A CHRISTMAS TRUCE

On Christmas Day, 1914, in the first year of World War I, German,
British and French soldiers disobeyed their superiors and fraternized
with "the enemy" along two-thirds of the Western Front. German troops
held Christmas trees up out of the trenches with signs, "Merry
Christmas." "You no shoot, we no shoot." Thousands of troops streamed
across no-man's land strewn with rotting corpses. They sang Christmas
carols, exchanged photographs of loved ones back home, shared rations,
played football, even roasted some pigs. Soldiers embraced men
they had been trying to kill a few short hours before. They agreed to
warn each other if the top brass forced them to fire their weapons, and
to aim high.

A shudder ran through the high command on either side. Here was
disaster in the making: soldiers declaring their brotherhood with
each other and refusing to fight. Generals on both sides declared this
spontaneous peacemaking to be treasonous and subject to court martial.
By March, 1915 the fraternization movement had been eradicated and
the killing machine put back in full operation. By the time of the
armistice in 1918, fifteen million people would be slaughtered.
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