In the first winter of the First World War, millions of young men faced each other across muddy trenches in Belgium and France. Between the trenches lay a strip of ground called no-man's-land, full of barbed wire, where anyone who stood up could be shot. Both sides were mostly Christian. Both sides prayed to the same God to help them win.
And then, on Christmas Eve, something happened that nobody had planned.
Candles on the trenches
Along parts of the front, German soldiers set small Christmas trees with candles on the tops of their trenches. Then they began to sing. One of the songs was "Silent Night," in German.
British soldiers, listening in the dark, sang back. Carols drifted back and forth across no-man's-land.
Then, in place after place, men called out to each other. Someone climbed out, unarmed. Then another.
Shaking hands
On Christmas Day, soldiers from both sides met in the middle. They shook hands. They swapped cigarettes, chocolate, buttons and caps as gifts. They showed each other photos of their families. Many of them were very young and very far from home.
In some places, they helped each other bury the dead who had been lying between the lines. Some held a short service together. A few soldiers wrote home about playing football in the frozen field.
The truce was not everywhere. In some places the fighting went on, and some officers were furious. In the years after, commanders made sure it did not happen again. The war went on for four more years, and millions died.
But for a day or two, enemies stood together and remembered they were all human beings.
Why it matters
On the night Jesus was born, Luke's Gospel tells, angels told shepherds about peace.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Luke 2:14 · King James VersionThe original Greek
Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας.
Found in Codex Vaticanus (about AD 325), Codex Sinaiticus (about AD 350).
The oldest copies read "on earth peace among people of good will." The King James Version follows later copies: "good will toward men."
For one Christmas, men who had been ordered to kill each other lived out a small piece of that. And as adults, many of them had heard Jesus's words their whole lives: love your enemies.
What it means for us
We have to be honest about this story too. The same Christian countries that sang carols together sent their sons to kill each other, and churches on both sides blessed the war. That is part of our history.
What the truce shows is that even in the worst place, people can choose peace for a moment. You probably have someone in your life you see as an enemy. You do not have to solve everything between you. But you could take one small step toward peace this Christmas: a kind word, a card, a hand held out.