In Heavenly Peace: The Christmas Truce

   There is something defiant in it also; something that makes the abrupt bells at midnight sound like the great guns of a battle that has just been won. All this indescribable thing we call the Christmas atmosphere only hangs in the air as something like a lingering fragrance or a fading vapor from the exultant explosion of that one hour in the Judean hills nearly two thousand years ago. But the savor is still unmistakable, and it is something to subtle or too solitary to be covered by our use of the word peace. By the very nature of the story the rejoicings of the cavern were rejoicings in a fortress or an outlaw's den; properly understood it is not unduly flippant to say they were rejoicings in a dug-out....There is in this buried divinity and idea of undermining the world;..."

G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man 1925.  (emphasis his)

Christmas Day, 1914 was the first Christmas in war of a century that would be defined by its wars. And yet, that first Christmas in war, would be strangely defined by its peace. In the week leading up to Christmas, a series of unofficial cease-fires spontaneously occurred along the front line.  The Germans called it Weinachtsfreiden, the French, Treve de Noel. 

   The truce mostly involved British and German troops who crossed lines into the opposing side's trenches to talk and exchange gifts.  They all expressed that they were tired of the war. A war they were told would be over "before the leaves fell" or "over by Christmas" was now dug into trenches and frozen in place, a deadlock that showed no signs of being over quickly.
    Fraternization with the enemy was banned, for obvious reasons, but it happened anyway.  As early as November of 1914, peaceful and even friendly interactions between opposing sides was not uncommon.  This ranged from just letting each other alone to men from either side coming into the other's trench for a visit, which irked the commanders to no end. But something magical happened on December 24 and 25 1914 in places like Ypres, Ploegsteert, and Neuve Chapelle.
   By many accounts it started when the Germans lit candles, decorated Christmas trees, and began to sing carols whose tunes were familiar to the English, though the words foreign. Probably the Germans were singing Stille Nacht (Silent Night) or Herbei, o ihr Glaeubigen (O Come, All Ye Faithful). Hearing this, the British responded by singing the same thing in their own language. After that, the Germans began to shout across the lines "You no shoot, we no shoot", "Pudding", "A Happy Christmas" and "English means good." The British thought it was a trap at first, a ruse by the Germans to draw them out to be shot. But finally, a few English soldiers that were either brave enough, or hopeful enough, ventured forward. The rest followed slowly.
  They were met by smiling, unarmed Germans who seemed to be rather nice.  Both sides exchanged wine, cigarettes, pictures and food. One British man got a German to write his name and address on a card as a souvenir.  Both sides expressed how tired they were of the war. They all got together and sang carols, one German even played "God Save the King" on a mouth organ, according to a letter sent home by Rifleman C.H. Brazier. Many accounts from those days claim that impromptu football (i.e. soccer) matches broke out between both sides.  Part of this truce was also a cease fire agreement to let each side bury their dead.  On the eastern front, where Austria was facing Russia, similar truces were reported. Several Austrian commanders of uncertain rank were reported to be the initiators. The Austrian soldiers were told not to fire unless provoked, and the Russians did the same. Both sides met to exchange Austrian schnapps and tobacco for Russian bread and meat.  At the siege of the Polish fort Przemysl, the Russian besiegers left three Christmas trees in no-man's land with an attached note saying "We wish you, the heroes of Przemysl, a Merry Christmas, and hope we can come to a peaceful agreement as soon as possible."
    It wasn't just soldiers on the front that wished for peace this Christmas.  The Open Christmas Letter was a public call for peace signed by 101 British Suffragettes addressed "To the Women of Germany and Austria". The current pope, Benedict XV requested an official truce between the warring governments "on the night the angels sang".
   Peace on earth, and goodwill toward men with whom He is well pleased.  Many want peace on earth at Christmas without knowing why.  The rest of us know that God is our Peace.  This Christmas truce in this first great and terrible war shows us that He will one day return to us, not as a baby, but as a conquering king to to bring the actual war that will end all wars......forever. 

