This account of Christmas 1915 comes from the remarkable Sarah Macnaughtan. Miss Macnaughtan is a heroine of mine. A quiet story writer who distributed comforts in the South African War but it was during the First World War where she was transformed as an “Angel of Mercy”.
At the outbreak of war she volunteered with the Red Cross and joined a band of nurses led by Mrs. Stobart. She endured shelling just before the fall of Antwerp and when her fellow nurses returned to England, she stayed on in Belgium at the newly made ‘capital’ Furnes. Subsequently, in the later part of 1914 she started a Soup Kitchen for the Belgian troops.
In 1915 she embarked on a boat to Russia to help aid the war effort on the Eastern Front. This amazing account from MY WAR EXPERIENCES INTWO CONTINENTS’ , describes Christmas 1915 in Russia and her reflections on England and the war.
"Christmas Eve at Tiflis, and here we are with cars still stuck in the ice thirty miles from Archangel, and ourselves just holding on and trying not to worry. But what a waste of time! Also, fighting is going on now in Persia, and we might be a lot of use. We came back from Batoum in the hottest and slowest train I have ever been in. Still, Georgia delighted me, and I am glad to have seen it. They have a curious custom there (the result of generations of fighting). Instead of saying "Good-morning," they say "Victory"; and the answer is, "May the victory be yours." The language is Georgian, of course; and then there is Tartar, and Polish, and Russian, and I can't help thinking that the Tower of Babel was the poorest joke that was ever played on mankind. Nothing stops work so completely.
What will Christmas Day be like at home? I think of all the village churches, with the holly and evergreens, and in almost every one the little new brass plates to the memory of beautiful youth, dead and mangled, and left in the mud to await another trumpet than that which called it from the trenches. There is nothing like a boy, and all the life of England and the prayers of mothers have centred round them. One's older friends died first, and now the boys are falling, and from every little vicarage, from school-houses and colleges, the endless stream goes, all with their heads up, fussing over their little bits of packing, and then away to stand exploding shells and gas and bombs. No one except those who have seen knows the ghastly tale of human suffering that this war involves every day. Down here 550,000 Armenians have been butchered in cold blood. The women are either massacred or driven into Turkish harems.
Yesterday we heard some news at last in this most benighted corner of the world! England has raised four million volunteers. Hurrah! Over one million men volunteered in one week. French takes command at home and Haig at the front."
To Mrs. Charles Young.
Hotel Orient, Tiflis,
26 December.
Darling J.,
It seems almost useless to write letters, or even to wire! Letters sometimes take forty-nine days to get to England, and telegrams are always kept a fortnight before being sent. We have had great difficulty about the ambulance cars, as they all got frozen into the river at Archangel; however, as you will see from the newspapers, there isn't a great deal going on yet.
I do hope you and all the family are safe and sound. I wired to —— for her birthday to ask news of you all, and I prepaid the reply, but, of course, none came, so I am sure she never got the wire. I have wired twice to ——, but no reply. At last one gives up expecting any. I got some newspapers nearly a month old to-day, and I have been devouring them.
This is rather a curious place, and the climate is quite good; no snow, and a good deal of pleasant sun, but the hills all round are very bare and rugged.
I have had a cough, which I think equals your best efforts in that line. How it does shake one up! I had some queer travelling when it was at its worst: for the first night we were given a shakedown in a little mountain hospital, which was fearfully cold; and the next night I was put into a newly-built little place, made of planks roughly nailed together, and with just a bed and a basin in it.
The cold was wonderful, and since then—as you may imagine—the Macnaughtan cough has been heard in the land!
Yesterday (Christmas Day) we were invited to breakfast with the Grand Duke Nicholas. A Court function in Russia is the most royal that you can imagine—no half measures about it! The Grand Duke is an adorably handsome man, quite extraordinarily and obviously a Grand Duke. He measures 6 feet 5 inches, and is worshipped by every soldier in the Army.
We went first into a huge anteroom, where a lady-in-waiting received us, and presented us to "Son Altesse Impériale," and then to the Grand Duke and to his brother, the Grand Duke Peter. Some scenes seem to move as in a play. I had a vision of a great polished floor, and many tall men in Cossack dress, with daggers and swords, most of them different grades of Princes and Imperial Highnesses.
A great party of Generals, and ladies, and members of the Household, then went into a big dining-room, where every imaginable hors d'œuvre was laid out on dishes—dozens of different kinds—and we each ate caviare or something. Afterwards, with a great tramp and clank of spurs and swords, everyone moved on to a larger dining-room, where there were a lot of servants, who waited excellently.
In the middle of the déjeuner the Grand Duke Nicholas got up, and everyone else did the same, and they toasted us! The Grand Duke made a speech about our "gallantry," etc., etc., and everyone raised glasses and bowed to one. Nothing in a play could have been more of a real fine sort of scene. And certainly S. Macnaughtan in her wildest dreams hadn't thought of anything so wonderful as being toasted in Russia by the Imperial Staff.
It's quite a thing to be tiresome about when one grows old!
In the evening we tried to be merry, and failed. The Grand Duchess sent us mistletoe and plum-pudding by the hand of M. Boulderoff. He took us shopping, but the bazaars are not interesting.
Good-bye, and bless you, my dear,
Yours as ever,
S. Macnaughtan.
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