Lt. Colonel John McRae, a Canadian, died of pneumonia in January 1918 while serving in France. His poem "In Flanders Field" would become popular in English-speaking countries. The poppy referred to in his poem grew in abundance in Flanders and nearby battlefields, where thousands of dead soldiers were buried. On the Allied side of the war, the poppy was adopted as the "Flower of Remembrance."
A Celebration of Peace
There is a message of hope and peace in these remarkable events that took place over a century ago.
Anytime, anywhere, when the cycle of violence is momentarily interrupted or broken—and a tenuous step taken towards achieving peace—that, in itself, is worthy of remembrance.
For one day, the guns of war were silent along much of the Western Front during World War I.
It was undeniable proof that even in the most challenging circumstances, humans often don’t lose their sense of decency, goodwill, and compassion.
Even if you are a cynic by nature, I hope you are moved by the events of December 24, 1914.
The diary’s title comes from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s description of the truce in "World War 1: The Christmas truce of December 1914," The Gazette (UK). "An amazing spectacle" was how Doyle would describe the 1914 Christmas Eve truce. It was, he wrote, "one human episode amid all the atrocities which have stained the memory of the war." A Scottish writer, Doyle became famous for creating one of the most enduring characters in English fiction, detective Sherlock Holmes. I first posted a version of this diary on December 24, 2011.
A Spontaneous Outburst of Humanity
During the Great War, it was one of those rare events that reaffirmed one’s faith in humanity. After all, everlasting peace remains the ultimate goal of any lethal conflict.
Wars suppress men's natural, civil urge to behave in a manner that can even be remotely construed as civilized behavior. Combat does terrible things to soldiers, wreaking havoc on their minds and bodies and transforming the best of them into killing machines.
In a time of war, transforming civilians into soldiers may surprise many people. It’s what you must do to confront reality and survive the grim prospect of probable death staring you right in the face.
- The low-key and gentle person, who may have been a country farmer previously, becomes a savage thirsty for blood.
- The unassuming and quiet factory worker primarily concerned with making machine parts emerges as an efficient killer.
- The seemingly peace-loving gardener who lovingly took care of nature's wonders is worried about one and only one thing: kill or be killed.
Prolonged conflicts severely restrict and narrow one's options in battle. Through all the brutality, soldiers are preoccupied with the ultimate goal: survival. And at the war's end, a longing to be reunited with their loved ones and to carry on with their mundane, unexciting, and ordinary lives.
Even amid unprecedented carnage in World War I, soldiers on both sides found themselves with a modicum of human decency and a desire for peace within themselves.
In this most brutal of wars, which raged on for four long years, there was a cessation of hostilities on the Western Front the night of December 24, 1914—even briefly.
As shown at the top of this diary, “In Flanders Field” was written early in the conflict, before the romanticism of war turned to bitterness and disillusionment for soldiers and civilians alike. McRae’s poem was used in the United States to increase military enlistment during the last year of the war.
"Theirs Not to Reason Why, Theirs But to Do and Die"
The harsh reality of total war is simply this: older men send younger men into battle to die while invoking honor, duty, and country. The generals and senior military brass adorn their chests with medals and decorations; the grunts make the ultimate sacrifice.
How should soldiers behave when placed as cannon fodder in an impossible situation? As I wrote in this 2007 diary—"Shared National Sacrifice" and 'The War' Tonight on PBS.
“A Battle in Flanders.” World War I sketches like these depict the officer class as elitist, pompous, and far removed from reality. In the early 20th century, class differences were much more pronounced in the British Army. After four years of static trench warfare, the old, hierarchical social order slowly crumbled, the distance between classes narrowed considerably, and new realities made British society gradually more egalitarian. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Grand strategies, geopolitical objectives, and tactical battle plans are for politicians and generals. In a democratic society, soldiers don't make the decision to engage in war; political leaders, some with perverted personal agendas, do.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
The "Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom" Lord Alfred Tennyson wrote about the futility of war and directed his criticism at the British military high command.
His classic poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade, is about a disastrous suicidal charge made by British soldiers in the Crimean War.
