December 27th, 1914

- After several days of attacks in Artois General Pétain's XXXIII Corps manages to capture seven hundred yards of German trenches today, but most of the gains are lost to subsequent enemy counterattacks. Meamwhile in Champagne Joffre moves IV Corps into the vicinity of 4th Army, which allows the commander of the latter to commit all of I Corps to the fight.  Thus when 4th Army resumes the attack today, the French are able to feed more troops into the battle to maintain the pressure on the German lines.

Elsewhere the secondary attacks ordered by Joffre to distract the Germans also continue to have negligible effects: today XI Corps of 2nd Army advances against the German line opposite without the benefit of a preliminary artillery bombardment, with the results one would expect.

In addition to the ongoing offensives in Artois and Champagne, Joffre continues to deal with a range of other issues, reflecting his attention to detain and tight control over all aspects of the French army.  Today a message goes out to all army commanders emphasizing the 'necessity' of organizing the 'first line of trenches in a manner to make them absolutely inviolable in order to reduce personnel placed in the trenches' and to 'permit the forming in the rear of important reserves required for future operations.'  The emphasis on finding additional reserves also demonstrates his continued commitment to the offensive, regardless of the outcome of the current operations.

- In Germany four new corps (XXXVIII to XXXXI Reserve Corps) and one new division (8th Bavarian Division) have been formed, and although consisting largely of inexperienced wartime volunteers and under-equipped as compared to pre-war formations, their deployment will allow for the execution of a major offensive.  The crucial issue now is whether these new units will be sent to the Western or the Eastern Front, in an attempt to secure a major victory.  In the draft of a letter to Hindenburg that he ultimately does not send, Falkenhayn reveals that he believes they should be sent West, along with one or two corps transferred from the East, and that an offensive should be launched by the end of January.  Here Falkenhayn once again demonstrates his belief that the primary enemies of Germany are on the Western Front, while a decisive victory cannot be achieved over Russia.  Though he is Chief of Staff of the German army, his opinion is hardly the last word in the matter.

- During the Cuxhaven Raid of Christmas Day, the Grand Fleet had been a hundred miles north of Heligoland Bight, hoping the operation might tempt the High Seas Fleet to sortie, but given the lack of reaction Jellicoe had ordered the fleet home.  In the predawn hours of this morning, the Grand Fleet is struggling through heavy seas as it approaches Scapa Flow when the dreadnought Monarch suddenly spots a patrol trawler dead ahead.  It turns sharply to miss the trawler, but steers directly into the path of Conqueror, another dreadnought, and the latter's bow drives into the stern of Monarch.  Both ships suffer significant damage, and although neither is in danger of sinking, they are both in need of time in drydock for repairs.

The temporary loss of two of the Grand Fleet's most powerful dreadnoughts leaves the British with just eighteen dreadnoughts, as compared to seventeen in the High Seas Fleet.  It is the moment of parity the Germans have dreamt of but, riding at anchor day after day, the Germans have no idea that the opportunity to engage the British on practically level terms even exists.

- General Ivanov of South-West Front decides today to call off the pursuit of the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army, except for advance guards designed to keep the enemy off-balance.  The Russians have prevented the Austro-Hungarians from exploiting their victory at Limanowa-Lapanow, and will be able to hold a line well west of the San River.  Advancing through the winter weather has taken its toll on the Russians, though, and Ivanov has concluded that the time has come to rest and recuperate.  4th Army will hold the line of the Dunajec River to Gorlice, and 8th Army from Gorlice eastwards roughly on the north face of the Carpathian Mountains.

- With the arrival of 17th Division today, Enver Pasha orders IX Corps to attack Sarikamish, even though X Corps has not yet arrived, and despite IX Corps having lost 15 000 of its starting 25 000 men over the past five days to the weather.  Moreover, since December 25th the Russian garrison of Sarikamish has grown from two battalions of infantry to ten, and though the Ottomans press their attacks with great courage and tenacity, they are unable to break through the Russian lines and occupy the town.

The Battle of Sarikamish, December 27th, 1914.

December 25th, 1914

- Along certain stretches of the Western Front remarkable scenes play out today.  In what will become famous as the 'Christmas Truce', soldiers on both sides cease firing and for a time congregate in No Man's Land.  These episodes are most common in Flanders, where British soldiers (as of yet less prone than the French to hate the Germans, as it was not their country that had been invaded and occupied) and Germans from Saxony and Bavaria (it being generally accepted that Prussians were more war-like).  On both sides, Christmas Eve had seen the arrival of all kinds of care packages and donations from the home front, and some trenches were decorated with whatever greenery or 'ornaments' one could find.  At night the sounds of singing often echoed across the trenches as one side, then another, would sing Christmas carols.  In the daylights hours signs appear over the trenches, often proclaiming in the language of the other side: 'You no shoot, we no shoot.'  Soldiers then climb out of the trenches, first cautiously, then eagerly, and move out into No Man's Land.  Often the first task undertaken was the burying of the dead, who had lain out of reach for weeks and months.  Once completed, the two sides would mingle, frequently trading cigarettes, tinned-meat, and other recent gifts from the home front, while attempting to converse.  In some places they even play an improvised game of soccer across the mud and ruin of No Man's Land.  Diary entries by soldiers today often speak of sympathy with those on the other side, sharing as they did the terrible conditions of life in the trenches.  These 'truces' often continued for much of the day, neither side being in any great rush to return to their lines.  When they do depart, it is often with an informal agreement not to immediately resume firing.

