Christmas in the Trenches: The Christmas Truce of 1914

“It was Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung

The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung

Our families back in England were toasting us that day

Their brave and glorious lads so far away

I was lyin’ with my mess-mates on the cold and rocky ground

When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound

Says I “Now listen up me boys”, each soldier strained to hear

As one young German voice sang out so clear

“He’s singin’ bloody well you know”, my partner says to me

Soon one by one each German voice joined it in harmony

The cannons rested silent.

The gas cloud rolled no more

As Christmas brought us respite from the war”

This is from the beginning of John McCutcheon’s Christmas in the Trenches. This song describes an event from World War I commonly referred to as The Christmas Truce. We’ve seen it depicted recently in a commercial for a UK supermarket chain.

The Christmas Truce was a real event. It took place December 24th of 1914, about 5 months after the start of Word War I. It’s said to have started on the Western Front in Belgium, when the Germans started singing Silent Night from their trenches. Silent night was originally a German song, but was very recognizable to the Allies across No Man’s Land, a 250 yard expanse between the opposing trenches.

Silent Night. Holy Night. All is calm. All is bright.

The serene melody and illustration of the newly born infant Savior, sleeping in heavenly peace, contrasted greatly with the No Man’s Land that it drifted over. Pictures of No Man’s Land show a haunting expanse of abandoned equipment and barbed wire. It was pockmarked with shell holes from artillery fire filled with water, and littered with bodies of men that were shot as they crawled through the mud to obtain information from their enemy.

The Truce happened up and down the Western Front. Soldiers on both sides sang, in their native tongue, Christmas carols that were recognizable by Central and Allied troops. Graham Williams of the Fifth London Rifle Brigade recounted,

“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.”

As soldiers crept out of their trenches, they began to see German soldiers carrying Christmas trees, and realized that this was not a trick. They met on No Man’s Land, exchanging things like chocolate, brandy, and tobacco. They even played soccer together. They also took time to bury their dead. Strangely enough, it wasn’t in a bitter manner. Soldiers they had called their enemy only moments ago were helping with the burial.

Soldiers were also surprised to meet enemy soldiers that could speak their own languages. They saw that these men didn’t want to be there as much as they didn’t want to be there. Soldiers on both sides saw the others as fathers and sons, just as they were.

Spontaneous peace

The Truce was spontaneous. It happened between the grunts in their trenches, and against the desires of their commanding officers. As some soldiers commented, if this continued, it might end the whole war. However, commanders would threaten to kill anyone participating in a truce, and they would continue that threat every year following. The next year a few smaller examples would break out, but it wouldn’t follow in the remaining years of the war, and they were nothing to the extent of the first truce in 1914.

Ron Paul wrote of the truce in his book Swords Into Plowshares. He hits on a point that more Christians should consider when talking about war, then and now.

“This story of that most unusual Christmas Eve demonstrates the age-old conflict between man’s natural peaceful inclinations and politicians’ obsession with war.

That Christmas Eve’s spontaneous cessation of fighting on the front lines was remarkable in that it was such a rare event. It just didn’t make sense to the young men Christian Nations that they should spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day slaughtering each other.

At quite a young age, when I first became aware of what Christianity was teaching, a thought crossed my mind: Two Christian nations should never have to go to war. I later learned that this was not the case historically, much to my disappointment. In World War I, people of Christian nations were fighting and killing each other, contradicting the message of peace that Christ taught.”

Settling Back To War

John McCutcheon’s Christmas in the Trenches captured these contradictions as well.

“Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more

With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war

But the question haunted every heart that lived that wonderous night “whose family have I fixed within my sights?”

It was Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung

The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung

For the walls they’d kept between us to exact the work of war

Had been crumbled and were gone forever more”

Ron Paul takes us further into this thought,

“The dramatic and spontaneous truce that Christmas Eve spawned by the wishes of young German, British, French, and Belgian soldiers reveals the true nature of most human beings forced into wars that have no meaning.

This is why warfare, especially in the decades following World War I, involved government conditioning of soldiers to kill their fellow human beings. The enemy had to be dehumanized, and epithets were used to help – “krauts,” “Japs,” “gooks,” etc. – lest people’s natural instincts prevail. Without conditioning to kill, some soldiers, especially draftees, were found shooting above the target to avoid killing the enemy. Since World War II we’ve seen a concerted US military effort eliminate any natural instincts against killing other than for true defense of one’s homeland. This efforts become more necessary as our wars have become more offensive in nature.

This most unusual event on this particular Christmas Eve on the front lines of a brutal war was detested by politicians and the military leaders who believed the truce had to be stopped. Peace could not be permitted to break out among the troops who were supposed to kill and die in a war brought about by politicians hundreds of miles away.”

The Christmas Truce is a beautiful, yet sad event. Beautiful as it shows what can be accomplished if the riflemen just stop fighting, which seems to confirm John Lennon’s Christmas words, “War is over, if you want it.”

Stanley Weintraub wrote of a British Captain that was averse to the truce in his book Silent Night: The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914. When reflecting on the larger implications of the cease fire, the Captain wrote, “It is interesting to visualize the close of a campaign owing to the opposing armies–neither of them defeated–having become too friendly to continue the fight.”

The truce is also sad because we know it doesn’t last, and the war will continue to kill about 10 million soldiers and about 7 million civilians. Stanley Weintraub also wrote in his book on the truce, “On both sides in 1915 there would be more dead on any single day than yards gained in the entire year. And there would be nearly four more years of attrition—not to determine who was right, but who was left.”

The truce teaches us many things, and one we need to remember is found in the final lines from Christmas in the Trenches,

”

Each Christmas come since World War One I’ve learned it’s lessons well

That the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame

And on each end of the rifle we’re the same”



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Hear the Episode for the Christmas in the Trenches from the AnarchoChristian Podcast

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