Today is the 100th anniversary of a rare peaceable event in the midst of war -- and one that, as Adam Hochschild, author of the bestselling To End All Wars, wrote at TomDispatch earlier in the month is a rare peaceable moment that anyone even bothers to remember in a world that never ceases to celebrate war and its warriors: the Christmas Truce of World War I. Yesterday, Hochschild did an interview piece with historian and radio personality Jon Wiener that was posted at the Nation. Dont miss it on a day that should be the essence of peace, not war, and then go back and read Hochschilds original essay for TD! Tom 100 years ago, on Christmas Day, 1914, in the middle of World War I, British and German soldiers put down their guns and stopped killing one another. The terrible industrial slaughter had already taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of young men. But on that day, thousands of troops climbed out of the trenches in France and Belgium, sang Christmas carols, and exchanged food, gifts, and souvenirs. They traded German beer for British rum. They even played soccer. It’s a unique event in the history of modern warfare. It’s unique in another way. Those who fought in wars—the fallen—are regularly remembered and honored, but remembering and honoring those who refused to fight is pretty much unheard of (except for commemorations sponsored by pacifist and anti-war groups). And yet, this season, the Christmas Truce of 1914 is being commemorated officially, especially in Europe, with a wide variety of government-sponsored memorial events. “It’s quite remarkable, Adam Hochschild said in an interview—he’s the author of seven books, most recently the award-winning history of WWI, To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918. The Christmas Truce has always been marked unofficially. But this year every school in the United Kingdom received a packet of materials about it—photos, eyewitness accounts, student worksheets. There’s a children’s competition in Britain to design a memorial to the Christmas Truce, and one of the judges was Prince William. In Belgium a memorial soccer field was inaugurated, the British and German ambassadors came, and they are holding a soccer tournament in memory of those Christmas Truce soccer games, with youth teams from Britain, Germany, France and Austria.” thenation/blog/193545/day-troops-refused-fight-december-25-1914# Heres the Adam Hochschild piece at TomDispatch: tomdispatch/post/175932/tomgram%3A_adam_hochschild,_thank_you_for_making_war!/
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 14:00:01 +0000
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