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The Not-So-Nice Canadians of World War I

Khalid Elhassan December 9, 2024 15 min

Canadian - A WWI Canadian recruitment poster — A WWI Canadian recruitment poster. Library and Archives, Canada

12. Lack of Canadian Christmas Spirit

British and German soldiers during the Christmas Truce, 1914. Illustrated London News

Around Christmas, 1914, five months into WWI, the Western Front witnessed a series of informal ceasefires initiated by frontline soldiers. That Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, German, British, and German soldiers in many sectors came out of the trenches and met in no man’s land. They mingled, exchanged seasonal greetings, talked, swapped food and souvenirs, and in at least one sector, played a soccer match. The following Christmas of 1915 was the first with the Canadian Corps in the front lines. In a trench near Ypres, Germans, hoping for a repeat of the previous year’s ceasefire, invited the Canadians over to a party. German soldiers poked their heads above the parapets and yelled “Merry Christmas, Canadians!” while waving a box of cigars as a proffered present. A Canadian sergeant responded by opening fire, and cut down at least two of the merrymakers.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.