Christmas Truce

Christmas Truce

Maddie Williams

per:2

The Christmas Truce occurred on the western front of the fight on December 24th 1914. Men from both sides began singing carols and songs. Soon after they ceased fire and met each other in between trenches to exchange gifts and talk. Thousands of men experienced this change of heart for one day. To this day it is viewed as a glimpse of sanity during the war.

The story above is not the complete true story but only what people chose to believe and spread. At the beginning men and raced to sign up for war in the spirit of holiday. Once they were out on the battlefield all of that spirit changed. They were still confident in their nation but they lost the spirit of the holidays. As men on the front stood in their trenches they could what was still standing of civilization. Men had spent weeks on end in a muddy wasteland with decaying bodies. As their desires to rise from the trenches and also to see their enemy up close rose the Christmas Truce became possible. Since the trenches were quite close together it was easy to either fire an insult or come to an agreement to stop fire. These were temporary truces but truces nonetheless. As men agreed to stop their fire they climbed out of the trenches and exchanged cigarettes.

The war had only been raging on for four months and it was already one of the bloodiest wars the soldiers had seen. At a time like this the soldiers needed to know that even though they were fighting a war the holiday spirit was spread throughout the world.

Sources: Google Images, http://history1900s.about.com/od/1910s/a/christmastruce.htm, http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/christmastruce.htm