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History is peppered with oddments and ironies, and one of the strangest is this. A few days before the first Christmas of that long bloodletting then called the Great War, hundreds of thousands of cold, trench-bound combatants put aside their arms and, in defiance of their orders, tacitly agreed to stop the killing in honor of the holiday.
That informal truce began with small acts: here opposing Scottish and German troops would toss newspapers, ration tins, and friendly remarks across the lines; there ambulance parties, clearing the dead from the barbwire hell of no man's land, would stop to share cigarettes and handshakes. Soon it spread, so that by Christmas Eve the armies of France, England, and Germany were serenading each other with Christmas carols and sentimental ballads and denouncing the conflict with cries of "Á bas la guerre!" and "Nie wieder Krieg!" The truce was, writes Stanley Weintraub, a remarkable episode, and, though "dismissed in official histories as an aberration of no consequence," it was so compelling that many who observed it wrote in near-disbelief to their families and hometown newspapers to report the extraordinary event.
In the end, writes Weintraub, the truce ended with a few stray bullets that escalated into total war, and that would fill the air for just shy of four more Christmases to come; further, isolated attempts at informal peacemaking would fail. But what, Weintraub wonders at the close of this inspired study, would have happened if the soldiers on both sides had refused to take up arms again? His counterfactual scenarios are intriguing, and well worth pondering. -- Gregory McNamee
From Publishers Weekly
Popular historian Weintraub (MacArthur's War, etc.), emeritus professor of arts and humanities at Penn State, tackles a sober subject from WWI, when amid the millions of casualties in the obscene carnage of trench war, a mutual agreement arose for a cease-fire at Christmastime of the first year of conflict. Drawing from secondary sources as well as much archival research in a variety of languages, Weintraub has compiled a brief, anecdotal account that reveals his skill as a researcher and deftness as a narrator in chapters like "An Outbreak of Peace," "Our Friends, the Enemy" and "How It Ended." There are lively anecdotes, contemporary doggerel and some extraneous asides such as that "a Chinese fourth century B.C. military text mentions a primitive form of football." While succinctly conveying the mood and stakes of this unprecedented display of mutual trust during war, Weintraub's short book could help draw Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton's magisterial Christmas Truce back into print. In the meantime, and just in time for the holidays, we have this offering from one of our most patient chroniclers. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
At Christmas time in 1914, blood enemies emerged from their trenches in Flanders Field in Belgium, shook hands, and wished each other a merry Christmas. In his newest book, Weintraub (A Stillness Heard Round the World: The End of the Great War) draws on letters, diaries, and a variety of other source material to tell the inspiring story of the spontaneous Christmas Truce of World War I, when enemy troops laid down their arms, exchanged gifts, and reveled in their shared humanity. The desperate longing for peace, which Weintraub captures through the words of the soldiers themselves, underscores the poignancy of the ending of the truce, when outraged commanders ordered newly made friends to kill one another. Despite the impact of Weintraub's storytelling and documentation, some readers may be stymied by occasionally untranslated German or confused by his interweaving of fictional accounts of the event. Still, Weintraub's work stands as a unique testament to our fundamental brotherhood. Recommended for public and academic libraries. Michael F. Russo, Louisiana State Univ. Libs., Baton Rouge Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From AudioFile
On the first Christmas of WWI, hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the trenches of France spontaneously created an unsanctioned holiday truce, communicating their intentions to each other through small acts of kindness. In telling the story of this remarkable episode, Weintraub asks the question: What if they had simply refused to take up their arms again? Whoever narrates this work has to be multilingual and multitalented. Edward Holland excels with his German, French, three classes of British English, and some well-aged Scots. Nor is he taxed by the requirement to recite poetry, soldier's prayers, and even to sing a bit. The story moves to different spots on that night held holy by both sides. Through audio we see soccer games and lighted trees in the killing zone, while Tommy and Hun celebrate together and exchange biscuits and sausages from their gift boxes. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
*Starred Review* There are moments in history in which the surreal and the real merge and become indistinguishable. On Christmas Eve of 1914, the meat grinder of the Great War had been chewing up lives for several months. Amid this seemingly uncontrolled savagery, a small miracle emerged: across the crater-scarred No Man's Land, the sounds of "Silent Night" floated, and soldiers on both sides spontaneously laid down their arms, exchanged gifts, and generally became human beings, rather than instruments of destruction. In this deeply moving account of the truce, Weintraub, professor emeritus of arts and humanities at Penn State University, illustrates how ordinary men followed the better angels of their instincts, reaching out to fellow soldiers despite clear instructions to keep fighting. The author utilizes numerous vignettes in which British and French soldiers experience touching encounters with Germans. At first, they move warily toward each other, and then their common humanity draws them closer. Of course, the poignancy of these moments is accentuated by our knowledge that the slaughter would will resume in a few hours. This is an emotionally stirring, uplifting, yet ultimately sad story brilliantly told by a gifted writer. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Robert Cowley founding editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, and editor of No End Save Victory: Perspectives on World War II Stanley Weintraub's poignant account of the day one of the worst of wars took a holiday sounds like the stuff of fiction, but it was the sort of event that fiction can only imitate. No wonder that his book reads like a novel, a true story that has the power to haunt.
Book Description
In the early months of World War I, on Christmas Eve, men on both sides of the trenches laid down their arms and joined in a spontaneous celebration. Despite orders to continue shooting, the unofficial truce spread across the front lines. Even the participants found what they were doing incredible: Germans placed candlelit Christmas trees on trench parapets, warring soldiers sang carols, and men on both sides shared food parcels from home. They climbed from the trenches to meet in "No Man's Land" where they buried the dead, exchanged gifts, ate and drank together, and even played soccer.
Throughout his narrative, Stanley Weintraub uses the stories of the men who were there, as well as their letters and diaries, to illuminate the fragile truce and bring to life this extraordinary moment in time.
About the Author
Stanely Weintraub is a National Book Award finalist, Professor Emeritus of Arts and Humanities at Penn State University, and the author of numerous histories and biographies. He is a regular book reviewer for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
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