“Silent Night, Silent Guns”: a Review of Tim Demy’s book on the Christmas Truce of 1914

Dec 26, 2022 by

by Eric Patterson, Providence Magazine:

Europe is once again at war.  The Ukraine-Russia war is part of the same geographical context of the last two great European wars, the intersection of Central and Eastern Europe, where Germans, Russians, and others have fought over the lands of smaller groups in the lands that we know today as Poland and Ukraine.  Today’s conflict shows little sign of abating, despite the call to peace that Christmas brings.

The first World War, what its survivors knew as the Great War, drew all of Europe in, from Russia to England.  But the real start of the bloodshed was Germany dramatic invasion of France via the Low Countries in August 1914.  By the autumn that initiative became bogged down in that soggy and ugly zone of barbed wire, trenches, and destruction we all know as the Western Front.  Despite the devastation, as Tim Demy relates in his new book, Silent Night, Silent Guns: The 1914 Christmas Truce, a Christmas miracle occurred, a fleeting, yet beautiful, moment of peace on earth.

Demy, a former Navy chaplain, Naval War College professor, and author tells a tale that is simple yet complex.  At posts along the front lines, it appears that German troops began to set up Christmas trees and sing carols.  It was not long before both sides began to lower their weapons, with a few brave souls making overtures of Christmas amity.  Greetings halloed across the trenches turned into meetings in the No Man’s Land between the barbed wire.  Rations were shared, such as German beer and English biscuits.  In one section a friendly choral competition ensued as the Germans would belt out a favorite hymn, to be answered by British carols.  Of course, among all the glad tidings was the simply German carol, “Silent Night.”

Silent Night, Holy Night

All is calm, all is bright…

Demy’s compelling book suggests many of the practical reasons such an informal ceasefire could occur on December 24-25, 1914.  As TIME records, the trenches were near freezing and full of water.  What better way to get out of the muck than to take the chance that one’s opponents were equally miserable and might have a shred of Christmas spirit?  Much of the fraternization seems to have happened between British units and German units of Saxon, rather than Prussian, origin.  The French and Belgian troops were the most aggrieved parties and far less likely to look on the German aggressors with charity.  So, too, there were many among the Germans who had worked as waiter, cooks, and drivers in London only to be called home from the war.  One famous account is of a German barber, lately of Britain, who provided a haircut for one of his former English customers during the truce!

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