The Regretful Shore

   So we'll stoke the fire and light the lamp

Turn our backs in from the damp

Settle down beneath the starry sky

Endure the winter passing by

~Winter Song

    The first day of the year 1915 was cloudy, with a northerly breeze and occasional snow squalls. The ice began to break up, and Endurance made good speed through the floes.  Twenty-four hours run gave them 124 miles which was encouraging, but by midday on the 2nd the way was blocked by ice again, and they were forced to sail west and north to find another opening.  The party passed about 200 bergs that day, along with great quantities of bay ice (ice that had come from a bay, obviously) and ice foot (ice foot is either ice from the foot of a glacier, or spray that has frozen to the waterline of a shore. One floe of the bay ice had black earth on it, most likely basaltic in origin, and another large berg had a broad band of yellowish-brown through it.
   Shackleton suggests that the band of yellow-brown in this berg was volcanic dust, and I have no reason to doubt him. Although he was not a geologist, Shackleton was not ignorant, and he was a seasoned explorer. Also, he had scientists with him that could have suggested otherwise if they had ideas to the contrary.  If this was indeed volcanic dust, where did it come from? Antarctica has many volcanoes, but most of the currently active ones are on the opposite side of the continent.  There are only two volcanoes near the Weddell Sea that have been active in the past 100 years. Deception Island is at the very tip of the Antarctic Peninsula that reaches up like an arm toward South America. It's last eruption was in 1970. Penguin Island is in the same vicinity as Deception, and it's most recent eruption is thought to have occurred in  1905.  If the estimate is 9 or so years off (which is possible) either one of these volcanoes could have been erupting onto ice in 1914-1915. The only problem is, they are rather far away from Shackleton's position, on the opposite end of the Weddell Sea in fact.  Still, with the clockwise current that churns in the Weddell Sea, which would later carry the ship a good third of the circumference of the Sea, it is possible those ice floes did have volcanic dust.

Location of Deception and Penguin Islands

Approximate Location of Endurance January/February 1915

   By 10 a.m. on January 4th, the ship passed a berg they had passed twice on the previous day.  In their effort to find an opening in the ice, Endurance had steamed around an area of 20 square miles for 50 hours. They were trying to find an opening to the south or southwest, but all openings were to the north and northeast.  Further effort for the present time seemed useless, so Shackleton gave the order to bank the fires, and the ship was moored to a solid floe. The weather was clear, so some enthusiastic crew members started a game of soccer on the floe (Shackleton is the one using the word soccer, despite being British/Anglo-Irish) until around midnight when Captain Frank Worsley fell through a hole in some rotten ice while retrieving the ball.  After retrieving Worsley, they called it a day. 

  On the 6th, still moored to the ice, the crew took the opportunity to exercise the dogs, who had begun to languish from lack of exercise. The dogs got very excited, and several managed to get in the water. Two dogs managed to get into a fight after slipping their muzzles, they were pulled from the water still grappling with each other.  All around, men and dogs much enjoyed the exercise.  But caution had to be in order for anyone exiting the ship.  Killer whales were becoming active in the vicinity. The crew had seen several seals plucked off the bergs they were lying on, and to a whale men would probably look much like seals.
  By the 8th, the pack was beginning to loosen again, and the ship was able to make headway south once more. The next day, water-sky was seen extending to the southeast, and the ship reached open water just before noon.  Water-sky is quite an interesting thing, and I had no idea there was such a phenomenon before reading Shackleton's writing. When light shines on blue ocean some of the light bounces back and is reflected of low-lying clouds.  The more blue light reflected off the water is a contrast to the white light reflected off ice. These darker clouds allow observers to see where water is even when they cannot see the actual open water.  Arctic and Antarctic explorers often use water sky to navigate sea ice.

Water sky, the darker stain on the clouds indicates open water. 

   Open water inside the ice pack was frequented by large whales, probably Blue Whales. Shackleton speculated they found refuge this far south, since they were harried by whalers further north, outside the pack. They had now come near the land discovered bu Dr. W.S. Bruce, leader of the Scotia expedition in 1904, which he had named Coats' Land.  Dr. Bruce had seen no bare rock, but had described rising slopes of snow and ice, with shoaling water off the ice barrier that stood in his way of reaching the land. Shakleton planned to land at these slopes as far south as possible, and from there begin the march across the continent.  After passing through some loose ice, they came around what appeared to be a small peninsula to open water and headed south without delay. On January 12th, they passed the southernmost point reached by Scotia, and were sighting new land.

