[DUMBGRUNT]

history
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s1YvnfcFVs&src_vid=NWF2JBb1bvM&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_148824475

the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM

More in Weekend WSJ 21 Dec

“C’mon you sons-of-bitches, do you want to live forever!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Daly

I do not believe that I could ever understand the terror of the trenches; or ever want to.

[DUMBGRUNT]

But these lulls began to be used as ways to send signals to the other side. As the British historian Tony Ashworth writes in his book “Trench Warfare 1914-18,” ritualizing these pauses made it possible to communicate through contrasting behavior. So the soldiers would make a point not just of shooting less frequently during dinner: They would let the guns thunder until the stroke of 6 p.m. and then go utterly silent until 7 p.m., every day. And if the other side started doing the same, they had essentially negotiated a narrow truce: no fighting during dinner. Similar truces evolved from lulls in fighting during horrible weather, when everyone’s priority became avoiding hypothermia.

Link to wsj article... may be a paywall?
Yes I pay for the paper, if blocked try google, sometimes that will get you in.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-spirit-of-the-1914-christmas-truce-1419006906

[Kathy in Alaska]

Welcome to the Canteen, DUMBGRUNT, and thank you for sharing the great links.

We thank you for your service to our country.