Annual Christmas Truce of 1914 Thread

Every year I do this thread, because it's worth remembering. And it sounds...almost unbelievable. like a story someone wrote, a fine fiction.

But it happened. It was real.


And each year, I add a bit.
Last years, now done better
Twas A Visit From Peace
Now this year's
A Truce Lesson




Anyway...Merry Christmas

Peace


Belleau Wood

Brandy Cigarettes and Bread
~~~~~~

Christmas Truce of 1914 wiki



Short Video on the Christmas Truce

Sabaton Christmas Truce
One cold winter day, more than a century ago, the cannons stopped in a frozen hell.
What happened next, so unexpected, is the stuff of legend. Where, for a short while, the war was gone, and joy filled no man's land.


Christmas Trees were raised in places where shells had razed the forests. Garlad was hung instead of barbed wire. And instead of poison death drifting across No Man's Land, the sound of Christmas songs, in German, French and English, danced in the air.

Men on either side, who had scant hours before been engaged in ending life, were now celebrating it. Christmas came the same to Germans as it did to Frenchmen, Brits and Scots. Though the tongues may have been foreign, the tunes were not. And in that brief respite from hell, they exchanged volleys of song instead of bullets.

Then...something incredible happened


They put the war aside.

In an extraordinary show of courage, a soldier unarmed but for a truce flag walked into the killing field, not knowing if his foolhardiness would be rewarded with the crack of rifles. Instead he found a similarly brave handshake marching to greet him, and wishing a Merry Christmas.

And then, the trenches erupted. The fear and hate was banished as men from both sides flooded no man's land and celebrated Christmas in their own way. They traded cards and shared small gifts. Tobacco, alcohol, candy, cards and pictures from home. In some places a friendly game of football was played, illuminated by flarelight usually used to aid artillery fire.







There was no widespread truce the following Christmas, or any thereafter. The commanding officers would not risk something which might show the humanity of the enemy or inhibit the slaughter when the time came. But for that one brief time, in late December of 1914, peace reigned, and those men found that on either end of the rifle, they were not so different.



Here's hoping that, even when times are hard, we find ways to make peace. To bury our differences and come together in the spirit. If these men did, surely so can we.