A Christmas Story

This famous Christmas story is one that makes one see that man in the midst of catastrophe can plumb the bottom of his being and find in its depths an innate goodness.  It is that goodness that makes him set aside untold hatred and inconceivable hurt.  It is a true story.

The famed World War I western front (made more famous by Erich Maria Remarque’s All’s Quiet on the Western Front book) was in the trenches of Flanders in Belgium.  Here were muddy trenches dug six to eight feet deep, and here were entrenched English, French, Belgian, and Indian soldiers arrayed against the Germans.  These enemies faced each other only thirty to fifty meters apart in a deadly no-man’s-land.

The hostilities began in early August of the year 1914.  Pope Benedict XV had already proposed a Christmas Truce, and was rejected by the two warring sides.  By Christmas Eve, amid the biting cold of winter and the muck of the trenches, something different was happening between the enemies.

The Germans set up Christmas trees on the mud parapets of their trenches and lit candles.  A few shots were initially fired at the Christmas trees, but curiosity prevailed for the British who chose to watch and listen.  Then the Germans began singing Christmas carols.  Their enemy answered by singing Christmas carols too.

Improvised banners and placards went up; some had words that called for a truce, others conveyed Christmas greetings.

Slowly, the soldiers of the two warring sides left their trenches and met in the middle.  It took unusual courage and trust to meet eye-to-eye one’s enemy who can kill without question, but meet they did. They shook hands and exchanged gifts, mostly cigarettes and postcards and Christmas goodies sent from home.

Still others exchanged buttons and addresses.  It was said that those who had been barbers in civilian life gave free haircuts.  A British correspondent reported that in one part of the line, the Germans were able to slip a chocolate cake into the British trenches.

Bodies of fallen comrades that were impossible to reach earlier were then recovered and given decent burials.  In some parts of the western front, friendly unstructured games of football were played.

News of the fraternization of the men at the front reached the upper echelons of the military hierarchy.  The British, especially, warned the men at the front about the dangers of fraternizing with their enemies.

One of the famous accounts of that Christmas miracle at the western front was that of Captain Edward Hulse of the Scottish Guards.  Four unarmed Germans approached him that early Christmas morning.  Their spokesman told him that it was only proper for them to come over and wish them a Merry Christmas.

After he filed his field report at the headquarters, he returned to the trenches to find both British and German soldiers chatting and milling about, together, in direct opposition to his orders.

Hulse wrote to his mother of the poignant scenes at the battlefield that Christmas.  His mother in turn submitted his account to the newspapers.  Hulse met a tragic end on the battlefield three months later, in March 1915.

The season’s goodwill amid the carnage of 1914 spilled over to the new year of 1915 in some sectors of the front.  The war itself lasted for four more years, well into 1918.

There are claims that those lower-ranked soldiers at the front whose lives were the ones laid on the line had tried to create peace in their mournful and remorseless world.  That peace would have flourished if generals and politicians did not get in the way.  At war’s end, the final tally was over eight million dead and 21 million wounded.

That one Christmas miracle of mutual goodwill between enemies many Christmases ago was never repeated.  Its memory though can inspire humanity to keep the faith that each one of us is capable of making a playground out of a no-man’s-land.

(23 Dec 2007)