One hundred and ten years ago, during what was to become the bloodiest conflict the world had seen to that point, the fighting stopped for Christmas. It wasn’t planned, but on the evening of December 24, 1914, the guns along the Western Front were mostly silent, and fittingly, “Silent Night”—or “Stille Nacht” in German—was heard being sung on both sides of the lines.
The First World War had begun less than six months before, but soldiers on both sides of the lines had already dug into trench warfare. Winter had arrived, and military planners looked to spring to break the stalemate.
At that point, the horrors of gas warfare, constant artillery barrages, and futile attacks across no-man’s-land had yet to be seen in full. However, there were already trench lines running nearly from the English Channel to the Swiss border that stopped any forward movement.
As both sides didn’t expect an attack at Christmas, the guns fell silent until the singing started. Soldiers stopped shooting, and on Christmas morning, some soldiers came out of the trenches waving white flags.
However, the celebrations weren’t as widespread as contemporary media depictions may suggest. Yet, they took on something of a legend.
Today, there is a common image—thanks to the stories that came about ten years ago to mark the centennial of the truce in 2014—of soldiers crossing no man’s land to greet one another. The irony is that while it has been written about countless times in the past century, during the war, the military leaders of the UK, France, and Germany attempted to keep a tight lid on the news getting out.
The last thing any commanders wanted was for their respective soldiers to suddenly have the desire to stop fighting and make a de facto peace with the enemy.
Any mention of the truce went largely unreported for more than a week. It was only on New Year’s Eve that The New York Times reported that an unofficial truce had broken out. Moreover, accounts only circulated as families at home found out, not through the daily newspapers but from firsthand accounts in letters from the front lines. The British newspapers, The Mirror and Sketch, eventually printed front-page photographs of the soldiers mingling.
The French press all but blocked the truce, confirming only that it was limited to the British sectors—which it was not—and that it was short-lived, which it largely was. While not as common as in the British sectors, there were accounts of it occurring with some French and Belgian soldiers taking part.
Coverage in Germany was as muted, but when it was reported, it openly criticized those taking part. That fact isn’t surprising as Germany, at that point, believed itself to be winning, having conquered most of Belgium and made significant inroads into France.
That, too, may explain why the French and Belgians were less eager than their British allies to participate. Soldiers from those countries were less likely to shake hands with the invaders of their homelands!
However, the Nazis also stamped out any attempt to acknowledge it occurred, and with the clouds of war on the horizon, few wanted to remember even one happy moment where peace broke out.
The Christmas Truce of 1914 was chronicled briefly in the 1969 musical satire Oh! What a Lovely War.
A similar scene served as the backdrop for Paul McCartney’s 1983 music video “Pipes of Peace,” in which the former Beatle played both a British and German soldier who meet in no man’s land. The video was noted for offering a fairly accurate depiction of the trenches at that stage in the war. The song wasn’t released as a single in the U.S. but did reasonably well in the UK charts, reaching the number one spot for two weeks.
The video inspired a 2014 ad campaign from the UK-based Sainsbury grocery store, which was released to mark the centennial of the truce. The campaign featured British and German soldiers singing “Silent Night” before both teams shook hands, played football, and stopped fighting.
The 2005 French film Joyeux Noël is most notable for depicting the events from the perspective of German, Scottish, and French soldiers. While it is heavily fictionalized, it also offers a realistic look at the situation in December 1914.
Sadly, the war didn’t end on December 25, 1914. Moreover, the worst was yet to come—those artillery duels, mustard gas, and senseless offensives. It wouldn’t be until 1918 that the guns would fall silent, and there was peace on the Western Front.
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites, with over 3,200 published pieces and over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.
Image: Lucas Alvarez Canga / Shutterstock.com.
