We’ve all heard of it, the Christmas miracle in 1914. On a cold clear Christmas Eve, German and British troops laid down their arms, sang “Silent Night” and “Kumbaya” together (I know, I know… just setting the mood) and peace reigned across the battle fields.
Well, sort of.
I had planned a somewhat saccharin retelling of that night – maybe at least one day could go by without stepping on anyone’s toes. Then, I started actually reading more about those days – and found out how some of the little details have been altered over the years. Not “Jesus’ birth in mid-December instead of Passover” level alteration, but still significant.
The song: “Silent Night.” A simple tune, written in 1816 for two voices and a guitar accompaniment (supposedly since the church’s organ was out of commission, but at least one source considers that, ah, ’embellished’ a bit. The Conversation. )
Always a difficult piece for me to sing, as it tend to choke me up a bit (like ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ or Johnny Cash’s “Ragged Old Flag’.) Six stanzas, of which most normal folks know maybe the first one or two. The first simple words, translated as “Silent Night, Holy Night” repeated in all six stanzas, give them a simple yet solemn continuity. The fellow who wrote it, the assistant pastor Joseph Mohr, was one of us – a veteran, in his case of the Napoleonic Wars. English translations appeared starting around 1850.
The setting: The Great War was hitting its first real winter in ’14, after the war started with the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in June. By year’s end the First Battle of the Marne had been fought, trenches had been dug, and the whole theme of ‘Mass attacks with high casualties for very little real gain’ was set. The air war was barely started – the principles of control of the air, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), and attack were recognized but still in their infant stages. Air Mobility? Effectively unknown. The biggest impact on traditional war at that time was developed by Hiram Maxim – the machine gun. Gatling guns were effective, but mounted on caissons like artillery. By WWI, multiple machine guns could be sited to dominate a battlefield – and they did.
Weather – the winter was unusually severe. Most armies did as armies have always done (and no doubt always will) and concentrated on gee-whiz arms like machine guns, small caliber repeating rifles, better artillery – note a lack? Ah yes – a decided lack of cold weather gear for the poor guys stuck out on the front. (Some things really don’t change, do they? Wonder what the German phrase, or paragraph since it IS German, is for “woobie.”) Summer 1914 was pretty-balmy-to-hot – the winter came early and was downright ugly, and soldiers may have had wool uniforms but effective warm coats were severely lacking. By December they had no doubt enjoyed enough.
So what happened?
Although the new Pope (Benedict XV) had called for a Christmas truce, none was officially in effect, nor uniformly took place. The Popular story is that as the strains of “Stille Nacht” wafted over the trenches, everybody laid down their arms, met in No Man’s Land between the trenches, and the war grew silent for a day. It’s a great story, and one we all wish was true. But it wasn’t.
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.
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.”Time
All rightey…NOW we’re talking – common ground
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. Time
Two thirds of troops participating means 1/3 were still going at it normally. There were several reports of troops attempting to fratenize and getting shot on sight. Many officers condemned any peaceful contact as subversive, afraid that it would erode the already-fragile morale of their troops. It never happened at all in some sectors, and fighting continued.
With no man’s land sometimes spanning just 100 feet, enemy troops were so close that they could hear each other and even smell their cooking. The commander of the British Second Corps, General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, believed this proximity posed “the greatest danger” to the morale of soldiers and told Divisional Commanders to explicitly prohibit any “friendly intercourse with the enemy.”Time
Depending on where you were, the truce may have lasted past New Year’s. Or (in most cases) just until after Christmas or Boxing Day (the 26th.) Or in some case just until Christmas afternoon.
But it did happen. Maybe not the way we ideally would have liked it to, maybe not in one particular person’s sector. But 100,000 men decided that just for one day being a good man was better than being a good soldier. Dangerous… but heady stuff.
Perhaps we all need a challenge like that, for at least one day to rise above our petty conflicts. Be a better man (or woman, as the case may be). Do your Maker proud.
A bunch of guys sent to kill each other because some relatives had a major league spat.
They decided to have a night where they wanted to stop killing and dying and show man’s true humanity to each other.
Merry Christmas to all.
Give the E-4 mafia a chance at ghosting for a day and no telling what will happen.
Merry Christmas.