Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce by Stanley Weintraub
World War I started 100 years ago. One of the most unusual and humane events in the War to End All Wars was the unexpected informal Christmas Truce on the Western Front a century ago. Stanley Weintraub tells the stories of fraternization between enemies in Silent Night from soldiers’ letters and diaries.
On Christmas Eve, German soldiers sang Stille Nacht (Silent Night) and British soldiers joined in English, sometimes followed by singing cheeky music hall (vaudeville) songs. On Christmas Day, some German soldiers climbed out of the trenches with hands up and said “You don’t shoot, we don’t shoot” in English. Some British troops gingerly climbed out of their trenches with hands up to meet them halfway across No Man’s Land to discuss burying dead soldiers lying in the open for days and weeks.
This led to joint burial services, exchanges of food, alcohol, cigarettes, uniform buttons, caps and helmets, etc. and even a few football (soccer to later American Doughboys) games. One Tommy (nickname for British soldiers) saw his peacetime German barber, who cut his hair and joked if he should slit his throat to save bullets.
There was less fraternization between French and Belgian soldiers and the German invaders who occupied parts of their countries. The truce revealed regional splits among German troops. Bavarian and Saxon soldiers resented Prussian domination of their recently unified Germany (1871). They fraternized with Allied troops more than their Prussian counterparts.
The truce didn’t last long as Christmas receded. Generals on both sides accelerated the rotation of divisions between front and rear lines, and ordered attacks to restore the fighting spirit of soldiers. As the war progressed and killing escalated, soldiers on both sides were too embittered to repeat the Christmas Truce for the rest of the war, except for isolated incidents.
Tommy Atkins @ Central
(Dan, Local History Librarian)