Admittedly this video of the World War I Christmas Truce is a commercial, but it is considered to be one of the best of all.
Another interpretation:
And for those who want to hear first hand accounts, please visit Voices of the First World War: The Christmas Truce Imperial War Museum (hat tip Kevin W).
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Merci, Yves. Joyeux Noël et joyeuse fêtes de fin d’année.
Good morning! There is also a musical about the Truce currently playing in NYC as well as touring – https://alliscalm.org
Happy holidays all
Those videos reminded me on what the essence of Christmas really is in my opinion. You take away the decorations, the carols, the presents under the tree, the tables buckling under their load of food, the cards and all the rest of it and it leaves you what I believe the holiday is all about. As shown by those soldiers, it is simply declaring a truce and saying that for a short time, just a short time, how about we stop being total d**** to each other and try to enjoy each other’s company for a change? We can do that.
An excellent reminder that narrative is everything. Mass murder for essentially no sensible reason. Hype, propaganda and rich oligarchs (in that era royal families of declining influence) drive millions of working people to slaughter each other for objectives which provide no benefit to the combatants. This situation is so well summed up by William Blake in the prologue he wrote for Shakespeare’s Edward IV “O for a voice like thunder…” (https://www.bartleby.com/235/21.html).
Perhaps the fundamental human flaw is that they can be manipulated so easily. Wish we could turn this killing machine off.
My niece’s husband, Robert Rath, played this animation of the Christmas Truce for us over the holidays last year.
Rob researched and wrote the narrative…. it is very good!
I especially like the Letters From the Trenches video.
https://robwritespulp.com/2018/02/01/extra-history-christmas-truce/#respond
This is lovely, thanks!
The great John McCutcheon singing his “Christmas in the Trenches”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJi41RWaTCs
Thank you for the videos. Hard to watch and keep dry eyes. We can, all of us, given the opportunity, be so much more.
For those of my friends at Naked Capitalism who may be a bit spiritually-inclined, here are two very different kinds of Christmas meditations written a number of years ago. May the best of the season be with you all, whether tenderhearted, toughminded, or like most of us, a blend of both.
https://newtonfinn.com/2011/12/15/the-harder-edge-of-christmas/
https://newtonfinn.com/2011/12/16/the-answer-of-christmas/
Merry Xmas, Yves, Lambert, and all contributors. And a happy new year!
Merry Christmas, Yves, Lambert, and all others. Thank you so much for your great efforts.
https://ncase.me/trust/
Human behavior is similar to a tabula rasa, in that -statistically- we collectively follow our incentives.
The link above is a flash based web-app inspired by game theory and the Christmas Truce to explain more about our human condition in light of “The Prisoner’s Dillema.” The mathematics of the success of various game-theory strategies are explored and defined against each other.
An optimal play in against one strategy will fail against another.
There’s a good deal of hand-holding if you’re already well-versed, but it is thoughtful and rigorous. If you click through to the end, you can even populate ‘game-spaces’ with different strategies and see how they play out against each other.
Give it a try, or book mark it if you’re busy for the holidays.
The Christmas Truce was not a one-off event, but part of a much larger evolution of life “On the Front.”
Live and Let Live this Christmas, and all through the year.
The National World War I Museum is in Kansas City, Missouri and well worth a visit. It drives home the wild fire rapidity of nation after nation going to war and the immense loss of life. The displays are excellent.
There’s a scene in the (IMO) underrated 1992 WW2 film A Midnight Clear (directed by Keith Gordon, perhaps best-known to casual filmgoers as the fellow who played the troubled one of the pair of HS buddies in the film version of Stephen King’s Christine) based on the WW1 Christmas truce. As with the actual historical truce, the one in the film alas proves to be an all-too-brief respite from the human-orchestrated madness which gave rise to it.
The musical rendering of the eponymous traditional Christmas song in the film’s soundtrack is rather haunting.
Indy Neidell did a great special about the Christmas Truce on his Great War YouTube channel.
Of course the commanders made sure there were no repeats of such a lapse in military discipline for the rest of the war
All Quiet on the Western Front was banned by the Nazis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ciq9ts02ci4
Here’s singer/songwriter John McCutcheon singing his song “Christmas in the Trenches” about the Christmas truce. He heard the story from a janitor in Australia (whose dad was at there) and later met some WW I vets who had been there as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJi41RWaTCs
Joyeaux Noel is a good movie looking at the Christmas truce and the aftermath as it was intolerable to the higher ups who need the enemy to be dehumanized.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424205/
As a commercial, it fails to show that rather than games of footie, the main activity that they joined together in on no-mans-land was burying the some of the dead.