The Crimean War took place between 1853-1856, with Tsarist Russia fighting an Allied force consisting of soldiers from the British, French, and Ottoman Empires. The Allies were also joined by a force from the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war resulted as imperial powers jockeyed for territorial influence following the decline of the Ottomans.
An Awful, Brutal War
World War I was primarily not a war of movement. Instead, massive armies faced each other in trenches for months, with little to no tactical gain.
Often, these prolonged confrontations—with neither side making any strategic progress—took place under harsh conditions.
British soldiers in a trench during the Battle of the Somme. Credit: All Poetry.
Following the outbreak of war in June 1914, the British and German armies dug in across France and Belgium and faced each other in a long series of trenches that extended for hundreds of kilometres across the countryside. In a totally new type of defensive warfare, the soldiers lived in hellish conditions in these trenches, exposed to the weather, constant shelling, and small arms fire.
Occasional attacks ordered by the various high commands required the men to climb up out of the trenches and advance over the ground between, usually strewn with barbed wire entanglements, where hundreds would be slaughtered in "no-man’s land" by the waiting machine guns of the enemy. In day-to-day trench life it was courting death to raise one’s head above the trench parapet—waiting expert snipers dotted about the countryside in concealed positions could snuff out a mans life with a head shot from 300 metres away.
It was in these diabolical circumstances that Christmas Day 1914 approached and both armies were reconciled into having to experience thoroughly miserable conditions for their Yuletide. But it was not to be.
Read more about trench warfare in this article — "British Trench Warfare 1917-1918."
The Christmas Truce of 1914
In this illustration by Angus McBride, British and German troops took a break from killing each other during the Christmas Eve Truce of December 24, 1914. To paraphrase author Erich Maria Remarque, it was all quiet that night on the Western Front. The reality of war in the trenches was probably much less romantic. Credit: The Times (UK).
Even as their lives are on the line, some battle-weary soldiers don't lose the capacity to act as human beings. Amidst the utter senselessness of World War I, there was a shining moment that brought a momentary end to the killing and savage display of man's inhumanity towards man.
It happened on the night of December 24, 1914.
Although there was no official truce, about 100,000 British and German troops were involved in unofficial cessations of fighting along the length of the Western Front.
The first truce started on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1914, when German Troops began decorating the area around their trenches in the region of Ypres, Flanders in modern-day Belgium. The Germans began by placing candles on their trenches and on Christmas trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas Carols. The British responded by singing carols of their own. The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were excursions across the 'No Man's Land' where small gifts were exchanged, such as food, tobacco and alcohol, and souvenirs such as buttons and hats. The artillery in the region fell silent that night. The truce also allowed a breathing spell where recently-fallen soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties. Joint services were held... In many sectors, the truce lasted through Christmas night, but it continued until New Year's Day in others...
Credit: St. Nicholas Center.
On Christmas Day, after a night of carol singing, a private with the Welsh Fusiliers recalled that feelings of goodwill had so swelled up that at dawn Bavarian and British soldiers clambered spontaneously out of their trenches. A football was produced from somewhere—though none could recall from where. "It wasn't a game as such, more a kick-around and a free-for-all. There could have been 50 on each side for all I know. I played because I really liked football. I don't know how long it lasted, probably half an hour."
A wonderful moment of hope and peace in that awful conflict that was then the costliest in human history.
Peace on Earth, Goodwill to all Men.
The above video is from BBC's "Days that Shook the World" series about the Christmas Truce of 1914. Read more about the truce in this article — Ari Shapiro, “A Century Ago, When The Guns Fell Silent On Christmas,” NPR, December 25, 2014.
In a 2014 program about wartime Christmases broadcast on C-Span, Professor Stanley Weintraub said that before Christmas day, a British newspaper had encouraged average citizens to send plum puddings to their loved ones at the Western Front to lift their morale. The British soldiers received so many packages that they didn't know what to do with them. They had more than enough goodies to swap with German soldiers, who had lots of cigars and sausages to offer.
It all started when they erected table-top Christmas trees with lit candles in front of their trenches. The British shot at the German positions only a couple hundred yards away. Calmly, they replaced the trees one by one. Eventually, the British realized this was a genuine gesture of peace.
