Free Christmas in the Trenches by Alan Wakefield

Rangoon yesterday. Owing to the trouble no man is allowed more than two pints of beer but I don’t think this restriction is very necessary for there have only been about three cases of drunkenness since the Regiment came to Port Blair. 15 ( Capt James Mackie )
    If the war had not been going well for Britain in Europe or the Middle East during 1915, her forces were gaining victories in Africa. The most vital of these came in February, when a determined Turkish attack on the Suez Canal was defeated. However, the forces on hand were not strong enough to pursue the defeated enemy across the Sinai Desert, leaving a potential Turkish threat to Egypt. In German South West Africa, South African forces took a lead in forcing the surrender of the colony on 9 July 1915. This freed troops for offensive operations in German East Africa, although it would be 1916 before sufficient manpower was available to really challenge von Lettow-Vorbeck’s Schutztruppe. Until that time British forces were primarily engaged in trying to prevent German raids against such strategic targets as railways. The one major Allied success in East Africa was the sinking, by naval gunfire, of the German light cruiser SMS Konigsberg in the Rufuji River delta (11 June 1915). Progress was more tangible in Cameroon, where British columns, largely composed of African troops, had, by the close of the year, brought the German defenders close to defeat. These campaigns in the colonies could be tough in the extreme in terms of climate, disease, poor rations and lack of comforts available in most other theatres of war. Even some of the old Africa hands, officers who had been attached to their units since before the outbreak of war, found things tough going:
    This is a curious life if you come to think of it, here are most of us who have been out here some time richer than we have ever been before yet all in rags and likely to be living off rice and maize in a few days time. A cheery prospect for Xmas and of course nothing to drink.
    It does make one grouse a bit after having kept fit for so long to run the chance of getting run down for want of a little arrangement.
    The price for what one can buy locally are simply enormous like native tobacco and the worst imaginable cigarettes especially made for native trade and sold at 1/- a 100 in peace time are now being sold for a mark a piece.
    We are getting on quite satisfactorily with our advance south but it is slow work and to average 5 miles a day is very good . . .
    David is in great form. He is on this column and is a jolly good soldier. A bit quieter now that we are teetotallers under compulsion. From the papers it seems if England was a dull place now and I gather one is looked upon as unpatriotic if one orders champagne. What ho for the chance, I think we deserve it. 16 ( Capt Eric Barclay, 2nd Nigeria Regiment )

Christmas 1916
    I send you my sailors and soldiers, hearty good wishes for Christmas and the New Year. My grateful thoughts are ever with you for victories gained, for hardships endured, and for your unfailing cheeriness. Another Christmas has come round, and we are still at war, but the Empire, confident in you, remains determined to win. May God bless you and protect you.
    At this Christmastide the Queen and I are thinking more than ever of the sick and wounded among my sailors and soldiers. From our hearts we wish them strength to bear their sufferings, speedy restoration to health, a peaceful Christmas and many happier years to come.
    The King’s Christmas Message to his Troops, 1916
    By the third Christmas of the war the scale of the conflict, especially on the Western Front, had grown again. A strategy of attrition had taken hold and the ability of each nation to sustain the demands of total war was put to the test. This was the year of those defining battles of the war, Verdun and the Somme. The latter operation was one of a number of co-ordinated Allied efforts across the Western, Eastern, Italian