CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS ON THE MEUSE 



By Captain Clifton Lisle 



Late of the Headquarters One Hundred and Fiety-eighth Infantry Brigade, American 



Expeditionary Forces 



CHRISTMAS DAY, 1918, was for 

 many Americans their first ex- 

 perience of that season in a for- 

 eign land, thousands of miles from home, 

 among a people of different race, lan- 

 guage, and sympathy. When we realize 

 that over two millions of our young men 

 were in France at the time, it seems ap- 

 propriate, on the approach of another 

 Christmas, to recall that day — a day we 

 shall remember as long as we live — our 

 different Christmas. 



At that time active hostilities were over, 

 of course, but many combat divisions still 

 held their lines just where the fighting 

 had ceased on November 11. The fol- 

 lowing account tells how the men of my 

 organization, the 158th Infantry Brigade, 

 made the most of circumstances and cele- 

 brated their Christmas with a spirit of 

 cheer and good-will that overcame all ob- 

 stacles, even rising above the curse of 

 Meuse rains, the amazing mud and slime 

 of French battlefields. 



A MARVELOUS TREE 



The day began early for me and in a 

 surprising fashion, to say the least, for 

 upon waking up about dawn, I saw be- 

 side my chicken-wire bunk a Christmas 

 tree — a real, true Christmas tree — such 

 as might well have been found in millions 

 of American homes, but quite the last 

 thing one would look for on the ruined 

 battle area north of Verdun. The little 

 tree stood about two feet high and was 

 a marvel of ingenuity in its trimmings. 

 One of the men had made the whole 

 thing, spending hours of his time upon it, 

 keeping it a secret until he had found a 

 chance to put it beside my bunk on 

 Christmas Eve. as I slept. 



The tree had been set in a sort of base 

 made from a one-pounder projectile of 

 the whiz-bang variety, which stood, in 

 turn, on a cleverly carved stand. I be- 

 lieve the wood for the latter came from 



a cigar-box, cut and whittled into shape, 

 then carefully fitted together and pol- 

 ished brilliantly in some mysterious man- 

 ner. The whole thing — tree, base, and 

 all — rested upon a moss-covered board, 

 around the edge of which ran a tiny 

 rustic fence of wild-rose branches en- 

 twined with ivy. 



By way of tinsel, the tree had been 

 hung with little silver balls made from 

 the tinfoil that comes round chocolate 

 bars. Strands of burnished wire, thin as 

 silk threads and shining like gold, puzzled 

 me for a long time, until I found they 

 had been "salvaged'' from the inside 

 mechanism of broken field telephones 

 captured in battle from the Germans. 

 Little beads hung here and there along 

 the branches; they were those found in 

 the long wooden handles of German 

 grenades. Red ^pods and berries from 

 the wild rose-bushes glowed in the j oi- 

 liest way among the green needles of the 

 spruce. 



Surely there never was before or since 

 a Christmas tree quite like it or a finer 

 array of trimmings. During the whole 

 day it occupied the place of honor at the 

 mess, shining away as merrily as any tree 

 at home. That little Christmas tree be- 

 side my bunk at Reville meant more to 

 me than any fancy tree I had ever seen. 

 It sounded the note for the day. Christ- 

 mas was to be Christmas still, all the mud 

 and rain in France to the contrary. 



A CHRISTMAS LANDSCAPE IX NORTHERN 

 FRANCE 



A fine, gray mist covered the plain, a 

 sort of ground fog that rose from the 

 flooded ditches and, swirling here and 

 there in the breeze of dawn, half con- 

 cealed the lowlands of La Thinte. To 

 the east, high out of the fog. I could see 

 the three hills that dominate the land- 

 scape — Cote du Chateau, Cote d'Horgne, 

 and the Cote de Morimont. A light cap 



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