Christmas 1914 and 1916

[Fritz]

2 British postcards with Christmas Greetings, undated, unwritten, WW1 period

A Queen Mary Christmas Fund gift for the troops, Christmas 1914, gilt brass cigarette tin, which once contained cigarettes or tobacco, a greeting card from Queen Mary with portrait., now empty.

A cigar case, black-lacquered iron with a medallion portrait to top left corner of Crownprince Wilhelm. To the rear of the tin is a silver inlaid inscription,V. Armee - Weihnachten 1916

Kronprinz Wilhelm was nominal commander of the Armeegruppe Kronprinz in the Verdun area. Slight damage to one edge of portrait.

A few items with a Christmas spirit.

[leon21]

The standard contents of the Christmas tins would have been a greeting card and a photograph of the Princess, a pipe,

a tinder lighter, an ounce of tobacco and twenty cigarettes in yellow monogrammed wrappers.

For non-smokers and boys they would have been given in their tins a bullet pencil and a packet of sweets, Indian troops

might have been given sweets and spices, nurses would have been given chocolates. All these items were sent separately

from the tins to avoid theft of the tobacco, they were sent in closed vans locked by letter locks only certain officers would

be told the word that would open them, the opening word being ( Noel ), and the field post orderlies would then fill the tins

before being given out to the troops.

 

Extract from the book Christmas 1914 ( The First World War at Home and Abroad ) by John Hudson.

[leon21]

Here are a few pages from the book Christmas Truce by Malcolm Brown & Shirley Seaton I found recently.

[leon21]

Here's a video clip ( The Lost Christmas Truce of 1915 ).