An extraordinary Christmas Eve, 1914

...the tale of the spontaneous Christmas truce that broke out early in World War I

This material is 22 years old, written as my weekly column in the Bennington (VT) Banner, a few months before W launched the invasion of Iraq…But it is a Chritmas Eve tale, so I decided to dust it off for you.

I had heard this story before, but on a recent Saturday evening this month, I heard it again. This time I heard it in the form of a ballad on WAMC's "Hudson River Sampler" folk music program.

Just like the first time I heard it, it moistened my eyes and sent chills into my shoulders. It's certainly one of the most remarkable Christmas stories I've ever heard. A (true) story of a spontaneous Christmas truce that broke out early in World War I on Christmas Eve, when French, British, Belgian and German soldiers left their trenches and met each other with gifts and greetings in No-Man's Land.

The assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalists set off a chain of events and retaliations that pulled all of Europe into war because of mutual-defense alliances that arrayed Germany, Austro-Hungary, and Turkey against Russia, England, France, Belgium and Italy. So when Austria-Hungary tied the Serb's action to Russian involvement (history has not shown if this was so or not), war ensued that engulfed Europe.

On the western front German invaders were met by the French, British and Belgian defenders. After the initial forays and carnage the sides were stalemated, and dug into trenches. As Christmas, 1914 approached, over a million men had already died. At this point the scene is set below (drawn from the website of the de La Salle Brothers, www.prayingeachday.org, under the 12/24 entry):

"The two sides lay in trenches that stretched about 500 miles from Switzerland to the French coastline on the North Sea. Soldiers in opposing trenches were only the width of a football pitch apart, with 'No Man's Land' in between...On Christmas Eve, in the section where the British opposed the Germans, the British gathered holly, and the Germans set up small Christmas trees which they lit up."

Then, as the story goes, the Germans started singing Stille Nacht. Upon hearing this, the Brits joined in with the English version, Silent Night. Soon, emissaries from each side held up white flags and, gingerly venturing into No Man's Land, created a de facto truce. Then, according to Corporal John Ferguson (as quoted in Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton's 1984 book, Christmas Truce , from The History Net website):

"...We shook hands, wished each other a Merry Christmas, and were soon conversing as if we had known each other for years. We were in front of their wire entanglements and surrounded by Germans -- Fritz and I in the centre talking, and Fritz occasionally translating to his friends what I was saying. We stood inside the circle like streetcorner orators....Soon most of our company, hearing that I and some others had gone out, followed us . . . What a sight -- little groups of Germans and British extending almost the length of our front! Out of the darkness we could hear laughter and see lighted matches, a German lighting a Scotchman's cigarette and vice versa, exchanging cigarettes and souvenirs. Where they couldn't talk the language they were making themselves understood by signs, and everyone seemed to be getting on nicely. Here we were laughing and chatting to men whom only a few hours before we were trying to kill!"

In the ballad as well as in as in any accounts I have been able to find, they put in place a truce for Christmas day...they even played soccer together in No Man's Land (in the ballad, the Brits kicked butt). At some points along the line the truce actually lasted through New Year's day, much to the chagrin of those in charge.

The theme of this ballad memorializing the events of that night is that the men in the opposing trenches found out they had a lot more in common with each other than with the Kaisers and Kings and Queens and Emperors and Czars and who had sent them there. The balladeer sang of the anguish they suffered when hostilities resumed. How "...you wondered whose family you had in your sights" as you aimed your rifle. The ballad drew from a poem written by an English soldier:

"...the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame,

and on each end of the rifle we're just the same..."

Is this story relevant on Christmas Eve of 2002? I'll leave you think about that.

December 2002