Free Why was the Partridge in the Pear Tree? by Mark Lawson-Jones

it? And there is no sign that its vogue is likely to die out.’ He goes on to write ‘Another tribute which singles it out from all other hymns is the fact that, as far as the present writer is aware, no alternative melody has been attempted to supplant the original one. For these two reasons, John Francis Wade must be considered as one of the greatest hymn-writers in the world, even if he only has one composition to his credit.’

    ‘Adeste Fideles’.
    Dom Stephan concludes his study with what he calls a rather appealing version of the first verse, echoing the cries of the Jacobites.

    O hie, ye believers ! raise the song of triumph
    O speed ye, 0 speed ye! to Bethlehem hie!
    Born there, behold the Infant King of Angels
    O come and let us worship
    O come and let us worship
    O come and let us worship the Lord our God!
    (Revd Francis Trappes Richardson, 1868)

    The story of the Jacobites and Wade, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Dom Stephan would be enough to close this chapter on ‘Adeste Fideles’. However, the remarkable history of this particular carol doesn’t end here.

    Nearly 200 years after the birth of John Francis Wade, the world was plunged into war when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated on the 28 June 1914. Germany would need to meet her enemies on two fronts. When the conflict started, the German military commanders knew that the Russian Army required at least six weeks to mobilise their forces, so they concentrated on their enemies in the west by launching a strong offensive in France. Initially the French, Belgian and British forces couldn’t stop them, but eventually in France they forced a stalemate and dug in for a long winter. Trenches were dug a few hundred feet apart. Soldiers spent most of their day dealing with mud and cold, guns jammed and illness was rife. If this wasn’t bad enough, the trenches were little protection from sniper fire, and the machine guns on the battlefields were making this conflict one of the bloodiest in history.
    One account, from Lieutenant Sir Edward Hulse read:

    It had been pouring, and mud lay deep in the trenches; they were caked from head to foot, and I have never seen anything like their rifles! Not one would work, and they were just lying about the trenches getting stiff and cold. One fellow had got both feet jammed in the clay, and when told to get up by an officer, had to get on all fours; he then got his hands stuck in too, and was caught like a fly on a flypaper; all he could do was look round and say to his pals, ‘For Gawd’s sake, shoot me!’ I laughed till I cried. But they will shake down, directly they learn that the harder one works in the trenches, the drier and more comfortable one can keep both them and oneself.

    On 17 December 1914, the first Christmas of the war, Pope Benedict XV called for a temporary truce and ceasefire on the battlefields. Germany agreed, but the other powers refused. The war had been raging for barely five months.

    The trenches of the First World War.
    Families had sent packages filled with cigarettes, warm clothing, gifts and medicines to the soldiers. Some of the German soldiers had also received Christmas decorations from loved ones. On Christmas Eve 1914, the German soldiers put candles in Christmas trees and decorated the edges of the trenches. Eventually, hundreds of Christmas trees appeared all across the front line. British soldiers were told to watch closely, but not to open fire.

    Time and again during the course of that day, the Eve of Christmas, there were wafted towards us from the trenches opposite the sounds of singing and merry-making, and occasionally the guttural tones of a German were to be heard shouting out lustily, ‘A happy Christmas to you Englishmen!

    In other areas, the two sides exchanged Christmas carols. A British soldier, Private Oswald Tilley, commented in a letter to his parents:

    The Daily Mirror reports the Christmas Truce.

    They finished their carol and we thought that we ought