The 1914 Truce in Context
¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 It wasn’t, in fact, a bolt from the blue,
¶ 2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Instead the 1914 Truce was part of a pattern,
¶ 3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 That both preceded that Christmas and continued beyond:
¶ 4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 There were ‘cushy’ sectors, involving ‘laissez-faire’,
¶ 5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 ‘Rest and let rest’, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’,
¶ 6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 ‘Mutual obligation element’,
¶ 7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 ‘Tacit truces’, ‘mutual understanding’,
¶ 8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 ‘Compromise, and be mighty glad to be alive’,
¶ 9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 Running along the British front line on the Western Front.
¶ 10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 There were respected rituals during the day:
¶ 11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 Breakfast bacon and ration party truces,
¶ 12 Leave a comment on verse 12 0 When as Ian Hay wrote in 1915:
¶ 13 Leave a comment on verse 13 0 ‘It would be child’s play to shell …ration wagons
¶ 14 Leave a comment on verse 14 0 and water carts…but on the whole there is silence…
¶ 15 Leave a comment on verse 15 0 if you prevent your enemy from drawing his rations…
¶ 16 Leave a comment on verse 16 0 he will prevent you from drawing yours.’
¶ 17 Leave a comment on verse 17 0 In addition, both sides faced General Winter:
¶ 18 Leave a comment on verse 18 0 A German officer commented in 1914:
¶ 19 Leave a comment on verse 19 0 ‘Friend and foe alike go to fetch straw from the same rick
¶ 20 Leave a comment on verse 20 0 to protect them from the cold and rain and to have some sort of bedding
¶ 21 Leave a comment on verse 21 0 to lie on – and never a shot is fired.’
¶ 22 Leave a comment on verse 22 0 Sometimes, defused rifle grenades were tossed into trenches,
¶ 23 Leave a comment on verse 23 0 Containing messages, sometimes weather truces
¶ 24 Leave a comment on verse 24 0 Led to salutations, conversations and jokes,
¶ 25 Leave a comment on verse 25 0 (‘”Waiter!”… fifty Fritzes stuck their heads up…”Coming Sir.” ’);
¶ 26 Leave a comment on verse 26 0 Sometimes, a deliberate policy of positive inertia
¶ 27 Leave a comment on verse 27 0 Was recognized and reciprocated,
¶ 28 Leave a comment on verse 28 0 Sometimes night patrols would studiously avoid each other.
¶ 29 Leave a comment on verse 29 0 Weaponry, even when used, could also send messages:
¶ 30 Leave a comment on verse 30 0 Rifle and machine gun fire might be aimed too high,
¶ 31 Leave a comment on verse 31 0 Hand bombing led to a signaled, invitational
¶ 32 Leave a comment on verse 32 0 And deliberate misplacing of explosives:
¶ 33 Leave a comment on verse 33 0 ‘their trenches…no more than ten or fifteen yards from ours…
¶ 34 Leave a comment on verse 34 0 was a good insurance against strafing on either side.
¶ 35 Leave a comment on verse 35 0 The mildest exchange of hand grenades or bombs…
¶ 36 Leave a comment on verse 36 0 Would have made life intolerable.’
¶ 37 Leave a comment on verse 37 0 Heavy artillery took a different line:
¶ 38 Leave a comment on verse 38 0 Here messages were sent by the fact that often,
¶ 39 Leave a comment on verse 39 0 The same spot would be shelled at exactly the same time each day:
¶ 40 Leave a comment on verse 40 0 ‘Twelve little Willies at noon to the tick,
¶ 41 Leave a comment on verse 41 0 Got our heads down, and go them down quick,
¶ 42 Leave a comment on verse 42 0 Peaceful and calm was the rest of the day,
¶ 43 Leave a comment on verse 43 0 Nobody hurt and nothing to say.’
¶ 44 Leave a comment on verse 44 0 ‘Nobody hurt and nothing to say’:
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