Henry Williamson (1895–1977), best known for his story Tarka the Otter, is a writer whose life was dominated by memories of the First World War.
Williamson enlisted in the London Rifle Brigade in 1914, and in November was sent to France where he took part in the first battle of Ypres. He was invalided home early in 1915, but returned to France to fight at Ancre in spring 1917. One of the events of the war which had the most powerful impact on him was the Christmas Truce of 1914, when hostilities were temporarily suspended, and German and English soldiers emerged from their trenches to briefly fraternise and exchange gifts. This influenced his growing belief that the Germans and the English had far more in common than domestic propaganda admitted, and Williamson came to feel that the war had been a terrible waste of life.
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