December 24, 2004 The Christmas When Peace Broke Out

This is the 90^th anniversary of “one of the most remarkable events in the history of warfare”.  It took place at Christmas in the trenches of Flanders in Belgium in 1914 in WWI.  I was reminded of this by a comment made during remembrances of Pierre Burton, one of our greatest Canadians who died recently.  Besides recently publishing his 50^th book, he was running a series of his history profiles in the Globe and Mail.  A man wrote in just before Berton died to ask him is he remembered his father being on T.V.’s Front Page Challenge.  His father was involved in the 1914 Christmas truce and Pierre guessed the event.  The writer’s father and everyone else there are gone now. 

We rightly get angry at 3000 deaths in the Twin Towers in 9/11 and at a thousand American soldiers killed in Iraq.  Berton in his 2001 book Marching As To War mentions ten million casualties in WWI and “Ten million mothers crying in their pillows.  Ten million children unborn or without fathers.  Ten million men broken by battle and ground into the swamps of Flanders.”  He goes on to remind us that 60,000 Canadians died in “the war to end all wars”.  Some of the soldiers on both sides including Canadians questioned their presence there and acted accordingly on December 24-25, 1914. 

The Christmas Armistice 

I referred to the best reference on the truce the book Silent Night by the eminent scholar Stanley Weintraub (2001) in a previous article. (available in the North Bay Library).  He provides complete documentation of the astounding events in no-man’s-land 5 months in WWI in Flanders. 

Across hundreds of miles of the Belgian front thousands of soldiers on each side were stationed in their trenches within shouting distance of each other.  Thousands had been slaughtered and the occasional white flagged sortie took place to bury the dead and pick up the wounded.  By December 24^th each side had received gifts of food, drink, etc. from various sources.  The Germans even had Christmas trees which they placed on the parapets of the trenches and lit them up. 

On December 24^th the guns went silent and singing could be heard on both sides.  Eventually some men began to come out of their trenches to bury the dead and began to wave and salute each other.  When it appeared safe thousands swarmed out and exchanged handshakes, gifts, uniform badges, cigars, etc.  Many of the Germans spoke English and got into lengthy conversations.  The next day beer and food appeared and the odd cow and pig was slaughtered for a shared meal.  Soccer games broke out.  Officers threatened court martial but the men persisted, many saying they had no hatred for the other side. 

British and German officers together on Christmas, 1914.  H.B. Robson photo in the book Silent Night.

By the next day the shooting began again – often over the heads of the other side.  In the 48 months that followed approximately 6,000 men died every day.  There were attempts at further minor truces but they were cut short.  Weintraub tells about an insignificant corporal in a basement bunker well back from the front lines raving against the truce.  His name was Adolph Hitler.  The world would have been a different place if the war had stopped. 

The insanity of war and disease fills the papers every day.  Just this week the news mentioned 15 million children orphaned from aids – and 3.8 million dead – half of them children in the Congo while expensive wars continue around the world.  As many die each day as were lost in 9/11.  As Christmas approaches we should pause and appreciate how lucky we are as compared to some in the past and present.