The Extraordinary Christmas Truce of World War I
By Christmas 1914, nearly one million men had died in less than five months of fighting along the Western Front. Men who had expected the war to be over by Christmas had settled into fortified trenches, and the war into a deadly stalemate.
But in the week leading up to Christmas something amazing happened. In scattered areas along the front, British and German soldiers began to cross the area between the trenches—known as “no man’s land”—and exchange small gifts and Christmas greetings.
Graham Williams of the Fifth London Rifle Brigade wrote that “First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words ‘Adeste Fideles.’ And I thought, well, this is really a most extraordinary thing—two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.”
His German counterpart, Josef Sewald of the 17th Bavarian Regiment, recalled, “I shouted to our enemies that we didn’t wish to shoot and that we make a Christmas truce. I said I would come from my side and we could speak with each other. First there was silence, then I shouted once more, invited them, and the British shouted ‘No shooting!’”
This outbreak of human decency in the midst of what was arguably the most senseless carnage in human history culminated on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, 1914. Along the front, some, but not all, British and German officers negotiated a 48-hour truce [and] men on both sides sang together, exchanged gifts, and even played soccer. Read more from this story HERE.
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Eyewitness Report of World’s Saddest Christmas Day
By Ishaan Tharoor. It was Christmas morning, 1914. In the muddy, bloody fields of Belgium, British and German soldiers peered across the way at each other from their miserable trenches. World War I was in full swing.
And then something miraculous and moving happened.
“About 10 o’clock this morning I was peeping over the parapet when I saw a German,” wrote Capt. A.D. Chater, in a letter to his mother, “waving his arms, and presently two of them got out of their trench and came towards ours.”
Chater, whose letter was released by the Royal Mail, goes on: “We were just going to fire on them when we saw they had no rifles, so one of our men went to meet them and in about two minutes the ground between the two lines of trenches was swarming with men and officers of both sides, shaking hands and wishing each other a happy Christmas.”
Across the front lines, soldiers marked a somber Christmas together. Five months of war could not dampen holiday bonhomie. Soldiers exchanged pleasantries and cigarettes. They buried the dead that had been left strewn in no-man’s land. Read more from this story HERE.