German and English soldiers in No Man's Land on Christmas Day, 1914.

The Christmas Truce is the most prominent example of the 'live and let live' attitude that is emerging along stretches of the front - outside of major battles, there is a desire among the common infantry to avoid unnecessary shelling and rifle fire whose only effect can be to prompt reprisals.  In other words, for some the attitude is 'if you don't make our lives any more miserable, we won't make yours any more miserable.'

- A half hour before dawn this morning, Commodore Tyrwhitt's force reaches its launch position in the Heligoland.  By 630am the seaplanes are in the water, and at 659 the signal is given to take off.  Two seaplanes suffer engine failure before takeoff, so seven in total lift into the air and head southeast towards Cuxhaven.  At sea the visibility is perfect, but as the aircraft pass over the coast they discover the landscape below covered by thick fog.  In good weather the Zeppelin hanger at Nordholz would have been visible a dozen miles away, but today the fog obscures it completely.  The seaplanes split up searching for the hanger, but none are able to find it - one drops its bombs on fish-drying sheds by mistake.  Only two seaplanes come close to inflicting harm on the Germans.  The first, passing over German warships in the Jade estuary, aims its three bombs at the light cruisers Stralsund and Graudenz; the closest falls 200 yards from the latter.  The second passes over German warships anchored in the Schilling roads, and though it suffers damage from anti-aircraft fire, its observer, Lieutenant Erskine Childers, is able to pinpoint the location of seven dreadnoughs and three battlecruisers below.

The German North Sea coast targeted by the British seaplanes.

Having failed to accomplish anything, the seaplanes head back out to sea.  Running low on fuel, only two reach the seaplane carriers.  A third lands beside a British destroyer which takes aboard its crew, and three more come down near British submarines positioned by Keyes near the coast for precisely this reason.  The crew of the seventh, meanwhile, is picked up by a Dutch trawler, and are able to convince the Dutch authorities that they are 'ship-wrecked mariners', not combatants, and are thus able to return to Britain.

The British seaplane carrier Empress, one of three to attack the German coast today.

As the British force recovered the seaplanes and aircrew, they came under sporadic attack by German Zeppelins and seaplanes.  Though there were some near misses, no British warship is damaged.  The German fleet, meanwhile, remains in port the entire time.  Convinced that only the entire Grand Fleet would dare approach this near the German coast, the High Seas Fleet stays in port fearing that it is a British trap to lure them out to destruction.  By the time they realize that Tyrwhitt's small force is by itself, they have already departed for home.  This is another blow to morale in the German navy - the British have been able to sail close enough to launch airplanes with impunity.

- In the Carpathians Russian attacks continue to batter the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army.  The latter are short on ammunition and lack sufficient infantry to cover the entire front.  When Russian units push through Jaslo between two of 3rd Army's corps, its commander accepts the inevitable and at 10pm cancels the proposed offensive of his eastern wing and informs his corps commanders that they are permitted to withdraw to the Carpathian watershed if hard-pressed by the enemy.

- Though Albania has existed for less than two years, it has already become a 'failed state'.  A recent rebellion has driven out the old monarch, the German Wilhelm of Wied, who had been appointed by the agreement of the Great Powers before the war.  A central government, for all intents and purposes, does not exist in Albania, and thus though it is formally neutral, it is entirely unable to defend its sovereignty.  Today Italy takes advantage of Albanian disorder to occupy the port of Valore, Albania's second largest city and close to the narrowest point in the Adriatic Sea before it empties into the Mediterranean.  The occupation of Valore gives Italy greater control over the Adriatic, which Italian nationalists view as an Italian lake.  Such an action would normally have provoked the ire of the other Great Powers, especially Austria-Hungary, but given not only the ongoing war but also the desire to secure Italian support, neither side in the Great War objects.  Thus Italy is not only using the war to secure territorial bribes to end its neutrality, but also as a cloak for unprovoked aggression against other states.

- Today the 'Ottoman' battlecruiser Goeben strikes a Russian mine at the entrance to the Bosporus after returning from a sortie in the Black Sea.  Though the warship is never in danger of sinking, it will be out of commission for some time.

- The elimination of the German East Asiatic Squadron removes the major impediment to British amphibious operations in the south Atlantic, and today a South African force lands at Walvis Bay on the coast of German South-West Africa.

- A small British detachment of four Indian companies occupies the coastal town of Jasin, located at the mouth of the Umba River and sitting on the border between British East Africa and German East Africa.  The occupation is not directly intended as a threat to the Germans - being sixty-four kilometres to the north, it is remote from Tanga, and the move is primarily designed to stabilize the frontier tribes in the Umba Valley inland.

