On the evening of December 24, 1914, in the cold, muddy trenches on the Western Front of the First World War, a remarkable thing happened. It came to be called the Christmas Truce. After 109 years it is still one of the most amazing moments of the Great War, or of any other war in history (history.com/ news/Christmas-truce-1914-world-war-1-soldier-accounts).
After months of unavailing slaughter, the colossal armies of the German Empire and France and Great Britain had fought themselves to a standstill. Millions of soldiers fired at each other from trenches that sometimes were within 100 feet of each other, so close they could smell food cooking and hear each other talking.
Everywhere lay the blackened ruins of villages and smashed churches; jagged trees cut down by artillery; and everywhere a sea of yellow mud. Everywhere, too, were the dead—the dead of months ago, of a week ago, and of yesterday. They lay strewn as dreadful litter over No Man’s Land and clung like scarecrows to the barbed-wire defenses of both armies.
Then came Christmas Eve. British machine gunner Bruce Bairnsfather wrote about it in his memoirs. He was spending the holiday eve shivering in the muck, trying to keep warm. In a part of Belgium called Bois de Ploegsteert, he was crouched in a trench, eating stale biscuits and trying to smoke cigarettes too wet to light (history.com/ soldier-accounts).
About 10 p.m., Bairnsfather noticed a noise. “I listened,” he recalled. “Away across the field, among the dark shadows beyond, I could hear the murmur of voices.” He asked a fellow soldier, “Do you hear the Boches [Germans] kicking up a racket over there?” (history. com/soldier-accounts).
“Yes,” came the reply. “They’ve been at it some time.” The Germans were singing carols. In the darkness, some of the British soldiers began to sing back. “Suddenly,” Bairnsfather recalled, “we heard a confused shouting from the other side. We all stopped to listen. The shout came again. The voice was from an enemy soldier, speaking in English with a strong German accent.
He was saying, ‘Come over here’” (history.com/soldieraccounts).
One of the British sergeants answered: “You come half-way. I come half-way.” What happened next would, in the years to come, stun the world and make history.
Enemy soldiers began to climb nervously out of their trenches. There were handshakes and words of kindness. The soldiers traded tobacco, wine, and chocolate. Then songs were called for.
The Germans responded with “Die Wacht am Rhine,” and the English with “Tipperary,” and the Scots with “The Boys of Bonnie Scotland.” Then the Germans began to sing, “Heillige Nacht,” and “O Tannenbaum!” and the English answered with those Christmas carols in English (Clarence McCartney, Great Nights of the Bible, New York: Abingdon Press, 1943, pp. 143144).
That spontaneous cease-fire spread up and down the lines from the North Sea to the Alps. Christmas Day was spent in fellowship, singing, sharing meals, and games. Impromptu games of football [soccer] were played (smithsonianmag.com/ history/the-story-of-the-wwichristmas- truce).
In an interview given by a German, Lieutenant Johannes Niemann, the novelty of getting to know their kilted Scottish opposition matched the novelty of playing soccer in No Man’s Land. He said, “Us Germans really roared when a gust of wind revealed that the Scots wore no drawers under their kilts—and hooted and whistled every time they caught an impudent glimpse of one posterior belonging to one of ‘yesterday’s enemies.’ But after an hour’s play, when our Commanding Officer heard about it, he sent an order that we must put a stop to it. A little later we drifted back to our trenches and the fraternization ended (smithsonianmag. com/story).
Only an interlude it was, in the awful destruction of war. But it revealed the power of love over hate, of kindness over cruelty, and of what a powerful influence the birth of Jesus can have on the human heart.
The old song by Fanny Cosby, “Rescue the Perishing,” that I sang as a youth, and can still sing all three verses of by memory, has these words, “Down in the human heart, crushed by the Tempter, feelings lie buried that grace can restore.”
The thoughts of a little baby, born in a humble manger, and surrounded by livestock, is so arresting it stopped the cannons from firing and the soldiers from killing each other.
Indeed, one British soldier, Murdoch M. Wood, speaking in 1930, said, “I then came to the conclusion that I have held very firmly ever since, that if we had been left to ourselves there would never have been another shot fired (Naina Bajekal, “Silent Night:; The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce of 1914, time.com/ christmas-truce-1914, December 24, 2014).
Murdoch Wood’s desire is what the angels sang, “…on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14 King James version). If we choose to love our enemies, as Jesus said, they are no longer our enemies!
Unfortunately, some saw the Christmas Eve truce differently. Many still do. One German, a Corporal of the 16th Bavarians, exclaimed his opposition to the truce. “Such a thing should not happen in wartime. Have you no German sense of honor?” His name was Adolf Hitler (Bajekal, “Silent,” time. com).
When we pray for peace on earth, it can become a better world as we awaken those feelings that grace can restore, and we say, “Let it begin with me.”