Caird Coast of Coats Land, as photographed from Endurance, January 1915

    Shackleton planned to skirt this new land to the southwest as far as they could go, and then embark from the ship to start across the continent with the dog sleds.  They needed to land soon, some of the dogs were beginning to lose condition.  One of the dogs had to be shot on the 12th, Shackleton does not elaborate why. He had started now looking for landing places, but really did not intent to port anywhere north of Vahsel Bay, which was still quite a distance away. Endurance made her way through loose ice pack or open water, rounding several glaciers that came down from the land into the sea.  On January 15, the ship came to the edge of a great glacier extending into the sea. The bay formed by the northern edge of this glacier would, Shackleton noted, have made an excellent landing place, as it was protected from the south wind and only open to the warmer, and almost nonexistent, northern winds.  Shackleton called it Glacier Bay.  Passing this bay, they came to the junction of Coats Land and Luitpold land, observing the ice locked coast that remained in view through all but the worst weather. January 19th found the ship completely locked in ice.  The ice had come close around the ship in the night and now she would not move. The party worked hard at chipping the ice away from the ship, but Endurance was held fast within it, to the point they almost lost the rudder in the squeezing floes.  On the 27th, Shackleton gave orders for the boilers to be put out, since they only had half their coal stores left and were wasting it sitting in the ice. On January 31st, Physicist Reginald James and Navigator Huberht Hudson rigged the wireless in hopes of hearing the monthly message from the Falklands, but at 1630 miles from the station, they were too far away.
   Aside from some slight movement when the pack loosened, the ship remained stuck in the ice.  On February 5, Endurance received a foretaste of her ultimate fate. At noon the ship gave a sudden start and heeled over three degrees. The ice around her then cracked on both sides and the ship righted again.  Being stuck within sight of land was maddening.  Shackleton wrote sometime in early February "From the masthead the mirage is continually giving us false alarms. Everything wears an aspect of unreality. Icebergs hang upside down in the sky; the land appears as layers of silvery golden cloud. Cloud banks look like land, icebergs masquerade as islands...Worst of all is the deceptive appearance of open water, caused by refraction of distant water, or by the sun shining at an angle on a field of smooth snow or the face of ice cliffs below the horizon."  Desert regions are famous for mirages, but they are as likely if not even more common in the polar regions of the earth.
  On February 14 there was a last-ditch effort to chip the ice from the ship and break through the floes to open water. After 24 hours of labor, they got the ship about a third of the way through the ice, but a good 400 feet of pack still separated her from open water, and Shackleton had to admit that further effort was useless. They were now realizing they would have to spend winter in the embrace of the ice, and winder was fast approaching. The sun, which had spent two months above the horizon, set for the first time at midnight on February 17. On the 22nd, Endurance reached the furthest south point she would, touching the 77th parallel latitude at 35 degrees west longitude. Summer was no more, it had barely existed. Seals were disappearing, as were birds, headed north to warmer waters.  Shackleton wrote "This calm weather with intense cold in a summer moth is surely exceptional". He did, unfortunately, picked an unusually cold winter to attempt reaching the South Pole. One wonders if he may have had more success in a different year, several years prior or after 1914.  Ninety years on, the Weddell Sea was largely free of ice in summers, (that is of course, changing again) but all who have traveled it, in any season, claim it is the most treacherous and dismal sea on earth.
    February 24, they stopped observing ship routine and turned Endurance into a winter station. All hands on duty during the day, all slept at night except for the night watchman. They made ice houses or "dogloos" for the dogs (one of which had recently had puppies) out of blocks of ice. The dogs were certainly glad to leave the ship and have the run of the ice floes. Seals were hunted and provided fuel as well as food for man and dog. Hockey and soccer on the ice were the chief forms of entertainment, and both were enjoyed by all. Really, it wasn't that unpleasant a situation, things could have been much worse.  Still, Shackleton had to be regretting he did not land at Glacier Bay in Coats' Land, the perfect sheltered bay he had described in January.