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It’s well worth just picking this apart.
These multiple accounts are a very useful in showing what really happened.
William Tapp:
“...we are trying to arrange a football match with them - the Saxons...”
A heavy emphasis on the word “trying” here.
1/ https://twitter.com/dcsandbrook/status/1337318779106316289
These multiple accounts are a very useful in showing what really happened.
William Tapp:
“...we are trying to arrange a football match with them - the Saxons...”
A heavy emphasis on the word “trying” here.
1/ https://twitter.com/dcsandbrook/status/1337318779106316289
...Kurt Zerhmisch’s account, which his Son Rudolf (who translated it) is adamant referred to the English playing a game amongst themselves - something which we know the men of 1/Royal Warwicks certainly did.
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...Zehmisch “...cannot be sure...” whether a match could take place on Boxing Day.
Captain Robert Hamilton’s (1/R.Warwicks) diary states,
“A Coy were to have played the Saxon Corps, but were relieved"
In other words, they didn’t play.
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Captain Robert Hamilton’s (1/R.Warwicks) diary states,
“A Coy were to have played the Saxon Corps, but were relieved"
In other words, they didn’t play.
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Bruce Bairnsfather’s 1958 account has been widely discredited, by @SimonJHistorian and others, as it contradicts his detailed account written just after the event.
Another old soldier tale, made up like so many others.
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Another old soldier tale, made up like so many others.
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“...a kickabout is possible.”
There is no evidence that it was anything other than a game played by the NH among themselves.
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There is no evidence that it was anything other than a game played by the NH among themselves.
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“An inter-platoon game...
...much to the Saxons’ amusement.”
But not against the Saxons.
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...much to the Saxons’ amusement.”
But not against the Saxons.
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Dear old George Ashurst and his chums kicking a sandbag about amongst themselves while the Germans lark around nearby.
But not playing football with each other.
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But not playing football with each other.
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Men of 2/A&SH who “went their “dinger” for about twenty minutes”
(No, I don’t know either !, but it didn’t involve the Germans - although a few 2/A&SH men did play a game with men of IR133 on a frozen meadow nearby)
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(No, I don’t know either !, but it didn’t involve the Germans - although a few 2/A&SH men did play a game with men of IR133 on a frozen meadow nearby)
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Lt Brockbank’s account describes the kickabout which we know took place between men of 1st Norfolk, with a few men of 1/6th Cheshire and the Germans of RIR16 at Wulverghem.
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Between members of the same unit. No suggestion of an Anglo-German game.
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Wanted to play, “...but their colonel would not allow them...”
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This is “Captain Peter Jackson’s” account.
It’s not the Bedfords, but it turned out he was a complete fraud. Never rose above the dizzy heights of Lance Corporal & made it all up.
His spurious claims were spotted by the BBC when they made the 1964 series ‘The Great War’
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It’s not the Bedfords, but it turned out he was a complete fraud. Never rose above the dizzy heights of Lance Corporal & made it all up.
His spurious claims were spotted by the BBC when they made the 1964 series ‘The Great War’
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I hope that helps.
The problem is that so many people very rarely actually read these original accounts, then cross reference them with others.
There is also a lazy tendency to pluck the sources straight from the internet where many have already been ‘interpreted’ & had...
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The problem is that so many people very rarely actually read these original accounts, then cross reference them with others.
There is also a lazy tendency to pluck the sources straight from the internet where many have already been ‘interpreted’ & had...
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...the odd word here and there missed out to deliberately alter the content.
Lob in the fictionalised accounts, the very bad history that many have written, & the appalling work produced by many journalists in 2014 during the Truce Centenary (for instance Lizzy Dearden’s...
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Lob in the fictionalised accounts, the very bad history that many have written, & the appalling work produced by many journalists in 2014 during the Truce Centenary (for instance Lizzy Dearden’s...
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...piece in the Independent, accompanying a letter that the paper had acquired from a Truce participant, gushing about football - the family had to write in and point out that the letter doesn’t mention it at all, or the Sun bashing on about Robert Hamilton describing...
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..a football match, with a half page photo of Hamilton’s actual diary printed next to it which makes it clear that the game he writes about didn’t happen!).
It’s not surprising that it’s hard to pick out the fact from the fiction, especially with so many original hearsay...
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It’s not surprising that it’s hard to pick out the fact from the fiction, especially with so many original hearsay...
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...accounts, fictitious accounts, and football analogies among the original sources.
However, historians can, and should, look for the actual primary sources, check them, cross-reference them, and always, always point out the #DuffHistory
#TheTruthIsOutThere !
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However, historians can, and should, look for the actual primary sources, check them, cross-reference them, and always, always point out the #DuffHistory
#TheTruthIsOutThere !
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