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Historian and biographer Stanley Weintraub (1929-2019) taught at Pennsylvania State University; He wrote in the Introduction to this 2001 book, “Chronicles at least since Troy record cessations in fighting to bury the dead… to negotiate a peace… to offer signs of amity to enemies so long opposite in a static war… None had ever occurred on the scale of, or with the .. potential for changing things, as when the shooting suddenly stopped on Christmas Eve, 1914… Like a dream, when it was over, men wondered at it, then went on with the grim business at hand… that business was killing.” (Pg. xvi-xvii)
He recounts in the first chapter, “Most higher-ups had looked the other way when scattered fraternization occurred earlier. A Christmas truce, however, was another matter. Any slackening in the action during Christmas week might undermine whatever sacrificial spirit there was among troops who lacked ideological fervor. Despite the efforts of propagandists, German reservists evidenced little hate. Urged to despise the Germans, Tommies saw no compelling national interest in retrieving French and Belgian crossroads and cabbage patches. Rather, both sides fought … for survival, and to protect the men who had become extended family.” (Pg. 8)
He notes, “The truce bubbled up through the ranks. Though it was to become so widespread as to impact much of the front, no one was ever certain where and how it had begun… Voices reached them across the dark void of No Man’s Land. Then the Scots… realized that a Christmas tree was being set there, and around it were Germans talking and laughing together… They had begun to hear from the German parapet a rich baritone voice singing ‘Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht.’” (Pg. 21-22)
He points out, “For most British soldiers, the German insistence on celebrating Christmas was a shock after the propaganda about Teutonic bestiality, while the Germans had long dismissed the British as well as the French as soulless and materialistic and incapable of appreciating the festival in the proper spirit… the pragmatic Germans were not expected to risk their lives on behalf of each beloved Tannenbaum. Yet when a few were downed by Scrooge-like gunfire, the Saxons … stubbornly climbed the parapets to set the endangered trees up once more.” (Pg. 24)
He continues, “five Germans … after singing since daybreak, shouted for someone to arrange a ‘you no shoot, we no shoot’ day. Armed only with wine, cakes, chocolate and cigarettes, one German gravely saluted and announced in English that he was an officer and a Londoner… Some British units improvised ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS’ banners and waited for a response. More placards on both sides popped up… The Germans emerged, visibly unarmed. Advancing towards the puzzled Belgians… the Boches sang, then shouted ‘Comrades!’ Momentarily forgetting their hatred of the invaders, the Belgians put down their rifles.” (Pg. 25)
He relates, “I shouted to our enemies… that we didn’t wish to shoot and that we [should] make a Christmas truce. I said I would come from my side and we could speak with each other… Then a man came out of the[ir] trenches and I on my side did the same and so we came together and we shook hands---a bit cautiously!” (Pg. 45)
He observes, “Almost always, it was the Germans who at least indirectly invited the truce. They were winning, and had much less to lose by it. Christmas man also have meant more to the Germans. And as they celebrated vigorously and without apparent concern, the other side gave in to its war weariness. The Germans, too, were weary of a war they were assured would be short.” (Pg. 50) He continues, “However much enemy territory they occupied, winter had come there, and they were bogged down well short of victory. Christmas helped---at least for the moment---to forget that, and to bring together men who really, they recognized, didn’t hate each other. Their fraternization, dangerously unwarlike from the headquarters perspective, seemed unstoppable.” (Pg. 51)
He recounts, “the combatants had agreed almost everywhere on Christmas Eve … ‘that if by mischance a single shot were fired, it was not to be taken as an act of war, and that an apology would be accepted; also that firing would not be opened without due warning on both sides.’ For a moment in time the war restored rules evoking an earlier century and a less complicated world.” (Pg. 55) Later, he adds, “Yet when the soldiers were not spading fallen comrades into alien soil, they were coming together in ways so unpredictable and extraordinary that they felt compelled to write in disbelief to families and to newspapers still largely uncensored about what they had seen and done.” (Pg. 69)
He chronicles, “an approaching German called out… ‘I am a lieutenant! Gentlemen, my life is in your hands, for I am out of my trench and walking towards you. Will one of your officers come out and meet me half-way?’ … two officers … walked halfway to the German trench, and were met by two German officers and talked away quite civilly and actually shook hands!” (Pg. 76)
He acknowledges, “[H]e saw something that looked like a soccer ball kicked into the air, and several soldiers running after it. A match had been proposed… to be played in a field behind the German trenches. Whether a game of ‘footer’ actually occurred INSIDE German lines is unproven, but references to football along the Flanders front are numerous.” (Pg. 101)
But ultimately, “the truce seemed to end as it had begun---from the bottom up… the High Commands on both sides were also demanding renewed war and by orders and threats they made it happen. Tradition on one side and discipline on the other made any other outcome impossible… The truce was never completely observed. Despite promises to do nothing belligerent, both sides brought up loads of wood and straw---to improve their dugouts.” (Pg. 122-123) He notes, “Five months into the war, although a million were already dead, the trenches remained graves for the living. 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.” (Pg. 155)
He wonders, “But what if--? Had the war ended abruptly with the Christmas truce one enters the fantasy world of alternative history… Much evil would have bene avoided by a world war ended early… The more than six thousand deaths every day over forty-five further months of war would not have occurred.” (Pg. 161-162) He concludes, “However much the momentary peace of 1914 evidenced the desire of the combatants to live in amity with one another, it was doomed from the start by the realities beyond the trenches… A celebration of the human spirit, the Christmas Truce remains a moving manifestation of the absurdities of war.” (Pg. 175)
This book uses first-hand accounts copiously throughout; it will be “must reading” for anyone wanting to know more about this remarkable event.
- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Plume; Reprint edition (October 29, 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0452283671
- ISBN-13: 978-0452283671
- Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.6 x 8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
- Customer Reviews: 117 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#649,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1195 in World War I History (Books)
- #1597 in England History
- #432 in Christmas (Books)
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