Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Christmas truce in the trenches. One of the first acts of sanity in a senseless war, when British and German soldiers defied officers orders to rise from the trenches and greet one another, exchanging gifts, cigarettes and food and playing soccer. Later in the war the rank and file soldiers determination not to kill one another became stronger and more frequent until the Russian soldiers refused to fight the German boys and instead turned their rifles on their dictator Czar Nicolas. Soon after the German soldiers did the same to Kaiser Wilhelm, while French soldiers shot their officers and refused to fight. The madness that was the First World War came to an end not because leaders and diplomats came to a solution, or even because the generals of one side gained military advantage over the other, but simply because working class soldiers on both sides, tired of four years of slaughter, refused to keep fighting. (Borrowed from Steve Stewart)
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 22:23:25 +0000
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