About those football games? Professor Weintraub's research in England showed that the Germans won most of the low-scoring games.
In Some Instances, the Truce Lasted Until New Year’s Day
Many German soldiers had lived in Great Britain before World War I and were quite fluent in English. Although this made communication easier, not all soldiers enjoyed this peaceful gesture. Among the dissidents was Adolf Hitler, an Austrian-born infantryman in the Bavarian Army.
Military commanders on all sides took measures to ensure that such a truce would not occur again until the war’s end almost four years later on November 11, 1918. Artillery bombardment on Christmas Eve was regularly ordered in the following years to prevent such deliberate fraternization.
A French Soldier in World War I.
While there were relatively few British troops who spoke German, many Germans had worked in Britain before the war, and this experience facilitated communication between the two groups. Saxon troops, in particular, were credited with initiating a dialogue with the British. Soldiers on both sides regarded the Saxons as amiable and trustworthy, and the Christmas Truce had the most success in areas where British troops faced Saxon regiments. The truce was not widely adopted in French-controlled areas of the front; German soldiers had spent 1914 overrunning a huge swath of French territory, and animus toward the occupiers was too strong. There was also no equivalent truce on the Eastern Front, as Russia was still operating under the Julian calendar, and so the Russian Orthodox Christmas would not be observed until early January.
There were some casualties as a result of the nonuniversal implementation of the truce, and, even among the units which observed the cease-fire, not all men approved of the decision. Adolf Hitler, who, as a dispatch runner for regimental headquarters, rarely went as far as the forward trenches, sharply criticized the behaviour of men in his regiment who had opted to join the British in No Man’s Land. “Such a thing should not happen in wartime,” he is reported to have said. “Have you no German sense of honour?”
In the days following Christmas, violence returned to the Western Front, although the truce persisted until after New Year’s Day in some areas. While the truce could not have succeeded without the endorsement of junior officers on both sides, British and German generals quickly took steps to prevent any further episodes of fraternization between their men. Still, there were no courts-martial or punishments linked to the events of the Christmas Truce; senior commanders likely recognized the disastrous effect that such a move would have on morale in the trenches. Attempts to revive the truce on Christmas Day 1915 were quashed, and there were no subsequent widespread cease-fires on the Western Front until the armistice of November 1918.
The War Must Go On
Unlike Soldier-Poet Wilfred Owen, British Poet Edmund Blunden would survive the war and later became a Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. Like his fellow poet, Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote extensively about his wartime experiences.
As a student at Oxford, one of his classmates was another famous soldier-poet, Robert Graves. A prolific poet and noted academic, Blunden was nominated multiple times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
British Poet Edmund Blunden, quoted in David Burg's Almanac of World War I, p. xii. Credit: My Poetic Side.
By the end of the day both sides had seen, in a sad scrawl of broken earth and murdered men, the answer to the question. No road. No thoroughfare. Neither race had won, nor could win, the War.
The War had won, and would go on winning.
Friends with both Poets Wilfred Owen and Sassoon, Robert Graves wrote one of the more memorable accounts of World War I, Goodbye to All That. The book deals with how the war swept away the old order in Europe and ushered in significant changes that touched every aspect of life. Decades later, Graves would also become famous for writing I, Claudius. See this 2019 diary of mine to learn more about British poets in World War I — Poets and Propaganda in a Time of War: "The Old Lie: Dulce Et Decorum Est, Pro Patria Mori."
The Christmas truce did not last as high commands on all sides of the conflict disapproved of the unnecessary fraternization between the troops, and several steps were taken to avoid a repeat in the years to come. Why did the high commands behave this way? They feared that the outbreak of peace would get contagious and the war might end. If the war ended, the side at a strategic disadvantage would not only be perceived as losing the war, but the government in power would almost certainly fall. It wasn't in the interest of the military leaders to let this happen, even as the commanding officers of the troops facing each other had no such desire to reignite hostilities. It wasn't meant to be. Frontline troops were sent to the rear, and fresh reserve troops, with no memory or knowledge of the truce, replaced them.
