WORLD WAR ONE & CHRISTMAS 1915

WORLD WAR ONE & CHRISTMAS 1915

 War is a terrible thing and World War I was a disastrous war with senseless deaths and little accomplished. It began in 1914 and didn’t end until 1918. The main fighting was on the Western Front. There were about 100,000 British, French, American and German troops along the length of the Western Front in 1914. "The Western Front" described a line between land controlled by the Germans on the East and the Allies on the Trenchs West. There  were miles of deep trench systems that stretched from the coast of the North Sea southward to the Swiss border. The trenches were guarded by barb wire entanglements and the area in between the two lines of trenches was called "No Man’s Land" by the soldiers. In this area there were rolls  of barbed wire, mud and desolation. The average distance between the lines of trenches averaged 250 yards (230 meters), but at some points was only fifty yards apart.

The fighting involved huge artillery bombardments followed by tens of thousands of soldiers climbing out of the trenches to engage in hand to hand combat. Casualties were counted in the hundreds of thousands. In the Battle of the Somme, 20,000 men died on the first day. Advancement by either side, if any, was measured in feet and little change occurred, yet the fighting continued in the same way day after day. It was a bloody and senseless war. The finest young men of America and Europe died or were wounded. The total casualties in this war, both civilian and military is estimated to be 37 million people with 16 million dead and 21 million wounded.

I write about this war because local public television has been doing a fund drive over the past several weeks with wonderful shows I’ve enjoyed watching. One night, recently, they had the Irish singing group Celtic Thunder who sang a very moving song about a cease in the fighting that happened one Christmas eve during World War I. The song is called No mans land Christmas 1915 and you can listen to it on You Tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG8SN-Eci3U This song describes a short truce involving the troops on both sides creating a temporary spontaneous pauce in the fighting.

There were a couple of occassions when this happened during the war. The first one happened on Christmas eve December 24, 1914. That night the Germans put lighted candles along their trenches and raised Christmas trees in the region of Ypres, Belgium. The British responded by singing Christmas carols. Then they shouted Christmas greetings from one line of trenches to the other. In short time, me climbed out of the trenches to meet in No Man’s Land where they exchanged gifts of tobacco, food or alcohol. Joint services were held. There were no artillery attacks that night. The next day the fighting resumed.The same thing happened again on Christmas eve 1915 the Germans shouted Christmas greetings which was followed by joint singing Christmas carols and Christmas greetings. At dawn on Christmas day, instead of the artillery starting up, soldiers on both sides began to climb out of the trenches and met in No Mans Land. Some one produced a football and it was thrown around. Cigarettes were exchanged and for a day the fighting stopped.

But, as the lyrics of the song explain, the truce was only a brief pause and soon the fighting and killing then resumed again. Here are the lyrics to the song which tells the story. (lyrics are written by Cormac MacConnell) 

Christmas 1915
1915 on Christmas Day
On western front the guns all died away
And laying in the mud on bags of sand
We heard the German sing from no man's land
He tenor voice so pure and true
The words were strange but every note we knew
Soaring ore the the living dead and dammed
The German sang of peace from no man's land

They left their trenches and we left ours
Beneath tin hats the smiles bloomed like wild flowers
With photos cigarettes and bottles of wine
We built a soldier's truce on the front line
Their singer was a lad of 21
We begged another song before the dawn
And sitting in the mud and blood and fear
He sang again the song all longed to hear

Silent night, no cannons roar
A king is born of peace for evermore
All's calm, all's bright
All brothers hand in hand
In 19 and 15 in no man's land

And in the morning sll guns boomed in the rain
And we killed them and they killed us again
At night they charged we fought them hand in hand
And i killed the boy that sang in no man's land

Silent night no cannons roar
A king is born of peace for evermore
All's calm, all's bright
All brothers hand in hand
And that young soldier sings
And the song of peace still rings
Though the captains and all the kings
Built no man's land
Sleep in heavenly peace

 

One thought on “WORLD WAR ONE & CHRISTMAS 1915

  1. Thanks for the song!

    Why, oh why, did the soldiers not lock their arms, literally, and pull their captains into the breach of war, that peace that everyone recognizes? I often wonder how the chaotic Nazi thugs could take over an educated civilized and sentimental people. Especially after WWI, still fresh in memory, dispensed with all of the putative “glory and honor” of war.

    And even today, so many are hot to head for the trenches. The mystery of these two — peace and hostilities. The kampfire songs.

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