Christmas Every Day

A Russian Christmas card from the Eastern Front in 1915.

Finland, because of its longstanding quarrel with the Soviet Union, allied itself with Nazi Germany. For such a small country it put up a creditable resistance to the Red Army in the “Winter War”. “Christmas Greetings” reads this message depicting a cavalry soldier in a snowy landscape.

Croatian nationalism took an ugly turn during World War II when it allied itself with Nazi Germany. The Ustase movement was a fascist hyper-Catholic hate group that fought against other ethnic minorities and the Yugoslav partisan movement.

In 1915 Père Noël visited French poilus in the trenches bringing, naturally, wine.

A card from the “Fighting First”, aka the “Big Red One”, the American First Army of World War II.

It was hard to be jolly in the trenches of the Western Front in 1916 but this artist from the 3rd Canadian Pioneers, an engineering unit, tried.

American soldiers in World War I were called “doughboys”, for reasons that are still obscure. Here one of the lads holds an artillery shell while wishing you a Merry Christmas.

The collaborationist French government based in Vichy was led by World War I hero, Marshal Philippe Pétain. Here children are encouraged to produce patriotic art work as a Christmas “surprise” for their beloved dictator.

The German Schnellboot, a fast torpedo boat capable of handling heavy seas in the English Channel and Baltic, were designated “E-boats” by the Allies.