? a whole chapter is a lot to post, is that ok?
here's a few pages...
Sometime prior to the spring of 4 B.C., before the
death of King Herod the Great, an event came to
pass which would come to mark the span of all
time and which would wondrously affect Christmas,
A.D. 1914, in the midst of what was to be named the
Great War.
That event brought a peace markedly different from
the fleeting Pax Romana. Marching legions wielding
swords, and a conquering Caesar could not usher in
such a peace. Rather, it was inaugurated by angels
who heralded the birth of a child.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding
in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night....
It was still freezing hard on Christmas Eve
[under] bright moonlight
After a timeless dream I saw what looked like
a large white light on top of a pale
It was a
strange sort of light
What sort of lantern was
it? I did not think much about it; it was part of
the strange unreality of the silent night, of the silence
of the moon, now turning a brownish yellow,
of the silence of the frost mist
Suddenly there was a short quick cheer from the
German lines Hoch! Hoch! Hoch! With others, I
flinched and crouched, ready to fling myself flat,
pass the leather thong of my rifle over my head
and aim to fire, but no other sound came
We stood up, talking about it, in little groups
other cheers were coming across the black spaces
of no man's land. We saw dim figures on
the enemy parapet, about more lights; and with
amazement saw that a Christmas tree was being
set there, and around it Germans were talking
and laughing together.
from the German parapet, a rich baritone
voice begun to sing a song I remembered from
my nurse Minne singing it to me after my evening
tub before bed. She had been maid to my
German grandmother
Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht! Tranquil Night!
Holy Night! The grave and tender voice rose out
of the frozen mist, it was all so strange...
The wonder remained in the low golden light of a
white-rimmed Christmas morning. I could hardly
realise it; but my chronic, hopeless longing to
be home was gone.
Private Henry Williamson,
London Rifle Brigade
This wonder burst forth on Christmas Eve, 1914, for
a lad who had just turned nineteen. Here, the fields
in France had been transformed into No Man's Land.
But in that moment, this was now all men's land.
Private Frederick Heath, somewhere else along those
400 and some miles of the Western Front, also described
it [Printed in the North Mail, January 8th
1915, found and transcribed by Marian Robson of
Whickham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne]:
The night closed in early the ghostly shadows
that haunt the trenches came to keep us company
as we stood to arms. Under a pale moon, one
could just see the grave-like rise of ground which
marked the German trenches two hundred yards
away. Fires in the English lines had died down,
and only the squelch of the sodden boots in the
slushy mud, the whispered orders of the officers
and the NCOs, and the moan of the wind broke
the silence of the night. The soldiers' Christmas
Eve had come at last, and it was hardly the time
or place to feel grateful for it.
Memory in her shrine kept us in a trance of saddened
silence. Back somewhere in England, the
fires were burning in cozy rooms; in fancy I heard
laughter and the thousand melodies of reunion
on Christmas eve.
With overcoat thick with wet mud, hands
cracked and sore with the frost, I leaned against
the side of the trench
Thoughts surged madly
in my mind, but they had no sequence, no cohesion.
Mostly they were of home as I had known it
through the years that had brought me to this.
I asked myself why I was in the trenches in misery
at all....
Then quite near our dug-outs, so near
as to make me start and clutch my rifle, I heard a
voice, there was no mistaking that voice with its
guttural ring. With ears strained, I listened, and
then, all down our line of trenches there came to
our ears a greeting unique in war: English soldier,
English
soldier, a merry Christmas, a merry
Christmas!
Not for long could such an appeal be resisted
beside, was not the courage up to now
all on one side? Jumping up onto the parapet, a
few of us advanced to meet the on-coming Germans.
Out went the hands and tightened in the
grip of friendship. Christmas had made the bitterest
foes friends.
Here was no desire to kill, but just the wish of a
few simple soldiers (and no one is quite so simple
as a soldier) that on Christmas Day, at any rate,
the force of fire should cease
Horrific events and extreme hardships preceded that
holy night. Vienna had declared war on July 28th, setting
in motion a sequence of battles which by early
September claimed over a half million casualties for
the French and Germans. The last quarter of 1914
bore ever-increasing fruits of death and carnage.
In Belgium, the Battle of Ypres claimed almost 60,000
British soldiers, 50,000 French, and 130,000 Germans,
for whom it was kindermord bei Ypern The
Massacre of the Innocents of Ypres.
November, with heavy rain, snow and blizzards,
brought that battle to an end but it could never wash
away the nightmares. A Sergeant at Ypres called it
hell upon earth.
This was the world of the soldier during those months
in 1914 leading up to Christmas.
They endured rain and mud for weeks, living in the
presence of never-ending death. Rats and lice and
gangrene accompanied them in their trenches. Cannon
bursts, incessant shooting, and night flares made
sleep fleeting. Alfred Anderson, a soldier of eighteen
at that time, remembered it a year before his death
at the age of 109. All I'd heard for two months in the
trenches was the hissing, cracking and whining of
bullets in flight, machine gun fire and distant German
voices,
But now, in their dark world, the light of Christmas
shone.
From those of the 6th Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders,
this account was given:
At Christmas 1914 there took place in some parts
of the British line what is still regarded by many as
the most remarkable incident of the War an unofficial
truce. During the winter it was not unusual
for little groups of men to gather in a front trench,
and there hold impromptu concerts, singing patriotic
songs. The Germans, too, did much the same, and
on calm evenings the songs from one line floated to
the trenches of the other side, and were received with
applause, and sometimes with calls for an encore.
On quiet nights, at points where the trenches were
quite near, remarks shouted from one trench system
were audible in the other. Christmas Eve the Germans
spent singing carols, and, the night being calm,
they informed our men they did not intend to shoot
on Christmas Day, asking at the same time that we
also should refrain from violence. No shoot to-night,
Jock!, Sing to-night! was one of the remarks they
made on Christmas Eve. Little attention was given
to this, but on Christmas morning, when our men
were at breakfast, a cry was raised that the Germans
had left their trenches. Springing to arms, they could
scarcely believe their eyes when they looked over the
parapet and saw a number of the enemy standing
in the open in front of their trenches, all unarmed.
Some of the enemy shouted No shoot! and after a little,
a number of our men also got out of their trench.
...The Chaplain hurried forward,
saluted the German Commander, and began to
talk to him and his staff. Almost at the same moment
a hare burst into view and raced along between the
lines. Scots and Germans leapt from their trenches
and joined in the eager chase. The hare was captured
by the Germans, but more was secured than a
hare. The truce of God had been called, and the rest
of Christmas Day was filled with peace and goodwill....
