The Christmas Truce

Eighty-nine years ago this Christmas, just eight kilometres from the Flemish city of Ypres, an extraordinary event occurred between German and British troops in the narrow and perilous strip of no-man's land separating their trenches.

Here on Christmas Eve on the British side of a muddy landscape, with the bodies of soldiers killed in the first Battle of Ypres two months earlier still lying where they fell, could be heard the sounds of Germans singing. It was thought they had been drinking. Alcohol was barred in the British front lines but the Germans had no such restrictions. When the British realised the Germans were singing Silent Night, they joined in.

Early next morning, a British sentry was startled to see an unarmed German soldier advancing towards the British lines holding high a candlelit Christmas tree. There would be no fighting that Christmas, nor for a few days after. Men from both sides cautiously emerged from their soggy trenches. Soon they were smiling and shaking hands. Together they buried their dead. Word of the fraternisation went back to British HQ. The two sides were even playing a makeshift game of soccer. The generals fumed. This had to be stopped. Orders went out but were ignored. One British Tommy, who negotiated for a German's spiked helmet, handed it back when it was explained it was needed the following day when the owner went on parade. The Germans took the helmet back but next day it was returned with due ceremony.

British officers strolled into no-man's land. Captain Bruce Bairnsfather, soon to become a famed war cartoonist and creator of the popular character Old Bill, joined his men and met his opposite number, Kurt Zehmisch .

Battle eventually resumed when a British sniper was ordered to shoot a German. Two further battles of Ypres would follow and 140 carefully tended cemetries mark the scene of the bloodiest battles of "the last war that didn't pay any attention to the loss of life".

21 posted on 12/31/2003 9:40:02 AM PST by JohnGalt ("...so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.")

Note: this topic is from the FRchives and probably years past. Adding to the GGG catalog.

22 posted on 12/25/2017 5:32:21 AM PST by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)

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