As you and your family flip through the television channels this holiday season, you will likely come across Christmas movie after Christmas movie.
The majority of them attempt to deliver some lesson during the holidays, whether to say that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ or being with family rather than exchanging gifts.
But there is one historic Christmas story that stands above all else. Yes, there was a movie made of this particularly story, a few actually, but none of them are the Christmas classics many of us have grown to love over the years.
My guess is that since this story didn’t involve Americans directly — the United States wouldn’t join the fight for another two-and-a-half years — that it doesn’t stand out to us nearly as much as it should.
Let me take you back 103 years nearly to the day — I know that’s a long time; I’m a Cubs fan so I know all about dreaming over a century into the past — to the Western Front, a 400-plus mile stretch that weaved through France and Belgium, in World War I.
Beginning on Christmas Eve 1914, German soldiers began placing candles and Christmas trees on top of their trenches and started singing Christmas carols. British soldiers followed suit, joining in on the caroling and beginning what would come to be known as the Christmas Truce of 1914.
After months of battling and jockeying for position along the Western Front, which saw some of the worst bloodshed in modern history, the British and German forces laid down their guns and established an unofficial truce. It’s a bit ironic because there were several outside attempts to establish an official truce — most notably by Pope Benedict XV — but government officials and military leaders nixed the idea.
Yet one happened anyway. About 100,000 soldiers from both sides timidly entered what was referred to as no man’s land, the area between the two sides’ front-line trenches, and began wishing each other a Merry Christmas and exchanged small gifts, such as food and tobacco. Some took the time to bury their deceased comrades, and there even was a widely reported soccer match between the two sides on Christmas day.
Just imagine that. Two warring countries whose soldiers had been shooting at each other for months came together on Christmas to establish a cease-fire. Not only just a cease-fire, but they legitimately spent the most holy of days with their sworn enemy, singing and laughing with the people who were threatening their very existence on this earth.
Henry Williamson, a 19-year-old British soldier at the time who would later become a nature writer, wrote home to his mother — the letter has been preserved for all to see — and described the truce.
“Dear Mother, I am writing from the trenches. It is 11 oclock in the morning. Beside me is a coke fire, opposite me a 'dug-out' (wet) with straw in it. The ground is sloppy in the actual trench, but frozen elsewhere. In my mouth is a pipe presented by the Princess Mary. In the pipe is tobacco. Of course, you say. But wait. In the pipe is German tobacco. Haha, you say, from a prisoner or found in a captured trench. Oh dear, no! From a German soldier. Yes a live German soldier from his own trench. Yesterday the British & Germans met & shook hands in the ground between the trenches, & exchanged souvenirs, and shook hands. Yes, all day Xmas day, & as I write. Marvellous, isn't it? Yes.”
It truly is an amazing story and one I wish more people in America knew about and appreciated. It proves that any body of people can come together with another it doesn’t see eye-to-eye with and come to an understanding. If you think about the current landscape of our American society, it’s a Christmas lesson we all should take note of. n
Joshua Campbell is sports editor of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him at joshuacampbell@columbianprogress.com.
