Tanpa mengurangi rasa hormat pada agama lain,karena konteksnya Natal,sy posting apa yang terjadi pd PD I,di mana terjadi gencatan senjata sementara di hari Natal dengan inisiatif dari masing pasukan, sisanya monggo dibaca, sy kutip dari majalah TIME Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce of 1914 Naina Bajekal @naina_bajekal Dec. 24, 2014 German and British troops celebrating Christmas to German and British troops celebrating Christmas together during a temporary cessation of WWI hostilities known as the Christmas Truce. Exactly a century ago the men in the trenches heard something unusual: singing On a crisp, clear morning 100 years ago, thousands of British, Belgian and French soldiers put down their rifles, stepped out of their trenches and spent Christmas mingling with their German enemies along the Western front. In the hundred years since, the event has been seen as a kind of miracle, a rare moment of peace just a few months into a war that would eventually claim over 15 million lives. But what actually happened on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day of 1914 — and did they really play soccer on the battlefield? More The Year Britain Celebrated ‘Blitzmas’Dozens Killed in Suspected Guerrilla Attack in India’s Assam StateToo Long: Pope Decries Brutal Persecution by ISIS NBC NewsScreening Surprise: The Interview Star Drops In NBC NewsWant a White, Not a Wet Christmas? Go West (If You Can) NBC News Pope Benedict XV, who took office that September, had originally called for a Christmas truce, an idea that was officially rejected. Yet it seems the sheer misery of daily life in the cold, wet, dull trenches was enough to motivate troops to initiate the truce on their own — which means that it’s hard to pin down exactly what happened. A huge range of differing oral accounts, diary entries and letters home from those who took part make it virtually impossible to speak of a “typical” Christmas truce as it took place across the Western front. To this day historians continue to disagree over the specifics: no one knows where it began or how it spread, or if, by some curious festive magic, it broke out simultaneously across the trenches. Nevertheless, some two-thirds of troops — about 100,000 people — are believed to have participated in the legendary truce. Popular Among Subscribers Interstellar, Where No Movie Has Gone Before Subscribe The Last Men of Steel Review: Interstellar’s Wonder of Worlds Beyond Most accounts suggest the truce began with carol singing from the trenches on Christmas Eve, “a beautiful moonlit night, frost on the ground, white almost everywhere”, as Pvt. Albert Moren of the Second Queens Regiment recalled, in a document later rounded up by the New York Times. Graham Williams of the Fifth London Rifle Brigade described it in even greater detail: “First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words Adeste Fideles. And I thought, well, this is really a most extraordinary thing – two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.” The next morning, in some places, German soldiers emerged from their trenches, calling out “Merry Christmas” in English. Allied soldiers came out warily to greet them. In others, Germans held up signs reading “You no shoot, we no shoot.” Over the course of the day, troops exchanged gifts of cigarettes, food, buttons and hats. The Christmas truce also allowed both sides to finally bury their dead comrades, whose bodies had lain for weeks on “no man’s land,” the ground between opposing trenches. The phenomenon took different forms across the Western front. One account mentions a British soldier having his hair cut by his pre-war German barber; another talks of a pig-roast. Several mention impromptu kick-abouts with makeshift soccer balls, although, contrary to popular legend, it seems unlikely that there were any organized matches.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 13:42:40 +0000
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