Chapter 301: The Winter Offensive Begins
Christmas in 1915 was much the same as it had been for the soldiers as it was the year prior. In this life, the Christmas truce did not occur.
Perhaps the soldier who had initiated it was killed in the early days of the conflict, or maybe the enmity between the Allies and the Germans was far greater as a result of the one sided losses the British and French forces sustained.
Either way, men sat in their winter clothing behind their fortifications as the snow fell on their head. The occasional exchange of gunfire and artillery could be overheard in the distance, as planes fought in the air above.
Conflict never really ceased, as the German stormtroopers found the best way to prevent the positions of the standard infantry from being taken over as routine raids into the Allies front lines. A few dozen casualties every other night at random intervals kept the British and French forces from properly organizing a mass assault.
But it was daytime, not that one could really tell, as the sky was darkened by the winter storm clouds. Even so, flares kept the field alight, as the Germans drank from their canteens, and gathered round the fire.
Unlike the Austro-Hungarian defenders in the alps, the Germans ensured men were constantly on watch at their posts, despite the weather and holiday festivities. Rotating between men regularly so that no man was ever exposed to the elements for too long.
True, the border between Belgium and France was far last hazardous than the alpine front in the dead of winter, but that did not mean that the temperature could not kill a man if left to its bidding.
Because of this, two men were sitting at the edge of a trench, one of them leaning against the sandbags from below, while the other sat on his machine gun.
Of these two men, one was German, the other was Belgian. They had long since learned to properly communicate with one another, as they had been more or less in the same mixed unit for close to a year now.
The lines at Belgium had frozen after the Germans pushed the French invaders out of the small kingdom. And the camaraderie between the two armies had grown exceptionally since then.