From Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce:
(Link to Book)

December 19th, 1914 -
Lt Geoffrey Heinekey, new to the 2nd Queen’s Westiminster Rifles wrote to his mother, “A most extradordinary thing happened…some Germans came out and held up their hands and began to take in some of their wounded and so we ourselves immediately got out of our trenches and began bringing in our wounded also. The Germans then beckoned to us and a lot of us went over and talked to them and they helped us to bury our dead. This lasted the whole morning, and I talked to several of them and I must say they seemed like extraordinarily fine men…It seemed too ironical for words. There, the night before, we had been having a terrific battle, and the morning after there we were, smoking their cigarettes and they smoking ours (p 5).”

“…As night fell on Christmas Eve the British soldiers noticed the Germans putting up small Christmas trees along with candles at the top of their trenches and many began to shout in English “We no shoot if you no shoot (p. 25). The firing stopped along the many miles of the trenches, and the British began to notice that the Germans were coming out of the trenches toward the British who responded by coming out to meet them. They mixed and mingled in No Man’s Land and soon began to exchange chocolates for cigars and various newspaper accounts of the war which contained the propaganda from their respective homelands. Many of the officers on each side tried to prevent the event from occurring but the soldiers ignored the risk of a court-martial or of being shot.”

Such is, or used to be, the power of this important Christian occasion. It still is for us. A wish for peace, and a Joyous Christmas, from me to everyone, Christian or otherwise, everywhere…and especially to the faithful folks here at New England Republican.

Archived in: Europe, Germany, History, Holidays, United Kingdom