My favorite new Christmas song this year was called Christmas in the Trenches by Darryl Purpose. The song is based on the Christmas truce of 1914. It was such an inspiring story that I decided to visit wikipedia & find out more about it.
- The truce began when the German troops began decorating the area around their trenches on Christmas Eve. They put candles on trees & sang Christmas carols, like Stille Nacht. Then the British troops replied by singing carols in English.
- Then, the sides shouted greetings & made a No Man's Land where they left small gifts for each other. Fallen soldiers were brought behind lines & proper burials took place. One funeral in No Man's Land was attended by both sides.
- As the truce spread, a football match broke out. It's rumored that the Germans won 3-2.
This last part is straight from wikipedia because I didn't know how to summarize it:
British commanders Sir John French and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien vowed that no such truce would be allowed again. (However, both had left command before Christmas 1915.) In all of the following years of the war, artillery bombardments were ordered on Christmas Eve to ensure that there were no further lulls in the combat. Troops were also rotated through various sectors of the front to prevent them from becoming overly familiar with the enemy. Despite those measures, there were a few friendly encounters between enemy soldiers, but on a much smaller scale than the previous year.
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