Intermission at a French theater, 1915. Women and a girl knit, socks perhaps, for soldiers at the front, as does a Red Cross nurse seated between two sleepy soldiers, one — from an Algerian regiment — visibly wounded. An older man reads the news. Illustrated by A. Guillaume, the postcard is captioned in the languages of the Entente Allies, French, English, and Russian.
15 minutes d'entr'act.15 minutes intermission.Антрактъ въ 15 минутъ.Pinx. A. GuillaumeА. ГильомъVisé Paris.2260.I.M.L.Reverse:Guerre Européenne de 1914-1915Édition Patriotique.Imp. I. Lapina. - Paris, Rue Denfert-Rochebeau, 75European War 1914-1915Patriotic Edition.Printer I. Lapina. - Paris, Rue Denfert-Rochebeau 75
"— A terrible and distressing cruelty still reigns, in the name of patriotism, over the hearts of those who ever express their views — even the women. An actress, who has taken up hospital nursing, declares with satisfaction that this winter there have been no trench truces (that is not correct, by the way), and expresses delight that the French are shooting Germans who try to fraternise. What a strange perversion of decent feeling that is! Thus, again, Captain N——— considered the following trick positively heroic and laudable: at one point in the line trench truces had given rise to regular contact between the two lines, but one day, when a German N.C.O. was coming across in perfect confidence, the French shot him."
Undated January, 1916 entry from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government. Although there were instances of fraternization on the front at Christmastime, 1915, it was suppressed by military leadership, in part by regular shelling of enemy lines.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, pp. 133, 134, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
1916-01-12, 1916, January, truce
