JOY to the world
I found this on care2.com and thought I would share ~ a lovely, lovely story:
THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE
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.
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.
posted by Miss Robyn | 10:13 am
3 Comments:
What a lovely story. So true about how the media depicts the worst of us,and the wonderful happy stories are often never heard.
There is a very simple memorial to all soldiers in the grounds of Shrewsbury Abbey in England. I forget the exact wording but it is in effect "If we had met at another time, in another place, we could have been friends." When you think about it, you realise that deep down most of us want and need the same things.
After posting the previous comment I had a little wander around Google. I now realise that the wording I attributed to the Shrewsbury Abbey Memorial was, in fact, from another memorial. The inscription at Shrewsbury actually reads "I am the enemy you killed, my friend." Different words, but basically the same meaning.
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