Customer Reviews

Truce: The Day the Soldiers Stopped Fighting

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This book tells of an amazing event in the history of warfare. However it also does much more than just that. It gives a clear and concise history of what lead up to World War I, and the different governments' plans to achieve a quick victory, none of which worked. What ended up happening was a long brutal war, with new technology of mass destruction and no new tactics. Hundreds of thousands died uselessly, because of these outdated tactics combined with new weapons, and a belief that each side thought they were superior and in the right.

What ended up happening was a giant standoff - trench warfare that had trenches that ran from the North Sea Coast all the way to the Swiss border, with the trenches being from 50 to 1000 yards apart. The Germans were on one side of the trench and the French, English and Belgians were on the other. Originally both sides thought the war would be over by Christmas, each side shelling, bombing and launching raids on the other. Massive losses on both sides contributed to doubt among those on the front lines. Then on Christmas Eve of 1914, a miracle happened. Almost all the way along the lines a spontaneous peace erupted; for more than 24 hours no fighting took place, the soldiers met in the middle of no-man's land between the trenches and exchanged gifts and songs and Christmas greetings and wishes.

This book masterfully tells this story of politicians and military leaders who wanted to continue fighting and soldiers who did not obey orders and had a Christmas miracle. The book is full of historical photographs, illustrations and quotes from those in the events. The special features at the end of the book will be great for educators, students, or students of history alike. It has a great timeline, extensive notes and sources, and a section with more references for World War I resources, from books, movies and on the web.

What a remarkable book this is! I'd heard something about a truce in 1914, but I never had a context to place it in. Here is a story about the best that mankind has to offer. It is also a story about a race to war, and a war based on lies -- all things that sound ever so sadly familiar in terms of today. Jim Murphy lets soldiers voice speak, and he uses remarkable period images to create a thought-provoking, moving volume. I'll be giving this handsome book out as Christmas presents. What could be better than sharing a book about peace?

This is a wonderful book! It tells the incredible true story of the spontaneous Christmas truce that happened on the battlefields of World War I, when soldiers on both sides came out of the trenches and exchanged gifts and songs instead of gunfire. TRUCE has an exciting narrative and vivid quotes from diaries and letters, and it captures the sounds, smells, and sights of the battlefield. It also has a moral point--World War I, like many other wars past and present, began with propaganda on all sides and ended up being a long and devastating struggle for everyone. I think readers of all ages will love this book. I did, and so did my 12-year-old cousin.

I think that this book wonderfully captures the spirit of the 1914 truce, and the smaller mini-truces that lead up to it. I think the fact that in some spots they were so reluctant to fight showed that WWI, more than WWII was aboout politics and pride, with no real urgency to do so. This also gives a wonderful but brief history of the events leading up to the war, including the fact that on both sides they were told that the other side were monsters, and were suprised to find that they weren't the monsters they were told about. I think the epilogue is nice, there is nothing wrong with speculating on the what-if's, i've wondered what would have happend if the truce had held. A wonderful story.

This talented author provides extensive information about the events leading up to the start of World War I, the horrific first few months of battle, and the incredible Christmas Day Truce of 1914 between German and British soldiers along the Western Front. This unofficial cease-fire between enemy soldiers despite directions to keep fighting from their commanders blossomed amid devastation as soldiers mired in trenches met in the no man's land between them and exchanged little gifts of food and sang Christmas carols in two languages. An author's note explains how he chose the focus for his writing. Supplementary materials include a time line, some suggestions for further reading and research, detailed documentation, and an index. Reproductions of art and photographs visually attest to the horrors of warfare, and maps locate battle lines. This well-researched book will capture the attention of many middle school children who are studying this time period.

Following the devastation of war on the western front, from July 29 to December 24, a truce was declared on December 25. Staying true to faith and humanity, soldiers sang Christmas Carols, drank beer and ate plum pudding. No shots were fired in No Man's Land. By Easter all soldiers were engaged in battle again. The war, with horrible casualties, continued on for four more years. However, in the darkness of 1914, the true light of humanity shined for a day. This historical non-fiction story is a must-read for 10-13-year-olds.

