One Hundred Years Ago Today: The Christmas Truce of 1914. In France, up and down the Western Front, all the guns went silent. It started on Christmas Eve when German soldiers began decorating their trenches and singing Christmas carols. On Christmas morning soldiers on both sides began leaving their trenches and meeting in No Man’s Land to exchange greetings. No formal cease fire was called. It was just a series of “Soldiers’ Truces” as units locally agreed not to fight that day. At first they used the time to retrieve the dead and wounded who had been trapped in between the lines. But soon soldiers began mingling, swapping souvenirs, and sharing food and wine and pictures from home. Numerous accounts tell of friendly soccer games breaking out in No Man’s Land. In some areas the truces lasted for several days and continued until higher headquarters ordered an end to fraternization with the enemy under threat of severe punishment. Limited truces occurred again in 1915, but nowhere near the extent of 1914. By 1916 no truces occurred. The use of poison gas, unrestricted submarine warfare, and the shear carnage and brutality of two years of war made Christmas 1914 seem like a distant memory. The song by Irish singer Tommy Fleming is called “Christmas 1915”, but the writer probably got his years mixed up because it most likely happened in 1914.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 15:29:22 +0000
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