped a Royal assassinaton
And the Wearside hero who helped to foil an attempt to kill Queen Victoria.
Low Row man Roger Errington was on his honeymoon when he and his bride stopped to watch Queen Victoria getting off a train.
Roger was only yards away when Roderick Maclean raised a pistol and fired at the Monarch.
'Mr Errington rushed to the rescue, and was one of the persons who laid hands upon and arrested Maclean,' said a report in the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette in March 1882.
Our thanks go to Derek for his insight into the Christmas Day truce story.
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