Today In History, 1914 - The Christmas Truce:
One of my favorite Christmas stories:
Midnight, Christmas 'morning': As British and Allied forces begin to rest after a day of brutal combat on the Western front of France they hear something rather strange coming from the German trenches - German soldiers have began singing Christmas carols. They even have a brass band. It's a full-blown concert. As the singing continues the allied troops begin to join in and start singing along. The Germans in their trenches, and the allied forces in their trenches are now singing in harmony across the battlefield. Both sides then shouted "Merry Christmas" to each other, and each allowed the other side to get a good nights sleep. At dawn as the allied troops begin to awake on Christmas morning they spot a group of German soldiers walking across the field to the allied trenches. At first the allied soldiers think this might be some sort of trick to catch them off guard, but upon further inspection they notice that the German soldiers making their way over are completely unarmed. A group of allied soldiers crawl out of their trench and walk over to the approaching Germans. The two sides shake hands with one another and wish each other a Merry Christmas in their respected languages - "Frohe Weihnachten" says a British Soldier. "Merry Christmas" a German soldier replies. As both sides look on from their trenches, and notice that it's not a trick, soldiers from both sides jump out of their trenches and come out to shake hands with their opponents. Before long both sides begin singing together. They even exchanged gifts, smoked cigarettes, drank coffee together, took group photos, even ate plum pudding together - and most incredibly the two sides played a friendly game of football (soccer).
A fantastic surviving letter of this event really captures the moment: Captain Alfred Dougan Chater, serving with the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders, wrote to his mother back home: "I think I have seen today one of the most extraordinary sights that anyone has ever seen; About 10:00 this morning I was peeping over the parapet when I saw a German waving his arms, and presently two of them got out of their trench and came towards ours. We were just going to fire on them when I saw they had no rifles. So one of our men went to meet them, and in about two minutes the ground between the two lines of trenches was swarming with men and officers of both sides, shaking hands and wishing each other a happy Christmas. I went out myself and shook hands with several of their officers and men. From what I gathered most of them would be glad to go home again, as we should - We have our pipes playing all day and everyone has been walking about in the open, unmolested"
The story always reminded me of a great quote by Charles Dickens: "For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty founder was a child himself"
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
