Long Live the Christmas Truce

One hundred years ago today, German and Allied soldiers “defied their superiors to declare a truce … providing a glimpse of the power that people without rank or privilege have to determine their own destinies.”

Rory Fanning, author of “Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger’s Journey Out of the Military and Across America,” tells the story of the “Christmas Truce” of World War I in an article published at Jacobin and Socialist Worker.

It was only the fifth month of what was then known simply as the Great War. Both sides longed for home. The men felt death looming in the trenches where they watched their friends die. The soldiers wielded monstrous weapons: flamethrowers, chlorine and mustard gas, machine guns that could shoot 500 rounds a minute. More than one million lay dead already.

But on Christmas Eve in 1914, an incredible scene began to unfold. The faint sounds of carols drifted from the muddy, half frozen and blood-splattered trenches British and German soldiers had been occupying that night. “All is calm, all is bright,” was sung in both English and German. The soldiers hugged the chopped-off tops of pine trees, which were ornamented with candles and paper lanterns. Paper lights festooned heavy artillery, ammo boxes, crates of food rations, and the wooden beams that kept the trench walls in place.

“Merry Christmas” was yelled out in a German accent. “Frohe Weihnachten” followed in a Scottish accent. The opposing trenches were so close that the words could be heard easily. Lighted trees began to rise over the lip of the German furrows. British soldiers watched through their periscopes.

Continue reading here, and view photographs of the truce here.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.