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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.4144
EAN: 9780452283671
ISBN: 0452283671
Label: Plume
Manufacturer: Plume
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: October 29, 2002
Publisher: Plume
Sales Rank: 16648
Studio: Plume
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
In the early months of World War I, on Christmas Eve, men on both sides of the trenches laid down their arms and joined in a spontaneous celebration. Despite orders to continue shooting, the unofficial truce spread across the front lines. Even the participants found what they were doing incredible: Germans placed candlelit Christmas trees on trench parapets, warring soldiers sang carols, and men on both sides shared food parcels from home. They climbed from the trenches to meet in 'No Man's Land' where they buried the dead, exchanged gifts, ate and drank together, and even played soccer.
Throughout his narrative, Stanley Weintraub uses the stories of the men who were there, as well as their letters and diaries, to illuminate the fragile truce and bring to life this extraordinary moment in time.
Amazon.com Review:
History is peppered with oddments and ironies, and one of the strangest is this. A few days before the first Christmas of that long bloodletting then called the Great War, hundreds of thousands of cold, trench-bound combatants put aside their arms and, in defiance of their orders, tacitly agreed to stop the killing in honor of the holiday.
That informal truce began with small acts: here opposing Scottish and German troops would toss newspapers, ration tins, and friendly remarks across the lines; there ambulance parties, clearing the dead from the barbwire hell of no man's land, would stop to share cigarettes and handshakes. Soon it spread, so that by Christmas Eve the armies of France, England, and Germany were serenading each other with Christmas carols and sentimental ballads and denouncing the conflict with cries of 'Á bas la guerre!' and 'Nie wieder Krieg!' The truce was, writes Stanley Weintraub, a remarkable episode, and, though 'dismissed in official histories as an aberration of no consequence,' it was so compelling that many who observed it wrote in near-disbelief to their families and hometown newspapers to report the extraordinary event.
In the end, writes Weintraub, the truce ended with a few stray bullets that escalated into total war, and that would fill the air for just shy of four more Christmases to come; further, isolated attempts at informal peacemaking would fail. But what, Weintraub wonders at the close of this inspired study, would have happened if the soldiers on both sides had refused to take up arms again? His counterfactual scenarios are intriguing, and well worth pondering. -- Gregory McNamee
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Why Not Always?
The book was, in my opinion, well written and thoroughly researched. Much of it included letters home written by soldiers of both sides, which I found interesting to read.
This book, without intending (I don't think), makes the point that politicians and old men declare wars, while it is the young who must fight and die. Most of the soldiers had no qualms with the other side, and some even made friends, as you'll learn through reading.
I read this book in only a couple days. It's a fast read, but not the type of book to read in one afternoon.
Rating: - Hard to put the book down
Three or four years ago there were a number of features on NPR and elsewhere about The Christmas Truce of 1914. The story is amazing and simple at the same time. I wondered what more could be added in a full book. The author fleshes out the story with lots of detail added from many sources.
While the story is amazing, I found the book to be a broader study of fraternization between opposing soldiers. That has been going on through the centuries. In the Battle of Chattanooga during the US Civil War opposing soldiers sometimes crossed the Tennessee River for card games and dances together. This book explains how and why enemies can share time together in friendly pursuits.
I had always wondered about the language barrier in The Christmas Truce, but many of the German soldiers had worked in London as waiters and had learned English. One English soldier met his old barber among the German soldiers in the other trenches, and even got a haircut from him on the battlefield!
The book is very interesting to read and worth the time, although, I found the "What if..." chapter not that useful.
Rating: - Silent night
On Christmas day our Pastor included parts of this book in his sermon.
He did not have all the facts, so as a present we sent him this book.
He wrote us a kind thank you note stating how much he enjoyed the book.
Food for thought.
thanks
Rating: - Thank you
I saw a thing on the history channel, and it was breif, and at the end so I didn't get the whole story, so I hope this books helps.
Rating:  - fascinating
This book gave me for the first a real understanding of the Christmas Truce in No Man's Land in 1914. To see details of the events from all sides was great. It made me wonder why they just went back to the killing after it.
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