For a brief moment in 1914, the
guns went silent and the men risked court martial to play soccer, smoke and
sing---with the other side.
The Illustrated London News’s
illustration of the Christmas Truce: “British and German Soldiers
Arm-in-Arm Exchanging Headgear: A Christmas Truce between Opposing Trenches” by
A.C. Michael, 1915.Wikimedia Commons/public domain
A
19th-century peace activist once asked, “Is it possible that any Christian, of
whatever sect, who believes the New Testament to be anything better than a
fable, can doubt for a moment that the time will come when all the kingdoms of
the earth shall be at peace?”
Jesus
Christ, as both a religious and historical figure, has been chronicled as the
“Prince of Peace.” He was the man (or son of God) who instructed his followers
to turn the other cheek. This philosophy of love, forgiveness, and the
rejection of violence is difficult to mesh with a modern age that has fought
two world wars. Reaching even farther back, it’s hard to reconcile Christ’s
message with the violence inflicted by Christians against both non-Christians
and other members of the faith.
But one
moment, found in the bloody, secularized 20th century, stands out: the
Christmas Truce of 1914.
World War
I had begun in August, engulfing most of Europe. On the western front, a German
invasion of France by way of Belgium had stalled just 50 miles outside of
Paris. Fighting quickly devolved into trench warfare, with German and
British-French lines divided by a no-man’s land of barbed wire, shell holes,
and death. Soldiers lived and died in trenches of mud and dirt, infested with
fleas and other vermin and often flooded with water that was knee deep. Winter
added frost and bitter cold. The war that people on both sides said would be
done by Christmas showed no sign of ending. By December, after barely five
months of combat, casualties on all sides numbered over two million.
Yet that
Christmas Eve, an unexpected sound could be heard above the din of gunfire:
soldiers on the German side singing Stille Nacht, the original
German-language Silent Night. Small fir trees, makeshift
replacements for the grand Christmas trees back home, had been placed. The
constant fighting might have had the effect of increasing religious reflection.
During the opening months of the war in 1914, churches in Germany were fuller
than they had ever been, even in working-class areas infamous for secular and
anti-clerical politics.
After much
hesitation, soldiers on the British side began to poke their heads out of the
trenches. The Germans did not fire. The Brits responded by applauding and
singing their own English version of the carol. The two sides then met together
in no man’s land. Frederick James Davies, a private in the 2nd Battalion Royal
Welsh Fusiliers, described his experiences in a letter
home to his mother: “They [the Germans] were only fifty yards away from us in
the trenches. They came out and we went to meet them. We shook hands with
them…. They also gave us cigars but they didn’t have much food. I think they
are hard up for it. They were fed up with the war.” They exchanged “cigs, jam
and corn beef” and Davies added that he had “a good chat with the Germans on
Xmas day.”
Writer
Henry Williamson, then a private in the London Rifle Brigade, wrotecheerfully home to his mother that he was
smoking German tobacco he had exchanged with a live soldier. He recounted,
“Yesterday the British & Germans met & shook hands in the Ground
between the trenches, & exchanged souvenirs, & shook hands.” He
describes his military counterparts: “Many are gentle looking men in goatee
beards & spectacles, and some are very big and arrogant looking.” In other
words, they looked positively human. Williamson even showed empathy for their
similar motivations: “The Germans put ‘For Fatherland & Freedom’ on the
cross. They obviously think their cause is a just one.”
In his own
account, Captain A.D. Chater of the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders wrote: “This extraordinary truce has been
quite impromptu. There was no previous arrangement and of course it had been
decided that there was not to be any cessation of hostilities.”
This
outbreak of peace was entirely spontaneous, started by privates on the front
lines as their officers threatened them with court-martial. Soldiers laughed,
talked, sang, exchanged gifts, and helped to bury their dead. A few games of
soccer were even played.
They had
been killing each other for months, indoctrinated for most of their lives to
view the “other” as evil, inhuman. But here they were, ordinary men who missed
their homes and families, who had only the vaguest idea of why they were there,
why they were dying and killing. Karl Muhlegg of the 17th Bavarian
Regiment wrote home, “Never was I as keenly aware of the insanity of war.”
The truce
continued until the end of Christmas. In some spots it continued for days. But
slowly men returned to their sides and fighting resumed. Europe would not see
another Christmas in peacetime until 1918, after 10,000,000 men had been
killed. When the war ended, the French military academy Saint-Cyr listed all
its graduates who had fallen. For one year, it contains just one brief but
chilling entry: “The Class of 1914.” In comparison, only 81 British soldiers
died on Christmas Day 1914 in all of Europe.
What is
striking is the difference between the propaganda put forward by the
governments on the home front and the spontaneous actions that Christmas.
Besides Pope Benedict XV, who urged a temporary ceasefire so war cannons would
not be booming across Europe on the night the angels were meant to announce
Christ’s birth, what the soldiers did was opposed by governments on both sides.
There’s a
case to be made that the truce had nothing to do with Christianity. Periodic
and unplanned truces occur in war regularly. Fighting ceases while the two
sides take time to bury their dead. And trade and fraternization do occur. One
might ask, does the common soldier need a higher reason to stop killing or be
killed? But this rejoinder is far too simplistic. It’s estimated that roughly
100,000 soldiers participated in the Christmas Truce of 1914 to some degree.
This is far too large a number to be written off as a casual occurrence. This
event was unplanned, uncoordinated, and not sanctioned by the officer core. Yet
it happened. And it just happened to take place on the most celebrated day in
the Christian calendar, the observance of the birth of Christ, the “Prince of
Peace.” If both sides were not united under Christendom, joined together in
mutual belief, it is a definite that the truce would not have occurred.
In
November 1914, three months into the war, Pope Benedict XV grieved, “Who would
imagine, as we see them thus filled with hatred of one another, that they are
all of one common stock, all of the same nature, all members of the same human
society? Who would recognize brothers, whose Father is in Heaven?” Perhaps on
Christmas, with morals engraved on their innermost hearts, the soldiers
realized the truth of this statement.
As an
event in the history of war, the Christmas Truce of 1914 is barely a footnote;
it had no major effects on the fighting or outcome of World War I. But in the
history of peace, the truce is a powerful story. This moment, this flash of
love, bookended on both sides by destruction and hate, was a triumph of
humanity. It’s the closest thing we’ll see to a miracle in this fallen world.
Frederick
Niven, a minor Scottish poet, ended his poem “A Carol from Flanders” with a
sentiment that should be prayed for year-round:
O ye who
read this truthful rime
From
Flanders, kneel and say:
God Speed
the time when every day
Shall be
as Christmas Day
Hunter
DeRensis is a regular contributor to The American Conservative.
Follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis.