From a European perspective, World War I produced perhaps the quote of the 20th century.
“The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime,” British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey reportedly said on August 3, 1914 — the day before Britain declared war on Germany. Thirty-one years, two world wars and tens of millions of lives later, Grey’s words proved prophetic.
Still, in the early months of World War I, soldiers on both sides tried to re-light those lamps. Their efforts lasted only a day or two, but they have become legend.
And it began with the Germans on Christmas Eve 1914. British soldier Clifford Lane of the 1st Hertfordshire Regiment recalled the scene.
“Later on in the night, there was a great deal of commotion going on in the German front line, which was about 100, 150 yards away I suppose,” Lane recalled. “And after a few moments, there were lighted objects raised above the German parapet looking like Chinese lanterns to us.”
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British Sergeant A. Lovell of the 3rd Rifle Brigade described a similar scene.
“Right along the whole of their line were hung paper lanterns and illuminations of every description, many of them in such positions as to suggest that they were hung upon Christmas trees,” Lovell wrote.
Other British soldiers recalled that a good deal of music accompanied the illuminations.
Have you ever heard of the truce of 1914?
“What a strange Christmas Eve it was! Soldiers from both sides singing to each other, songs, hymns, and carols, and walking around bonfires,” Lance Corporal J. S. Calder of the 5th (City of London) Battalion Rifle Brigade wrote.
By Christmas Day, what began with lights and carols developed into open fraternization. Men climbed out of the trenches, exchanged gifts and took photos. In fact, several football (soccer) games broke out in different places along the lines.
In at least one game, the two sides kept score.
“The regiment actually had a football match with the Germans who beat them 3-2,” an unnamed officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps wrote to a friend in London.
And we know that particular match had to have happened. After all, no self-respecting English footballer would have invented a story about losing a match to the Germans!
Still, despite the fact that men on both sides sent letters and photographs home — and that newspapers published accounts of hundreds of soldiers making merry with their enemies all along the front lines — some in later years came to doubt stories of the 1914 Christmas truce.
Harold Lewis of the Royal Field Artillery — still stationed in Britain by Christmas 1914 — thought the truce exaggerated.
“Although it would be arrogant to say that the thing didn’t actually take place, I very much doubt whether anything of the nature or magnitude that have been claimed for it took place at all,” Lewis later wrote.
“And particularly because the two armies concerned, the German with that rigid discipline and our own with the finest discipline of a fighting force there was, are not likely to break that tradition. And if anybody tried, what were the NCOs doing? What were the officers doing? I think the whole thing borders on the fairytale,” the artilleryman added.
Indeed, after Christmas 1914 officers on both sides strictly prohibited such fraternization.
In a larger sense, however, Lewis’ skepticism undoubtedly stemmed at least in part from knowledge of how the war unfolded. From 1915 onward, pointless savagery ruled the day. Men charged out of trenches only to be mowed down, the survivors retreat and then repeat the slaughter.
July 1, 1916, for instance — the first day of the Battle of the Somme — proved the costliest in British military history. That single day resulted in nearly 60,000 casualties, including nearly 20,000 killed. And the battle went on for four months.
In short, the weapons of 20th-century warfare destroyed an entire generation. As the stalemate endured, combatants resorted to horrific measures such as poison gas. No Man’s Land — the area between the opposing trenches — became synonymous with desolation.
In light of what followed, therefore, the 1914 Christmas truce seemed nearly impossible in hindsight.
Disapproval on the German home front constituted another factor in suppressing memories of the truce.
“War is no sport,” one German journal proclaimed shortly afterward, “and we are sorry to say that those who made these overtures, or took part in them, did not clearly understand the gravity of the situation.”
After the war, of course, everyone knows the familiar story. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis rose to power on tales of betrayal and promises of vengeance for Germany’s defeat in World War I. That narrative had no room for memories of fraternization with the enemy.
Indeed, the whole trajectory of German history in the first half of the 20th century depended on lies. And when lying occurs on a totalitarian scale, few dare to speak truth.
The truth is that World War I soldiers once tried to re-light the lamps in a Europe consumed by darkness. German men in uniform — according to British accounts of the truce — took the lead in that effort.
And they chose the anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ to try to restore that light. If that truth does not merit an annual retelling, then one could scarcely imagine a story that would.