December 24th, 1914

- Three days after the first attempt to bombard England from the air, at 1045am a single German Friedrichshafen FF 29 seaplane appears over Dover, flying at fifty miles per hour.  At the limit of its fifty-mile range, it carries only four 2kg bombs, which it drops near Dover Castle.  Instead of striking the landmark, they fall nearby and destroy the vegetable garden of local auctioneer Tommy Terson, who suffers minor injuries.  For the first time enemy bombs have exploded on English soil.

A German Friedrichshafen FF 29 seaplane.

- At 5am this morning, Commodore Tyrwhitt's force, consisting of three seaplane carriers, three light cruisers, and eight destroyers, sails from Harwich, bound for Heligoland Bight.  To maintain the secrecy of the raid, no preliminary warning was given to the warships before they sailed, and some have left behind stewards who had gone ashore to purchase turkeys and geese for Christmas Day.

- For the past six days the German 9th Army has been assaulting the Russian line west of Warsaw between Sochaczew on the Bzura River and Bolimov on the Rawka River, in an effort to break through to Poland's largest city.  Wave after wave of German infantry have crossed the two rivers, often in frigid water up to their chests, to assault Russian lines on the far bank.  Though in a few cases certain section of the Russian trench line were seized, at no time were the Germans able to pierce the enemy front.  9th Army has suffered over 100 000 casualties in failing to break through, and at one point a tributary of the Rawka River stopped flowing, blocked by a dam of German dead.  It now being obvious that Warsaw will not be in German hands for Christmas, Ludendorff calls off the attacks.

- In the Caucasus the occupation of Bardiz today by the Ottoman 29th Division of IX Corps masks growing problems with Enver's offensive.  Moving through heavy snow and in frigid conditions, thousands are already being lost to the elements; 17th Division of IX Corps reports that as much as 40% of its soldiers have fallen behind, some undoubtedly disappearing into the drifts of snow.  X Corps to the north, meanwhile is exhausted, but two of its divisions are pushed northwards towards Ardahan before Enver orders it to redirect itself westwards to cover IX Corps left flank.  29th Division, meanwhile, is given no rest - Enver instructs it to march immediately on Sarikamish, not only to complete the envelopment of the Russian forces facing XI Corps but because the Ottoman units need to seize Russian supplies if they are not to run out of food and starve.

On the Russian side, I Caucasian and II Turkestan Corps are in the line facing XI Corps when Enver begins his offensive, the former to the south of the latter.  The first response of General Bergmann, commander of I Caucasian Corps, had been to order his force to advance westward in an attempt to threaten the rear of the Ottoman IX and X Corps.  General Nikolai Yudenich, Chief of Staff of the Russian Caucasus Army, is better able to understand the threat the Ottoman advance poses to Sarikamish, and orders I Caucasian Corps to instead withdraw today while moving reinforcements to concentrate at the threatened town.

The Battle of Sarikamish, December 24th, 1914.

December 21st, 1914

- In Champagne today the French XII Corps of 4th Army launches its attack on the German lines.  However, just as with XVII and I Colonial Corps yesterday, XII Corps is unable to secure any gains; they find that the few gaps that exist in the German barbed wire are covered by enemy machine guns, making them killing zones as French infantry congregate at the gaps trying to get through to the enemy trench line.  After the day's fighting, the commander of 4th Army decides to temporarily suspend infantry assaults and instead have the soldiers conduct mining operations while artillery fire is directed on known German strongpoints.  It is hoped that after bombardment on the points that held up the initial advance, subsequent attacks will meet with greater success.

- For the first time in the war a German aircraft attempts to bombard England, reaching the coast at Dover and attempting to hit the port.  The raid, however, is unsuccessful - the two bombs dropped land just offshore in the Channel.

- Meanwhile the First Lord of the Admiralty gives approval to an operation that not only be the first of its kind against Germany, but the first of its kind in history.  On December 25th, three light cruisers and eight destroyers under the command of Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt of the Harwich Force will escort three seaplane carriers into the Heligoland Bight,  Here the seaplane carriers, which are converted cross-Channel passenger steamers, will lower their three seaplanes each into the sea, and the aircraft after takeoff are to proceed to the Nordholz airship base eight miles south of the German port of Cuxhaven.  Once over the target each will drop their three bombs on the air base, and especially the massive twin-hangar structure that holds two of the German Navy's four Zeppelins.  By bringing only a small number of warships into the Bight, and by launching the seaplanes before dawn, it is hoped that the aircraft can be recovered and the force depart the Bight before the German navy can respond.  Eleven submarines under Commodore Roger Keyes, who had planned the operation with Tyrwhitt, will also be present to recover the crew of any aircraft that is forced to ditch short of the seaplane carriers.  The raid, if successfully accomplished, will be the first time in history aircraft launched from sea attack a land-based target.

- In Galicia the Russians have halted their retreat and, thanks to reinforcements drawn from elsewhere on the front, are able to go on the counterattack.  While two corps hold the line of the Dunajec River, five more attack along the front between Tarnow in the west to Besko in the east, striking the right wing of the Austro-Hungarian 4th Army and the left and centre of the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army.