23-12-2014, 11:53
That is a truly great article.
One of the many misconceptions about the 1914 Christmas truce is that it was unique; it actually wasn't. Without a doubt, it was the most sustained, widespread and open fraternisation between the two sides, but do a bit of reading and you actually find that minor "truces" took place throughout the war, usually on quiet sectors of the Western Front (areas which had no strategic value worth fighting over, and where trenches were sometimes just yards apart). Swapping fags and little luxuries in those areas was commonplace - sometimes under the cover of repairing barbed wire or scouting enemy positions, etc - and even when units were rotated in and out of the line, it didn't change anything. A lot of ordinary Germans despised the aristocratic Prussians who'd come to dominate the German government and military, and saw the hatred of Britain as a Prussian trait which they didn't share. (There's one case of a note being tied to a rock and lobbed across no man's land into the trench of an East Anglian regiment which said, "English soldiers; we are Saxons, you are Anglo-Saxons. Let us not fight. Next week there's a regiment of Prussians coming into the line. Kill the bastards.")
Anyway, here's one of my favourite songs on the famous truce:
One of the many misconceptions about the 1914 Christmas truce is that it was unique; it actually wasn't. Without a doubt, it was the most sustained, widespread and open fraternisation between the two sides, but do a bit of reading and you actually find that minor "truces" took place throughout the war, usually on quiet sectors of the Western Front (areas which had no strategic value worth fighting over, and where trenches were sometimes just yards apart). Swapping fags and little luxuries in those areas was commonplace - sometimes under the cover of repairing barbed wire or scouting enemy positions, etc - and even when units were rotated in and out of the line, it didn't change anything. A lot of ordinary Germans despised the aristocratic Prussians who'd come to dominate the German government and military, and saw the hatred of Britain as a Prussian trait which they didn't share. (There's one case of a note being tied to a rock and lobbed across no man's land into the trench of an East Anglian regiment which said, "English soldiers; we are Saxons, you are Anglo-Saxons. Let us not fight. Next week there's a regiment of Prussians coming into the line. Kill the bastards.")
Anyway, here's one of my favourite songs on the famous truce:
"I would rather spend a holiday in Tuscany than in the Black Country, but if I were compelled to choose between living in West Bromwich or Florence, I should make straight for West Bromwich." - J.B. Priestley