Ypres, Belgium, about 20 miles east of the English Channel, occupied a strategic position during the First World War. It was at the center of the German attempt to quickly subdue France in an operation called The Schlieffen Plan, devised by Count Alfred von Schlieffen in 1906. Because the area was so important, three major battles were fought there during the war.
The First Battle of Ypres, was actually five major battles that occurred from October 19 to November 22, 1914, culminating in the allied capture of the town from the Germans. But the cost was frightful. On the allied side the British, French, and Belgian forces lost a combined 150,000 men. The toll on the German side came to a little over 134,000. Exhausted after five weeks of horrific fighting, the two sides dug in and settled into an uneasy stalemate. As the winter cold set in, soldiers on both sides knew that they were in for a long, dismal war, from which many of them would never return.
But despite the bloody battles, an extraordinary event began on the evening of December 24th that first year of the war. On that Christmas Eve, temperatures dropped below freezing, with light snow wafting down from the heavens above. Suddenly lights appeared on the German side. The British braced for an attack, but instead of gunfire, they heard the German version of a familiar Christmas carol.
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht, alles schläft, einsam wacht
Nur das traute hoch heilige Paar. Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar.
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh’, Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh’
After applauding the German effort, the British responded with the English version of Silent Night. “First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours,” wrote Graham Williams of the Fifth London Rifle Brigade. “Until when we started up O Come, All Ye Faithful, the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words Adeste Fideles. And I thought, well, this is really a most extraordinary thing—two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.” The caroling continued well through the night.
The next morning the Germans held up signs in English saying, “You no shoot, we no shoot.” With that a few perhaps foolhardy Germans poked their heads above the trenches. When no shots were fired, a few English soldiers did the same.
Fifteen miles south of Ypres, in Houplines, France, British Captain Charles Stockwell of the 2nd Royal Welsh Fusiliers spotted a German officer of similar rank on the other side, who gestured that he wanted for them to meet in the middle of what was called “no-man’s land.” Cheers erupted from both sides as the two men met, saluted, and shook hands. “He seemed a decent fellow,” Captain Stockwell later testified. “The Saxons were shouting, ‘Don’t shoot. We don’t want to fight today. We will give you some beer’.”
At this point all caution was cast aside as soldiers from both sides emerged in mass from their trenches to meet in the middle of no man’s land. “We shook hands, wished each other a Merry Xmas and were soon conversing as if we had known each other for years,” wrote Scottish Corporal John Ferguson of the Seaforth Highlanders. “Here we were laughing and chatting to men whom only a few hours before we were trying to kill!”
The western front stretched some 400 miles from the channel coast to Switzerland. Along that line a number of truces occurred, but in no other place were they as warm and friendly as in the Ypres area, the sight of the recent, appalling bloodshed. In a few places, they engaged in friendly soccer matches, sometimes substituting a tin can for a ball.
“We marked the goals with our caps,” recalled German Lieutenant Johannes Niemann. “Teams were quickly established for a match on the frozen mud, and the Fritzes (Germans) beat the Tommies (British) 3-2.”
The truce provided an opportunity for the two sides to retrieve and bury their dead. In several places the soldiers held joint services, mourning the losses on both sides. At one such service they read the 23rd Psalm.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
As the sun set on that Christmas Day, the soldiers retreated to their respective trenches. At 8:30am on the 26th Captain Charles Stockwell fired three shots into the air and raised a flag that read “Merry Christmas.” His German counterpart, with whom he had shaken hands the day before raised a flag that read “Thank you.” The two men saluted each other. Then Stockwell’s counterpart fired two shots in the air—and the war was on again.
One British soldier wrote a letter that following day, describing the event. “I wouldn’t have missed the experience of yesterday for the most gorgeous Christmas dinner in England.”
Another British soldier, Murdoch M. Wood, later said “I then came to the conclusion that I have held very firmly ever since, that if we had been left to ourselves, there would never have been another shot fired.”
Not everyone participated in the truce. An apocryphal story has it that a young corporal of the German 16th Bavarians chided his fellow soldiers, “Such a thing should not happen in wartime. Have you no German sense of honor?” His name? Adolf Hitler.
Though World War I was to stretch on through three more Christmas’s, the informal truce of 1914 was never repeated. Orders from higher up on both sides strictly forbade future “fraternizing with the enemy.” But at least for one marvelous day men remembered the words of Luke 2:14, when a multitude of angels on that first Christmas proclaimed, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. Would that many of us would remember those same words this Christmas season.
