Merry Christmas Eve - The Christmas Truce of 1914

[VolInNW]

I post this to help remind us all of the true meaning of Christmas. For a short time in 1914, German and British troops laid down their arms, sang carols to each other across no man's land, and then emerged and celebrated Christmas after a fashion. This is a short, dramatized version of the event, but it does a decent job.

To all my fellow Vols, all the Gumps, Gators, UGA fans, UK fans, and everyone else, Merry Christmas!!

 

[jim pique]

Volinnw,Well done,thank you.And a Merry Christmas to you and yours.

 

[VolInNW]

Just noticed I bumped it up a century. Fixed!

 

[BACKDOC]

I post this to help remind us all of the true meaning of Christmas. For a short time in 1914, German and British troops laid down their arms, sang carols to each other across no man's land, and then emerged and celebrated Christmas after a fashion. This is a short, dramatized version of the event, but it does a decent job.

To all my fellow Vols, all the Gumps, Gators, UGA fans, UK fans, and everyone else, Merry Christmas!!

Loved it.

 

[GoVols64]

I have always loved this story and the events leading up to 12/14/14. The actual events were throughout December based on where you were at; some spots kept fighting. Proves to me that more often than not we don't have problems with each other but our governments do.

I would say the exception, for me, are what and who we have faced since 1993 then actively since 2001. But I am admittedly biased.

 

[unfrozencvmanvol]

You're a good fellow.

 

[mercuryvol]

On a small scale in 1944 in the Ardennes Forest there occurred a similar story on Christmas Eve between German and American soldiers that President Reagan spoke of in a speech in 1985. Thanks for the thread VolinNW.

 

[Alto1]

Merry Christmas and Thanks for sharing!!

 

[Jravol78]

Good post , here is a similar story that occurred 52 years earlier in TN.


Christmas Eve 1862 before The Battle of Stones River

the holiday united opposing soldiers before the Battle of Stones River in 1862. Though Congress didn't decree Christmas a national holiday until 1870, it was spreading nationwide as an American tradition by the time the war broke out. In 1861, the first Civil War Christmas saw festivities in both Union and Confederate camps, but the second, after a bloody year of war, found soldiers on both sides realizing that the war was a common enemy. McIvor zooms in on the Union and Confederate armies camped near each other at Murfreesboro, Tenn., where on Christmas Eve 1862, their bands played favorite Northern and Southern tunes. When one band started "Home! Sweet Home!" thousands of homesick soldiers began to sing before being overcome by emotion, and the night fell silent. A few days later the armies clashed in one of the bloodiest battles of the war—but even amid the powder smoke soldiers helped one another's wounded and dead, marking friendly and enemy grave sites.