Tag Archives: peace

Christmas 1914 in No Man’s Land

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Christmas Eve 1914:

Christmas Eve 1914, stars were burning, burning bright
And all along the Western front guns were lying still and quiet
Men lay dozing in the trenches, in the cold and in the dark
And far away behind the lines the village dog began tae bark

Some lay thinking of their families, some sang songs while others were quiet
Rolling fags and playing brag to pass away that Christmas night
As they watched the German trenches, something moved in no man’s land
Through the dark there came a soldier carrying a white flag in his hand

Then from both sides men came running, crossing into no man’s land
Through the barbed wire, mud and shell-holes, shyly stood there shaking hands
Fritz brought out cigars and brandy, Tommy brought corned beef and fags
Stood there talking, shyly laughing, as the moon shone down on no man’s land

Then Christmas Day we all played football in the mud of no man’s land
Tommy brought some Christmas pudding, Fritz brought out a German band
When they beat us at the football we shared out all our grub and drink
Then Fritz showed me a faded photo of a brown-haired girl back in Berlin

For four days after no one fired, not one shell disturbed the night
For old Fritz and Tommy Atkins, they’d both lost their will to fight
So they withdrew us from the trenches, sent us far behind the lines
Sent fresh lads to take our places and told the guns, Prepare to fire

And next night in 1914, flares were burning, burning bright
The orders came, Prepare offensive! Over the top your going tonight
And men stood waiting in the trenches, looked out across our football park
As all along the Western front the Christmas guns began tae bark

And men stood waiting in the trenches, looked out across our football park
As all along the Western front the Christmas guns began tae bark

[1987:]

In no-man’s-land, between the British and the German trenches during the Christmas truce of that year [1914], an extraordinary event occurred.

“The night was cold. We sang, they applauded. Our lines were only two hundred feet apart. We played the mouth organ, they sang, then we applauded. They produced a set of bagpipes and played their poetic tunes.
Men were waving torches and cheering. We had prepared grog and drank a toast.”

[Letter] from a German soldier. –

From both sides men came running, and soon were fraternizing “in the most genuine possible manner. Every sort of souvenir was exchanged, addresses given and received.” A German N.C.O. with an Iron Cross, gained “for conspicuous skill in sniping, started his fellows off on some marching tune. I set the note for the Bonnie Boys of Scotland, and so we went on and ended up with Auld Lang Syne which we all – English, Scots, Irish, Prussians and Wurttembergers – joined in.”

[Diary] of a British Captain. – From some old rags and cord a makeshift football was made, and by the light of flares the two sides played a game of soccer, their previous deadly activities forgotten. (Notes Danny
Doyle, ’20 Years A-Growing’)

[1988:] At some points a “live and let live” system evolved – a means of existence involving tacit co-operation between the sides, recognizing a rough parity of forces. […] One was to have an unspoken agreement […] not to shell latrines nor to open fire during breakfast. Another was to make as
much noise as possible before a minor raid, so that the other side could withdraw to their protected bunkers. This limitation on hostilities did not exist everywhere and was stamped on by command when it came to light. But even such informal arrangements as survived could be quickly buried,
along with men killed by snipers, by the odd shell, or gas. The fraternization that did go on briefly between the lines on Christmas Day 1914 did not characterize the way the war was fought in the trenches.
Violence was always below the surface, ready to explode. (J.M. Winter, The Experience of World War I, 133ff)

The Machinery of Habit

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A piece I wrote four years ago, The Burgh: Downsizing,” examines the nature of change and habit in relation to urban economies transformed by globalization and war.

“The boys come in and the beer flows. Ricardo tells us about training. Four-mile runs, 200 push-ups every morning, wall-climbing. “They break you, man,” he shakes his head.  “They make you tough.

“I said I hoped so, considering where he was going. But Melanie, who studies the theology of the medieval anchoress Juliana of Norwich and sells papers on a corner in Oakland for the Socialist Worker, is more worried about his getting into what she calls killing mode. I ask her if a mode is the same as a habit. It takes time after all to form a habit. A mode on the other hand sounds like a gearshift on an Audi. And if you can shift into a gear, you can shift out. Maybe it’s really a question of what sort of habits. Learning, retraining, moving need effort. They don’t come easily. But war is a machinery that moves on its own and blood-lust, like a winter flu, might be easy to pick up and impossible to get rid of.

War and demolition come too easily to human nature. And take away too much. Anything worth pursuing, on the other hand, needs to be stalked through the years with the patience and vigilance of a hunter, cultivated through seasons of scarcity and remembered in times of forgetting. In our sophistication we laugh at those who buy dear and hold dearer. Who stay when they should have left. Bag holders. Fools. Who step into the river and expect the waters to stay the same. The immobilized in our mobile society. What is the value of an abandoned church, an obsolete mill, an aging worker? Flux, we shrug, is the only certainty. Change is the first law of nature.

“People talk about joining but they don’t,” says Ricardo,  “I’m the only one who did.” He sounds proud.
“I ask him if he thinks good health insurance and tuition money are worth risking his life for.  He laughs.
“Look — I ain’t gonna die. Most of the guys who teach me, they’ve been there. They got through. More chances I’d get shot in a ghetto. So some guy’s lost an arm…or a leg. So what? All this new technology now, reconstruction…they can make you another leg; it’s really no big deal.”

At 26, you can think of that as a good trade. An amputation of the body or the mind is all it takes to keep up with change. Like those translucent lizards which shed their tails seasonally as they wait immobile and vigilant for flies on dusty window sills, we might grow new limbs just as good. New memories to replace old ones. Here in the hills, at the confluence of three rivers, we have learned not to resist the laws of nature.

“But perhaps we don’t live by nature alone. Perhaps, as Juliana of Norwich said, we also need mercy and grace.”

“The need to change and the machinery of habit that makes it difficult – a theme I find myself returning to , over and over, especially when I’m confronted with the depressing spectacle of people going back to the same propaganda, the same bogus assertions that caused this global catastrophe in the first place.

Going back, like dogs to vomit.

I’m sorry if that sounds ugly, but what’s happening now in DC is ugly….and very very dangerous.

Prince of Peace Loses With Christian Neocons

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From the Lew Rockwell blog:

“The Christian neocons voted for Huckabee for president at their Value Voters Summit today in Dee-Cee. There was a virtual four-way tie for second: Romney, Pawlenty, Palin, and Pence. No reports in the media on Ron Paul’s votes, but given that the VVs booed him during the presidential campaign for saying that he worshipped the Prince of Peace, who could be surprised?”