Peace on Earth, and Good Will toward Men. A French poilu seeks shelter in a soldier's home. A YMCA postcard by Geo. Dorival, 1918.
Paix sur la Terreaux Hommede Bonne VolontéLes Foyers du SoldatUnion Franco-Américaine
"This was the fourth bloodstained Christmas spent far from home and hearth, far from the hometown church tower and the familiar ringing of the bells.On the night of December 24–25, yesteryear's joyous night of parties, a violent snowstorm struck, whipped up into a blizzard by a big, glacial wind.In our billet, this was a sad Christmas Eve, as you can well imagine. To defend ourselves from the cold, we all went to bed early, rolled up in our meager blankets, packed tightly against each other. . . .The next day, as if by the wave of a magic wand, the wind calmed down completely, but a nice layer of snow brightened the landscape. Upon awakening, I was duly warned that I had to carry out, on this day consecrated to the birth of the Savior, the annoying functions of corporal-of-the-day."
Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas. He had been in the 296th Regiment which had been implicated in the army mutinies of the spring and early summer. The regiment had been dissolved and its men assigned to other units, Barthas to a regiment from Breton. On December 23, 1917 they went into two weeks of rest.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, pp. 350, 351, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
1917-12-24, 1917, December, Christmas, Christmas Eve, 1917-12-25, snow, Poilu and soldier's home