If your history classes in school were anything like mine, then this is how a typical year would go: Lots of Revolutionary War, lots of Civil War, oh no it's almost the end of the year so let's just skip to WWII, and finally a brief smattering of Vietnam. WWI got the short end of the stick year after year after year when I was growing up. In fact, by the time I graduated from high school I associated only a couple vague images with it: mustard gas, red poppies, and "All Quiet On The Western Front". Now mine was a particularly silly education, but I worry about kids today. Surely I'm not the only person who went through this. So what do you hand a ten-year-old who wants a really good book on WWI, and also wants it to explain how it happened? There are full-fledged adults operating in the world right now that haven't a clue about who or what Franz Ferdinand was (aside from a contemporary band). I guess what I love so much about Jim Murphy's "Truce" is that it not only talks about the famous and spontaneous truce between two opposing sides that happened around Christmas Day in 1914, but the author also takes the time to put the whole war into context without wasting so much as a word. This can only be described as senselessness synthesized.

It was considered a bit of a Christmas miracle at the time. A sprawling war, two sides taught to hate one another, and then . . . peace. Apropos of nothing, troops put down their weapons and met in No Man's Land to exchange gifts, sing songs, and play games. But how did it happen? To understand that is to understand WWI within context. Its causes, key players, and ultimately how it ended. Jim Murphy, historian extraordinaire, breaks it down for the kids and delivers a painful but ultimately strangely hopeful encapsulation of a moment in time that was admirable in its unlikelihood. A Time Line, Notes and Sources, additional bibliography, and index are included.

If WWII is "the good war" then WWI's the one we like to try to surreptitiously slip behind our backs. It doesn't have any of the iconography of its successor, nor the sheer black and white of the good and evil of the time. Maybe that's why there aren't that many children's books about it. "Truce" works as well as it does because it not only clarifies the confusing details (Franz Josef knowing full well that the Serbs weren't behind the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, for example) but also because he's created a narrative for the war. It was dumb as all get out. Not a reason in the world to justify it, really, and the sheer amount of blood spilt is enough to turn your head. "Truce" is history plus interest for the middle grade non-fiction reader not yet ready for three hundred page tomes.

Even the chapter headings are interesting. They have great titles like "Those Stupid Kings and Emperors" and "Things Were Beginning to Look Unpleasant" which more often than not come from direct quotes of the time. Murphy also gives a human face to the drama. I like to think that he also does a great job of showing how similar the two sides were, particularly when it comes to their commanding officers. When the truce broke out, commanders on both sides were livid. The English would avoid similar Christmas truces in the future with continual artillery barrages. Corporal Adolf Hitler said of it, "Such a thing should never happen in wartime. Have you no German sense of honor left at all?" I think that part of the reason "Truce" stands out amongst its fellows is that it shows both sides continually. The photographs are taken by both sides. The quotations and memories too. And we even see how nasty propaganda demonizing the enemy was used by opposing countries prior to the war to get the populace involved.

The natural fictional pairing with this book is Michael Foreman's "War Game: Village Green to No-Man's-Land". A less immediate association, but no less apt, is Scott Westerfeld's "Leviathan". Though ostensibly a kind of steampunk novel, Westerfeld's book would be a great read after "Truce" once kids understand the characters and want to hear about them in a fictional setting. Plus, now that they have the rudimentary causes of the war under their belts, they'll be able to better understand historical fiction novels about that time period.

The fact of the matter is, it was a stupid war that killed a lot of people. Murphy even goes so far as to show how it helped sow the seeds that led to WWII. That makes it all the crazier that it was started by just a few guys, and could have been cut off if personalities had been different or if they'd listened to their enlisted men and stopped it after that first Christmas. "Truce", when you get right down to it, is a sad story. One of the most touching moments in the book is when you read the words of a British private who greeted a German in No Man's Land. "The first man I came to was an old man, and when we shook hands I thought he was not going to let my hand go. The tears came rolling down his cheeks, and I felt sorry for him as he was so old, and wanted to go home." He could have. As Major Murdoch McKenzie Wood would later say, "it was only the fact that we were being controlled by others that made it necessary for us to start trying to shoot one another again." A great introduction to WWI and undeniably the best book for kids on the subject I've ever seen. And it'll break your heart in the bargain.

Ages 8-12.

Though I thought the illustrations and much of the text was interesting there were two things about the book I didn't like. We bought this as a Christmas present for our 12 year old and decided not to give it when we previewed it.

There is an epilogue with an anti-war message about how there was too much anti-Islamic sentiment after 9-11 and how there "were no WMD's found" in Iraq in 2003. Regardless of one's politics, my wife and I failed to understand why this had had a place in a book about a WW1 truce. The author obviously had a political axe to grind and appropriately placed it in a children's book. The opening of the book had an anti-war theme to it which underplayed the political tensions between nation-states that, no matter the resultant catastrophe of the "Great War", could not be ignored.

Again, without the modern "anti War on Terror" epilogue this book might pass as history- but instead it winds up just being a political soap box. Utter silliness by the author.