The Great War, now remembered as World War 1, started at the end of July in 1914. By the time it ended in November 1918, an estimated 20 million people had died and almost 25 million more were wounded. France, England, Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary each lost over one million soldiers. In the midst of the horror there was at least one moment of humanity, the 1914 unofficial Christmas truce.
At the beginning of December, Pope Benedict called on the leaders of the warring nations to honor a Christmas Truce so "that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang." Not one nation agreed to respect a truce.
Then on Christmas Eve a very surprising things happened all along the trenches separating the two armies in Western Europe, soldiers declared their own unofficial truce. French, German Belgium, and British soldiers left their trenches and met in barbed-wire-filled no man’s land where they shared Christmas greetings, exchanged food and souvenirs, and joined together in Christmas carols. German soldiers lit Christmas trees around their trenches. In some locations there were joint burial ceremonies and prisoner exchanges.
Descriptions of the Christmas Truce appear in diaries and letters written by soldiers. One British soldier described “Here we were laughing and chatting to men whom only a few hours before we were trying to kill!” A German Lieutenant who had been a teacher wrote “Eventually the English brought a soccer ball from their trenches, and pretty soon a lively game ensued. 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.”
Military brass on both sides were furious at this breakdown in disciple and they prohibited any future unofficial truces, although in 1915, a few units observed ceasefires again.
Today there are devastating wars with tens of thousands of casualties being fought between Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Hamas and ongoing civil wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and the Congo. A Christmas Truce in any of these conflicts would reduce carnage and hopefully lead to a longer-term cease fire. If governments and warlord refuse, maybe once again ordinary soldiers, the ones doing the fighting and dying, will take the initiative.