My Favourite Christmas Story Of All Time....
SR: We're sure everyone here on the Cherie Currie Board including Cherie has their favourite Holiday Story or great memory but here's something thats always touched my heart and made me misty eyed....
During World War I, on and around Christmas Day 1914, the sounds of rifles firing and shells exploding faded in a number of places along the Western Front in favor of holiday celebrations in the trenches and gestures of goodwill between enemies.
Starting on Christmas Eve, many German and British troops sang Christmas carols to each other across the lines, and at certain points the Allied soldiers even heard brass bands joining the Germans in their joyous singing.
At the first light of dawn on Christmas Day, some German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the Allied lines across no-man's-land, calling out "Merry Christmas" in their enemies' native tongues. At first, the Allied soldiers feared it was a trick, but seeing the Germans unarmed they climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the enemy soldiers. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs. There was even a documented case of soldiers from opposing sides playing a good-natured game of soccer.
The so-called Christmas Truce of 1914 came only five months after the outbreak of war in Europe and was one of the last examples of the outdated notion of chivalry between enemies in warfare. It was never repeated—future attempts at holiday ceasefires were quashed by officers' threats of disciplinary action—but it served as heartening proof, however brief, that beneath the brutal clash of weapons, the soldiers' essential humanity endured.
During World War I, the soldiers on the Western Front did no expect to celebrate on the battlefield, but even a world war could not destory the Christmas spirit.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5iDz8Ul_AQ&feature=PlayList&p=AFAB8F2D07E DB4E5&index=3]CHRISTMAS TRUCE OF 1914[/ame]
SR: The First World War aka The War To End All Wars (HA!) was a prime example of how humanity can throw away the best and brightest of its respective generation through many instances of horrid waste and stupidity....
If you thought our Military adventures in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were pathetic, they are nothing compared to the ravages of the First World War (1914-18)....
However Combatants on both sides remembered their basic humanity for a short time during Christmas 1914 and accomplished more in that said brief time than any other time during the carange....
No matter how battle hardened or cycnical a soldier is, he is a human being first....
Now if certain members of an All Female Rock Group from the late 1970's could do the same, it truly would a Very Happy Christmas...
Re: My Favourite Christmas Story Of All Time....
Bookmarks