Dec 25 2007
The Christmas truce
This story has fascinated me since I first heard it.
World War I was one of the bloodiest wars ever. Hundreds of thousands lost their lives. Britain lost almost an entire generation of young men. The conflict was up close and personal - much of it was fought with soldiers dug into trenches sometimes only 30 yards from each other, close enough to see and hear the enemy. The trenches were absolutely miserable places to be. Wet, muddy, freezing in the winter, sometimes collapsing, sometimes filled with the decaying bodies of the fallen, it was not difficult for the soldiers to have some sympathy for their counterparts on the other side but so close to them.
On Christmas Eve, 1914, British and German troops informally and in defiance of orders from their superiors arranged cease-fires so they could celebrate Christmas. The sounds of carols being sung and gifts being exchanged led soldiers from each side, hesitantly at first, to leave their trenches and venture into no-man’s land to fraternise with their opponents. They serenaded each other and exchanged small gifts and tobacco (the currency of the soldier), played soccer, exchanged addresses, buried their dead.
Their officers, having no use for nonsense like “Christmas”, “Peace on Earth” or “Goodwill Towards Men”, issued orders for fraternisation to stop. But the truce held, mostly, through Christmas Day.
For more on the Christmas Truce, see this article. Military historian Stanley Weintraub has written a well-reviewed book about the Christmas Truce called Silent Night.
Merry Christmas everyone!