WWI’s Christmas Truce Proves That Even In The Midst Of War, Peace Can Prevail At Times
On December 24, 1914, the fighting along the Western Front of the First World War stopped suddenly. It was just five months earlier that Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
The continent was transformed into a bloody, battered mess. But on Christmas Eve, a truce was called. It came to be known as the Christmas Truce.
Earlier in the month, Pope Benedict XV urged a holiday truce, but he didn’t really believe it would succeed. As the holiday approached, it didn’t seem likely that a truce would take place, so the public began to oppose the idea.
Their spirits were squashed, and all hope was nearly gone. That’s why the events that occurred on Christmas 1914 were so shocking.
The Western Front stretched throughout northeastern France. Christmas trees, holly, and mistletoe were arranged along the front in an effort to boost morale.
The British king’s daughter, Princess Mary, organized a fund that delivered a brass gift box, a pipe, cigarettes, and tobacco to each soldier and sailor. Families sent millions of packages and letters to their loved ones at war.
On the night of Christmas Eve, British troops saw decorations and heard Germans singing carols. In the darkness, some of the British soldiers started singing back.
One group lifted up a banner that read “Merry Christmas.” It was not shot down, representing a brief cease-fire between the warring sides.
The British soldiers even walked over to meet the Germans in enemy territory and vice versa. They took photographs with each other, exchanged military ribbons, and shared cigarettes. No shots were fired that day.
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According to an account from a German infantryman, a British soldier set up a makeshift barbershop and charged Germans a few cigarettes for a haircut. Enemy soldiers also helped each other collect the dead.
“Here we were laughing and chatting to men whom only a few hours before we were trying to kill!” recalled a British soldier named John Ferguson.
An informal soccer game even occurred—the ball appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and about a couple hundred men started kicking it around. German Lieutenant Kurt Zehmisch of the 134 Saxons Infantry wrote about a pickup soccer game in his diary. The diary was found in 1999 in an attic near Leipzig.
“Eventually, the English brought a soccer ball from their trenches, and pretty soon a lively game ensued,” he wrote.
“How marvelously wonderful, yet how strange it was. The English officers felt the same way about it. Thus, Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time.”
Not everyone approved of the truce, though. The leaders of all the armies were horrified when news of the truce broke out.
Some soldiers were reportedly punished for fraternization, and leaders on both sides issued orders to ensure that nothing like the Christmas Truce ever happened again.
For the rest of World War I, no other truces as iconic as the one in 1914 occurred, but other, smaller ones sprang up occasionally. It just goes to show that even in the midst of war, peace can prevail at times.
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