02.20.07
Christmas Truce of 1914 - Rites of Spring
The first part of Sr. Seminar was based on Modris Ecksteins’ Rites of Spring. While we are not completely done with the book as I write this, we did turn in the first of our papers for this semester.
The assignment was to answer this question:
According to Eksteins, what was the significance of the Christmas cease fire in December 1914? Why does he argue that it could never happen again during the Great War? Do you find his argument(s) convincing? Why or why not?
As mentioned in the book review, this is a dense and chewy book, provoking lots of thoughts, not all of them congruent. In essence, I found the significance of the truce as a call to some of the “old fixities.”
Britain’s Edwardian and Victorian social mores called for a following of sportsmanlike behaviour and believed that even though soldiers were on the field to kill each other, it still had to be done in a sporting manner.
Germany, on the other hand, had become a unified country not so long before the war and was in the throes of birth pangs, so to speak. The Germans believed in the internal, metaphysical search for meaning. It was almost tone deaf in the ways it dealt with the rest of Europe and clearly didn’t understand why its actions caused such an uproar. Germany believed its ways were superior and wanted to be a major actor on the European stage.
At Christmas, 1914 the war was only 4 months old. Everyone concerned still believed it would be a short war. With Britain’s call to mannerliness and Germany’s almost adolescent belief in its place in the world, the truce sprung up spontaneously. Many, many books have been written about World War I, and the significance of the Christmas Truce.
One of the things I find significant about it is that it was the last of its kind, and the potential for a major impact on the rest of the world and the future history.
My friend C put it this way, “everyone still had money so they were inundated with packages from the government and from home that were treasured but overwhelming.” Add to this plethora of riches, the prevailing Christmas spirit, the newness of the way and the belief it was only a matter of time before it was over and a change in the weather that lifted spirits because the mud was frozen over enough to walk on which meant trench repair could be effected.
In my mind, it was the last time in any war that the tension between old and modern created an atmosphere where such behaviour was accepted by the men fighting the war. The truce was not officially condoned but happened nonetheless.
After the New Year things returned to “normal” but new technologies that wracked the sense of mannerliness were put to use. The Germans introduced mustard gas, those in power made the war one of attrition and ground down the morale of the soldiers. It was a one-time event and the a grand puzzle that is debated almost 100 years later.