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Lyn Macdonald is a former BBC radio producer and the author of many books, including 1914; To the Last Man: Spring 1918; First Year of Fighting; and The Roses of No Man's Land.
Such belligerence as there was at present was largely directed by officers towards their own troops. Authority on both sides of the line had strongly disapproved of the Christmas spirit of goodwill that had brought the front-line soldiers of both sides out of their trenches to swap greetings and gifts, and the rebukes that had passed down the chain of command through discomfited Brigadiers, Colonels and Majors to the rank and file, had left them in no doubt that such a thing must not occur again. But it was good while it lasted.
Parcels had arrived by the trainload from Germany and by the boatload from England, from places as far apart as Falmouth and Flensburg, Ullapool and Ulm. So many trains were required to bring the flood of Christmas mail to France from the Fatherland that German transport and supply depots were seriously disrupted, and even officers at the front complained that crowded billets and narrow trenches were becoming dangerously congested, for goods and parcels were showered on the troops by legions of anonymous donors as well as by friends and families. In most German towns and villages committees had been formed to raise funds and send Christmas parcels, Weinachtspaketen, to the troops. The more sentimental called them 'love parcels' - Liebespaketen - and at least one recipient, fighting for the Kaiser in the comfortless trenches of the Argonne was struck by the irony of the name. He expressed his thoughts in a plaintive verse that appeared in one of the many columns of thank-you letters in a German newspaper whose readers had been particularly generous. 'So much love,' he sighed, 'and no girls to deliver it!' Even the Kaiser sent cigars - ten per man - in tasteful individual boxes inscribed 'Weinachten im Feld, 1914.'
The British soldiers had also received a royal gift (a useful metal box from Princess Mary, containing cigarettes, or pipe tobacco, or chocolate for non-smokers); they had plum puddings sent by the Daily Mail, chocolate from Cadbury, butterscotch from Callard & Bowser, gifts from the wives of officers of a dozen different regiments, and a mountain or private parcels bulging with homemade cake, sweetmeats, and comforts galore. There were more than enough to spare, and plenty to share with temporary friends over the way. The men drew the line at presenting an enemy soldier with socks of mufflers knitted by the home fireside, but kind donors in Britain, as in Germany, would have been astonished had they known how much plum pudding and Christmas cake would end up in Fritz's stomach, swapped for a lump of German sausage or a drop of beer or Rheinwein shared matily in No Man's Land." - from Chapter One
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