The Christmas Truce of 1914 and its relevance in 2023
Phyllis Bennis looks back to the famous Christmas Truce of 1914 to emphasize the need for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza War:
Daily marches, protests, sit-ins in small towns and big cities from coast to coast [in the US] are happening with such frequency it’s almost impossible to keep track. A cavalcade of public letters, walk-outs, resignations, and acts of resistance from federal workers — from State Department officials to White House interns — all say they can no longer remain silent in the face of U.S. support for Israel’s assault. All are demanding a cease-fire.
The urgency of the moment, the non-stop killing playing out in real time, visible to everyone with a cell phone all around the world, has brought many into political engagement for the first time. More than 19,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including more than 7,000 children. More than 50,000 others have been wounded, thousands remain missing or under rubble, and more than 85% of Gaza’s entire population has been displaced.1
Mike Dash describes the 1914 Christmas Truce in a 2011 article for Smithsonian Magazine.2
William Faulkner’s novel A Fable (1954) is basically an alternative history of what might have happened if the 1914 Christmas Peace, a peaceful mutiny, had spread much more widely and had been sustained for longer. Michael Millgate calls it “the work in which Faulkner made by far his greatest investment of time, effort, and authorial commitment.”3
This is a video giving a popular account - if a bit grumpy in parts - on the 1914 event from the History Hit Network4:
It closes a bit oddly with a British commentator sneering at the idea that it meant anything at all beyond and weird and inexplicable break in the slaughter.
Joseph , writing for War on the Rocks, takes a wider view: “I find remarkably deep meaning in the events of the Christmas Truce for no other reason than that among so much destruction, no amount of hatred or bitterness could overcome their common humanity.”5
Bennis, Phyllis (2023): The Christmas Truce of 1914 and the Demand for a Cease-Fire in Gaza. In These Times 12/20/2020. <https://inthesetimes.com/article/christmas-truce-1914-wwi-gaza-israel-palestine-ceasefire> (Accessed: 2023-20-12).
Dash, Mike (2011): The Story of the WWI Christmas Truce. Smithsonian Magazine 12/23/2011. <https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-story-of-the-wwi-christmas-truce-11972213/> (Accessed: 2023-20-12).
Millgate, Michael (2023): William Faulkner. Britannica Online 12/16/2023. <https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Faulkner> (Accessed: 2023-20-12).
Silent Night: The Story Of The Christmas Truce | WW1 Christmas Truce. Timeline-World History Documentaries YouTube channel 12/25/2020. (Accessed: 2023-20-12).
Eanett, Joseph (2020): The Last Gasp of Peace: The Christmas Truce of 1914 and the Modern Profession of Arms. War on the Rocks 12/25/2020. <https://warontherocks.com/2020/12/the-last-gasp-of-peace-the-christmas-truce-of-1914-and-the-modern-profession-of-arms/> (Accessed: 2023-20-12).