Christmas Spirit

Christmas Spirit:
The Day the Guns Went Silent

It’s Christmas time, and today’s article is a little different from most; it’s a Christmas story with a different kind of firearms theme… It’s about Christmas in 1914, the day the guns went silent on the Western Front during World War I.

This true story goes back to the early days of the First World War. War had been raging across Europe for five months and was beginning to settle into the relatively static ‘trench war’ that comes to most people’s minds when they think about that conflict. The bloodshed and carnage, while just beginning, was on a scale that the world had never seen before, making the events of that Christmas even more remarkable…when soldiers from both sides put their weapons down for a moment, and expressed the Christmas spirit in an unofficial truce.

Accounts vary on how the ‘truce’ began, but historians generally agree that it was fairly widespread along the Western front, involving about 100,000 soldiers from both sides. By some accounts, British and French soldiers began hearing German soldiers singing Christmas carols in their trenches on Christmas Eve (the opposing trenches were often quite close, sometimes 100 yards or less apart), and noticed small Christmas trees with candles on them. A few daring men poked their heads above the trenches… and were not met with gunfire, but rather with greetings. Amazingly, even the artillery fell silent…slowly, a few men from both sides crawled out, and met in the “no-man’s land” between the trenches. The bitter enemies reached out, and for a short time, recognized their shared hardships, with all of them longing for home and families. Soldiers from both sides walked out of their trenches and shook hands (Figure 1). Small gifts of food, alcohol and tobacco were exchanged; some soldiers exchanged souvenirs such as caps and uniform buttons with their enemies, along with newspapers and other items. One British captain later said he shared a cigar with the “best shot (sniper) in the German Army”.

Some accounts even record a ‘football’ (soccer) game being played between the German and Allied soldiers, though modern historians think this was less of an organized effort, and more a spontaneous series of men kicking around a ‘ball’ made of a food tin, wrapped in cloth, as there would likely not have been a soccer ball handy. At least 29 different accounts were recorded of men playing ‘football’ on the Western front, with at least 4 of those detailing men from both sides participating. Though the ‘Christmas Truce of 1914’ was much more widespread on the Western Front, there were brief similar local truces on the Eastern front as well. For a short time, the horrors of war were set aside, and soldiers from both sides experienced a bit of “peace on earth, and goodwill toward men”.

Sadly, the goodwill expressed by the two sides at the level of the frontline soldiers was not shared by the commanders of both sides, who were furious at the unofficial truce; they went so far as to schedule artillery bombardments and attacks during the holidays in later years to prevent a repeat of the truce.

Still, we can look back at the Christmas of 1914, and remember the day the guns went silent, as a reminder that even in a chaotic world, Christmas still has meaning. Here at Select Fire, we hope you can spend time with your family and enjoy the season…and we wish all of you a Merry Christmas, and a safe and Happy New Year!

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