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The Christmas Truce
by David G. Stratman
http://www.wanttoknow.info/christmastruce
>From his book We Can Change the World  (
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0962856606/qid=1070134447/sr=12-1/103-2792244-8591047?tag=wanttinfo-20&v=glance&s=books
)

It was December 25, 1914, only 5 months into World War I. German,
British, and French soldiers, already sick and tired of the senseless
killing, disobeyed their superiors and fraternized with "the enemy"
along two-thirds of the Western Front (a crime punishable by death in
times of war). 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 a
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 would be slaughtered.

Not many people have heard the story of the Christmas Truce. On
Christmas Day, 1988, a story in the Boston Globe mentioned that a
local FM radio host played "Christmas in the Trenches," a ballad about
the Christmas Truce, several times and was startled by the effect. The
song became the most requested recording during the holidays in Boston
on several FM stations. "Even more startling than the number of
requests I get is the reaction to the ballad afterward by callers who
hadn't heard it before," said the radio host. "They telephone me
deeply moved, sometimes in tears, asking, 'What the hell did I just
hear?' "

I think I know why the callers were in tears. The Christmas Truce
story goes against most of what we have been taught about people. It
gives us a glimpse of the world as we wish it could be and says,"This
really happened once." It reminds us of those thoughts we keep hidden
away, out of range of the TV and newspaper stories that tell us how
trivial and mean human life is. It is like hearing that our deepest
wishes really are true: the world really could be different.