Tuesday, 20 December 2016

Christmas 1916


Christmas 1916 saw the Second Battalion, The Royal Welch Fusiliers in the trenches on the Western Front. They did however manage Christmas dinner.
Dinner for the men was:
"soup; roast meat with potato, carrort, turnip and onion; plum pudding; an apple, or orange, and nuts. The sergeants had whisky, port and cigars."
Dinner for the officers was:
"pate de foie gras, julienne, curried prawns, roast goose, potato and cauliflower, plum-pudding, anchovy on toast, dessert; Veuve Cliquot, port, cognac, benedictine; coffee."
taken from 'The War The Infantry Knew - 1914-1919' by Captain J.C.Dunn.
(http://universalsoldieruk.blogspot.co.uk/2005/12/christmas-1916.html)

A special addendum within the War Diary of the 15th Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers can be seen for the 25th of December 1916.  A room at Bollezeele Station in northern France was hired, cleaned, furnished and decorated for a Battalion Christmas dinner.  Six hundred men were served soup, turkey and vegetables, Christmas pudding and sweets which were washed down with stout and beer, and a concert followed which was given entirely by the men and lasted until eleven o’clock in the evening, when all were “well satisfied”.

http://cymru1914.org/en/view/manuscripts/3437194



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