{"id":10299,"date":"2014-12-24T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-12-24T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=10299"},"modified":"2014-12-24T06:00:18","modified_gmt":"2014-12-24T11:00:18","slug":"1914-christmas-eve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/1914-christmas-eve\/","title":{"rendered":"1914 CHRISTMAS EVE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Thursday, December 24, 1914<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>In Camp, Lark Hill, Salisbury Plains<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day:<em> \u201cAll available men on fatigue. * Midnight mass in hut of No. 4 Co.\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=9817&amp;preview=true#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[1]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10135\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 300px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/24-Dec-14_A.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10135 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/24-Dec-14_A-300x216.jpg\" alt=\"24 Dec 14_A\" width=\"300\" height=\"216\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">RMR Christmas card sent from Captain Richard Steacie to his family. Note the pride the Regiment had in its origins: the three Founding Units are listed on the front of the card.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY:\u00a0\u201cOn Christmas Eve Capt. A. Sylvestre, Roman Catholic Chaplain of the Battalion, celebrated Mass in a hut occupied by the French-Canadian soldiers from the Carabiniers de Mont-Royal, \u2026the service was impressive, owing to the simple dignity with which the Mass was celebrated in such strange surroundings\u2026\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe year 1914 came to an end with the Christmas season, which for the men was one of the few constant things in their chaotic world.\u00a0 For most, who presumably were lonely and homesick, it was a time unlike anything they had known before.\u00a0 But they made the best of it.\u00a0 Ian Sinclair (13<sup>th<\/sup> Bn.) delighted in recalling his experience:\u00a0 \u2018They let half the battalion go on leave at Christmas and half at New Year.\u00a0 The officers waited on the men at Christmas dinner and everybody got mildly tight, and we had a wonderful time.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<a href=\"#_edn2\" name=\"_ednref2\">[3]<\/a><\/p>\n<pre>[1]\u00a0\u00a0 <em>War Diary, 14<sup>th<\/sup> Canadian Battalion, The Royal Montreal Regiment<\/em>, Dec 24, 1914.\u00a0 Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089681.jpg\">http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089681.jpg<\/a><\/pre>\n<pre>[2]\u00a0\u00a0 R.C. Featherstonhaugh, <em>The Royal Montreal Regiment 14<sup>th<\/sup> Battalion C.E.F. 1914-1925<\/em>, Montreal, The Gazette, Printing Co., Ltd., 1927 , pg. 20.<\/pre>\n<pre>[3]\u00a0\u00a0 George H. Cassar, <em>\u201cHell in Flanders \u2013 Canadians at the Second Battle of Ypres,\u201d <\/em>Toronto, Dundurn Press, 2010, pp. 43-44.<\/pre>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday, December 24, 1914 In Camp, Lark Hill, Salisbury Plains The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: \u201cAll available men on fatigue. * Midnight mass in hut of No.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-day-in-rmr-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}