The war had momentum of its own. Although the truce lasted until New Year's Day in a few instances, the fighting returned soon after. Soldiers had no option but to resume the larger war.
Expected by many to end by Christmas 1914, World War I would be fought for almost four more bloody years.
"The Deserter" was an anti-war editorial cartoon by Canadian-American cartoonist Boardman Robinson and depicts a pacifistic Jesus being shot by European soldiers from five countries on both sides of the war. Credit: Wikipedia.
The high brass on both sides quickly determined that they could not let the situation develop. In the national interest, the war had to go on. Peace has always been more difficult to make than war, but it was materialising. Under threat of court martial, troops on both sides were ordered to separate and restart hostilities. Reluctantly, they drifted apart.
General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien’s order to II Corps from his cushy rear-area headquarters read: "On no account is intercourse to be allowed between opposing troops. To finish this war quickly we must keep up the fighting spirit." But some units were too contaminated by Christmas to be reliable, and it took a few days to bring in replacements. Both commands ordered rolling artillery barrages to disrupt the stillness and to motivate responses. In most sectors where the shooting had stopped, signals (in some cases, flares) set by their officers called men back to their trenches or confirmed the imminent close of the truce.
Private Percy Jones of the Westminster Brigade wrote in his diary: "We parted with much hand-shaking and goodwill." Rifleman George Eade of the 3rd London Rifles said a German soldier told him: "Today we have peace. Tomorrow you fight for your country. I fight for mine. Good luck."
For a brief period in late December 1914, the guns of war fell silent, the senseless slaughter stopped, and sanity prevailed—even as it could not eventually overcome the all-too-frequent human urge to act irrationally, cause havoc, and self-destruct.
It was a remarkable moment in the history of modern warfare.
“Christmas in the Trenches” is an anti-war song by award-winning singer-songwriter John McCutcheon. It is written from the perspective of a fictional British soldier, Francis Tolliver, from Liverpool, England.
The song’s lyrics emphasize what Tolliver finds in common with the Germans on Christmas Eve across No Man’s Land in World War I. Based on the Christmas Truce of 1914, Tolliver wonders whether the war is manufactured animosity conjured up by politicians to serve their selfish purposes or, not entirely transparent to him, perhaps has a real purpose. In the fighting, soldiers on the ground pay the ultimate price, not the political leaders sitting safely back in the comfort of their homes in the UK.
In the above video, McCutcheon tells a story from the late 1980s when he played in an annual folk music festival in Tønder, Denmark, near the German border. He played in several locations in Tønder, and about five minutes after every show started, four older men in their 80s would come regularly to see him perform. They’d enter through the back entrance of the tent, move to the front near the stage, and listen to his songs. At the end of each show, they’d look at McCutcheon and nod to acknowledge him, turn around, and leave quietly. Curious as to who they were, after his last show, McCutcheon jumped off the stage after the concert and ran towards the last of the men as he was about to exit the back door. The man spoke English and told McCutcheon who they were and why they came to see him perform.
All of them were best friends and former German soldiers who had volunteered in 1914 when war broke out — and lied about their ages, for they were only 14 years old at the time—to fight for the Kaiser. They led entire lives, and once their wives passed away, they all moved into adjacent rooms in a large veterans facility in Berlin.
When they heard the song over the radio recounting the most important story of their lives, they told everyone about it. The four men gathered all the staff, orderlies, and interns, making them listen to this song about an earlier chapter of their lives and experiences in the trenches. It would be believable if someone much younger than them—McCutcheon was in his mid-30s—were singing their praises. As old widowers, they appreciated him, for it proved to the world that they mattered, and the underlying story validated their lives.
McCutcheon believed that for one night in late December 1914, the four German boys, scared as they were on the battlefield where they could die at any moment, were the sanest men in the world. Such was the appeal of this remarkable gesture by soldiers on opposing sides to embrace peace.
It was a shame it only lasted briefly.
You can listen to another version of “Christmas in the Trenches,” as performed by Edward Morgan in this video. The song video has a lot of photographs that you’ll find relevant and interesting.
Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and have a wonderful New Year!
