Christmas in the trenches 1914

[abaris]

Since it's exactly 100 years as of today, I thought I post this story. It's one of the nicer war stories and shows what soldiers would do if they had it their way.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/trenches.htm

The Germans seem to have made the first move. During the evening of December 24 they delivered a chocolate cake to the British line accompanied by a note that proposed a cease fire so that the Germans could have a concert. The British accepted the proposal and offered some tobacco as their present to the Germans. The good will soon spread along the 27-mile length of the British line. Enemy soldiers shouted to one another from the trenches, joined in singing songs and soon met one another in the middle of no-mans-land to talk, exchange gifts and in some areas to take part in impromptu soccer matches.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

And then the senseless, useless, pointless butchery continued for another four years. A Christmas miracle if ever there was one.

Boru

[downbeatplumb]

And then the senseless, useless, pointless butchery continued for another four years. A Christmas miracle if ever there was one.

Boru

It ended on new years eve with this.

the Cameronians, to whom Hogmanay was traditionally an uproarious occasion, were ‘petrified’ to see ‘Private McN.’, who had been unwisely left in charge of a company rum jar, ‘minus his equipment, lurching along in No Man’s Land to the cheers and laughter of the Germans who sportingly did not fire. The entreaties and orders of friends passed unheeded, the delinquent merely pausing occasionally to take a mouthful of rum from the jar he was carrying. Pursuing his unsteady way, McN. came opposite the trenches of the adjacent battalion, where he received a peremptory warning to come in, or he would be arrested ... he took another “swig” and coolly remarked “Come oot and fetch us” - an offer which was, needless to say, declined’. Finally, writes Captain Jack, Private McN. collapsed into the British lines to sleep it off - and that was the last of the truce of 1914.

[Zen Badger]

If only they'd realised that their true enemies where not the soldiers in the opposing trenches but their political and military masters who were happy to sacrifice them in their millions.
The world might be a happier place.

[Jackalope]

If only they'd realised that their true enemies where not the soldiers in the opposing trenches but their political and military masters who were happy to sacrifice them in their millions.
The world might be a happier place.

Truer words were never spoken.

[Dystopia]

I read about this in a novel set during the first world war timeline and I got really emotional. Most of those young soldiers never wanted a war, they died in vain, not because of Germany's fault as some might think but because of world-powers wanting to be the best of the best at the same time. Just pure stupidity.

[ManMachine]

If only they'd realised that their true enemies where not the soldiers in the opposing trenches but their political and military masters who were happy to sacrifice them in their millions.
The world might be a happier place.

I'd like to believe that but they were different times. Europe was simmering with multi national hatred, it was going to kick-off masters or not.

MM

[Minimalist]

If only they'd realised that their true enemies where not the soldiers in the opposing trenches but their political and military masters who were happy to sacrifice them in their millions.
The world might be a happier place.

If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the army.
Frederick the Great

[abaris]

The common soldiers had more in common with each other than they had with their own commanding officers as has already been said. What's more, a good number of the german soldiers at the time had been working in England before the war broke out.