( ‘Le jus’ Illustration Ernest Gabard 1879-1957)
The war on the Vosges front did not stop on Christmas Day, neither for truces nor football games. Personal accounts testify to French units in the region of Hartmannswillerkopf (le Vieil Armand) beginning to relax on Christmas Eve, sharing food in the homes of local people, singing carols, even planning to attend a local midnight mass and temporarily forgetting war. [Note, below]
Hartmannswillerkopf
Their happiness was dispersed when alerts arrived ordering them to mobilise within an hour. They hastily packed food and equipment and were guided in pouring rain through the wet, cold forests, the weather turning to snow and ice as they ascended the mountain. There was little shelter and kitchens could only operate at night because the smoke would attract attention from German artillery. Some men were without food for 48 hours. There were few tracks and trails to form efficient communications routes, so it was difficult to bring up equipment. Men were inadequately dressed, some with little more clothing than they had in summer, suffering bitter temperatures in exposed mountain terrain or in pine forests which gave poor protection from the wind, the snow or rain. The holes they dug for protection from the enemy, such as from snipers, soon filled with water, yet they had to be used.
Trench, Hartmannswillerkopf, glass slide
The French objectives included the villages of Uffholtz and Steinbach. The battle was fierce. Among those who survived, some had frostbite, some bronchitis. Because of the difficulties in accessing positions by effective routes, it was difficult to carry stretchers and evacuate the wounded.
These two winter postcards are undated but in sharing them I intend that they reflect the aftermath of the dreadful Christmas of 1914.
French
German
Please bear in mind that I am not a military historian and I am writing for general readers. There is an excellent resource (in French) on the website of l’association Les Amis du Hartmannswillerkopf, http://www.ahwk.fr.
Note: Source http://www.ahwk.fr/noel-1914-avec-le-15eme-b-c-p/
Postcards and glass slide from my own collection.
The Blue Line - the Vosges frontier 1871 to 1914 