A CHRISTMAS TALE..... A century ago, young men in Europe were killing each other by the tens of thousands. World War I, which had erupted just a few months earlier, was raging. Yet on a frozen Christmas Eve, the guns briefly fell silent. On Christmas Eve, at noon, fire ceased completely on both fronts. We heard a German singing Holy Night, of course in German. There was all sorts of Christmas greetings being shouted across No Mans Land. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, life was miserable on the front lines. The weather was wet and frigid. The trenches were basically large ditches, collapsing and filling with water. That was mid-December. Then, Christmas arrives. In a letter home, a British soldier named Ernest Morley writes that his men decided to give the Germans a gift on Christmas Eve: Three songs, then five rounds of rapid gunfire. They started with the carol, While Shepherds Watched. We finished that and paused, preparing to give them the second item on the program, writes Morley. We heard answering strains arising from their lines. Then they started shouting across to us. Therefore we stopped any hostile operations and commenced to shout back. One of them shouted, A merry Christmas, English! We are not shooting tonight! Germans lit lanterns and put them up above the trench. Rifleman Morley writes that the British tried to outdo them. Opposite me they had one lamp and nine candles in a row. And we had all the candles and lights we could muster, stuck up on our bayonets above the parapet. The sun rises on Christmas Day, and all is calm. British Lt. M.S. Richardson writes a letter to his family, where he describes German soldiers cautiously emerging from the trenches: The situation was so absurd, that another officer of ours and myself went out, and met seven of their officers. They exchange gifts in the area between the trenches called No Mans Land. One of them presented me with the packet of cigarettes, and we gave them a plum pudding, and then we shook hands with them, and saluted each other, writes Richardson. Some of the soldiers use the day of peace to bury their dead. 2nd Lt. Wilber Spencer watched many of his men fall a week earlier. On Christmas Day, he had the strange sensation of shaking hands with some of the German soldiers who killed his friends. youtu.be/GfZPtkqXQIA
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 18:31:22 +0000
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