Silent Night : The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce

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Summary: A break in the war for Christmas
Review: "War is the continuation of politics by another means". So said Carl Von Clauswitz in his treatise "On War". When reading this book, it becomes painfully obvious that war really is a continuation of politics - the generals and the politicians dictate the war, but the soldiers in the trenches dictate the flow.

Stanley Weintraub has told us the story of a fascinating truce declared by the soldiers over the Christmas Holiday in 1914. His writing is easy to follow, and the story makes you feel as if you are there.

Although it seems that the same premise resurfaces numerous times during the book, this is to illustrate Weintraub's point that the soldiers themselves decided to make this truce happen, not the Generals. I found the variations on the theme interesting to read, and especially interesting to understand how widespread this action really was, rather than a single group of soldiers declaring an informal truce.

I personally disagree with the conclusions reached from this study; I do not believe that had the truce continued and ended the war at this point that history would have been altered in the drastic fashion that Weintraub writes of.

I recommend this book to all who have the desire to see the humanistic side of soldiers in wartime. I encourage those who have interest in what might have happend to read the last chapter especially carefully to see if you agree or disagree with the author's conclusions.

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Summary: Remarkable temporary return to sanity...
Review: Christmas Eve, 1914. A remarkable event was in the offing because two great armies from two different persuasions met not to slit each other's throats but to exchange gift parcels, goodwill and Christmas carols. It is one of the most unheralded events of the First World War, largely unsung in history until Professor Weintraub recreated the strained and eerie peculiarity that held the trenches on that bleak and cold December night. As a schoolboy starting to get fascinated with European history, I came across some references about this event in some books but in very short passages. It is only now that a historian has finally crafted a very poignant story of the events using material from the letters and diaries of the participants, and from newspaper accounts.

It is an account of common human decency surfacing in one brief moment in time, in a sea of the savagery of war. It was the men, the ordinary fighting soldiers, not their officers who extemporaneously planned this truce. The first signs and signboards appeared from the German lines, proclaiming that "You no fight, we no fight." And so slowly and almost imperceptibly, the men began to emerge from their mud soaked trenches. They swapped cigarettes and food, helped bury each others dead and even engaged in some games. For that brief moment sanity prevailed, European culture prevailed and the author concludes that "the war restored rules evoking an earlier century and a less complicated world."

The unplanned truce lasted through the whole night and all throughout Christmas day. It worried some officers and Generals that its spirit might spread like wildfire and lead to a cessation of hostilites--and to their relief the violence eventually resumed, and would continue for three more Christmases and end six weeks just shy of a fourth. It is a narrative so refreshingly free of sentiment that it reads like a novel about a remarkable chapter in the history of the First World War, when combatants on both sides laid down their arms and invoked the spirit of their shared religious tradition. Remarkable

Rating:
Summary: Eye Opener
Review: In 'Silent Night' Weintraub has given the World an invaluable treatise on an incredible event that occurred during WW I in which individual and spontaneous humanitarian actions by soldiers on the front transcended the cold orders from the top brass not to fraternize with the enemy and to proceed with the war on Christmas Eve and Day.

When I tell people about the Christmas truce of 1914, that soldiers from opposing sides shook hands, exchanged gifts and played soccer, the response is invariably "no way!" My thanks to Stanley Weintraub for telling us this story, and in such detail.

There are few books that I have read as fast as this. It is great Christmas time reading.

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Summary: A wonderful look at a very special Christmas
Review: In 1914, as the Great War turned from a glorious adventure into a grinder of human meat, something unexpected and beautiful happened. When Christmas Eve arrived, quite against orders, peace mysteriously broke out. In many places along No-Man's Land, soldiers from the opposing armies mingled, traded trinkets, sang songs, and even played impromptu soccer matches. This is the story of that all too brief interlude in that human tragedy that was the First World War.

The author of this book has brought together a wonderful book. It is a collection of anecdotes about that Christmas Truce, complete with a series of pictures. Being a minor student of that tragic war, I could not help but be touched by this story, being at times brought close to tears by some of the stories.

I must admit that I found the author's speculation on what might have happened if the opposing armies had decided to make the peace permanent to be quite fanciful, and rather anticlimactic. That said, though, this is a wonderful book, one that is quite informative on a little studied chapter of World War I. I highly recommend this book to all readers!

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Summary: Cultural History of a little-known Episode of the Great War
Review: In the first months of World War I, while the mud was still new and disgusting to the troops in the trenches, and the killing was still novel to them, Christmas approached. Some of the soldiers on both sides (but chiefly, curiously, the Germans) crossed no-man's-land and met to exchange gifts, sing carols, play games of soccer, and socialize. This so-called Christmas truce lasted in some sectors for several days or even a couple of weeks, and was localized and generally restricted to areas where the British were facing non-Prussian units of the German army, though there were many exceptions. The Belgians and French, less friendly towards the invaders of their country, were only involved sporadically.

This book, then, is the story of this truce, and its impact on Western society, both in terms of the actual effect and the effect it could have had. The author uses diaries and later interviews with participants, newspaper articles of the time, and the few official histories which mention the events, to bring the account to life. He supplements these with versions of the event in fiction in various places, but is careful to tell you the accounts are fictional, and there's generally a reason for including them. One of the best-known British writers from the Great War, Robert Graves, apparently based a fictional account of the event on stories he heard after the fact, for instance. The book also includes a sort of mini-history of the history of the event, including everything from a British rock group in the seventies to Snoopy and his mythical duel with the Red Baron.

The book concludes with a what-if speculation, that tries to imagine the world after a Christmas truce that lasted, and forced the politicians to peace. This is somewhat clumsily handled, because the image of the French or Belgians accepting the German occupation of parts of their country at this stage isn't believable, and the Germans weren't going to give up what they'd fought so hard to capture. The author acknowledges this somewhat in the main part of the book when he recounts that the Germans often boasted that they would be defeating their enemies soon, even while they were exchanging gifts and carols with them. This speculative chapter is the weakest part of the book.

I did enjoy the book overall, though, and would recommend it.

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Summary: A Quiet Episode in War
Review: Throughout the history of war, numerous myths have arisen to tell tales of the daring exploits that our men in uniform perform. Many of these myths are exactly that - they are exaggerated, convulted stories of possible happenings. It is remarkable that one of those stories, which is almost too improbable to be real, actually occurred; and that is what Stanley Weintruab recounts in "Silent Night".

"Silent Night" is the exploration of the Christmas Truce of WWI, which occurred in December 1914. On both sides of the fighting, soldiers called for an uneasy truce in order to celebrate Christmas. It was time for celebration, not for fighting; not to mention the fact that the war had reached a terrible stalemate along the Western front, and no real progress was being made. During those few glorious Christmas days, soldiers on each side participated in gift exchanges, games of football and the clearing of "No Man's Land" so that they could bury the bodies of their fallen comrades.

Weintraub weaves the tale of the 1914 Christmas truce with eye-witness accounts from soldiers, and supplements it with pictures and drawings that prove it actually happened. Sometimes his storytelling fluctuates too much; numerous accounts are given and it can be confusing as to the time frame and setting in regards to the whole picture. At the end of his portrayal of this remarkable event, Weintraub offers up a "What if..." chapter - while this may seem irrelevant due to the facts of WWI, it is always a question that will remain in our minds. Weintraub offers some startling possibilities and does justice to a truth of mythic proportions.