
What really happened in the Christmas truce of 1914? - jstewartmobile
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zxsfyrd
======
freedomben
If anybody hasn't listened to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History series on WW1
called, "Blueprint for Armageddon," I can't recommend it highly enough. He
goes into very good detail about the war, including the Christmas Truce, and
it is fascinating.

Blueprint for Armageddon is currently in the RSS feed, but if you wait too
long you'll need to drop some $ to buy it. I listened to it for free but paid
the man anyway because it's incredible.

~~~
Jedd
There's some challenges to the accuracy of his analysis. [1]

Robert Newman in his History of Oil [2] proposes an interesting alternative
interpretation / explanation of the events around the start of WWI. Also very
highly recommended.

[1]
[https://amp.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3v63nh/dan_carl...](https://amp.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3v63nh/dan_carlins_blueprint_for_armageddon_has_7/)

[2] [https://youtu.be/Qu47fIkIsY8](https://youtu.be/Qu47fIkIsY8)

~~~
valuearb
The only challenges to the accuracy of Carlin’s showa are pedantic and
nitpicky.

~~~
freedomben
I agree. You can tell he puts a tremendous emphasis on accuracy and quality,
but sometimes you make mistakes when you are operating on a shoe-string
budget.

Overall his stuff is pretty accurate. When doing a series that's like 20 hours
long, you're bound to say _something_ inaccurate from time to time. While he
does do a tremendous amount of research for the shows, and he tries hard to be
accurate, he is also a master story-teller.

I surprises me a little that he didn't make a big deal about it. I would think
he would correct it. In fact often he opens a podcast with correcting any
errors from the previous one. Not sure I fully buy that. Would like to hear
Dan's side of the story.

------
eksemplar
What a weird and needless article, it clearly had the agenda of de-
romanticizing the truce events, but basically goes on to confirm that
everything, you think happened, actually happened.

Obviously you can view history from different social constructs, but for me at
least, this article did little but waste the time it took to read. I do
realize that having studied history and being interested in this event in
particular, I was probably going to know what the article contained, but I was
still disappointed by it.

~~~
bsder
> Obviously you can view history from different social constructs, but for me
> at least, this article did little but waste the time it took to read.

Well, the fact that these were some of the _LAST_ temporary truces and that
the high command was actively terrified by these kinds of events and raised
them to court martial offenses was something I hadn't known before.

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
There's also - not mentioned in the BBC piece - a class/political component to
that.

The left end of the political spectrum was holding on to "proletarian
internationalism", and agitated for workers of one nation refusing to shoot at
workers of another.

The fears of the top brass came into being in Russia, where the Bolsheviks
used the war as the main lever to gain power in November 1917, because the
democratic parties didn't end the war in the February revolution.

(Unexpectedly, really, the prime target for revolutionary upheaval was
industrialized Germany.)

------
lostlogin
> Back in Britain, German battleships shelled the coastal towns of Whitby,
> Hartlepool and Scarborough, killing 122 and injuring 450 civilian men, women
> and children.

My grandparents had a piece of one of the shell mounted on the wall in the
dining room, and it’s now in mine. Someone made a small hexagonal wooden
plaque and mounted a bit of shrapnel in the middle of it.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_Scarborough,_Hartlep...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_Scarborough,_Hartlepool_and_Whitby)

------
DanAndersen
Putting a recommendation here for the "Extra History" cartoon video series,
which has a couple new videos about the Christmas Truce:

Part 1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUlPNWDvk-c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUlPNWDvk-c)

Part 2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pey-
HmXGfs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pey-HmXGfs)

The artwork is fun and the creator treats the historical material with a
decent amount of respect (which might be surprising considering the cartoon
nature of it).

~~~
digi_owl
While i love the series, and their orignal Extra Credits series on gaming, i
can't shake the feel that the quality has been sagging as of late. Their
latest show, Extra SciFi, comes across as almost "metaphysical".

------
jbkahn
I always like to plug my favorite YouTube series The Great War, they had an
episode on this: [https://youtu.be/SpqVblMPRB4](https://youtu.be/SpqVblMPRB4)

------
333c
I had the honor this month of playing a bugle call in a production of All is
Calm, which is a musical/radio show about the Christmas Truce. Essentially all
of the dialog comes verbatim from the journals and letters of the soldiers who
were there. If you're interested, I suggest listening to the recording of the
original production:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCF720B19AE784B23](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCF720B19AE784B23)

------
cirrus-clouds
A British supermarket chain (Sainsbury's) created an expensive Christmas
advert on this topic in 2014:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM)

------
jonas123
If I understood correctly there's no evidence for such a football game. In the
new Doctor Who episode from today – funnily being set around this event – they
show a scene in which soldiers play football together.

~~~
wldcordeiro
No evidence of a full game, but "kick arounds" are mentioned as having
happened.

------
fiatjaf
Clickbait title, but apparently has some interesting material.

The best things, however, remain the letters and memories of soldiers.

------
LV-426
> The few reports of a football match between forces have endured for a
> century, but what has contributed to the focus on this part of the story?

Because it's passed down through generations, told in schools, appeared in the
video for Paul McCartney's hit song _Pipes of Peace_ and _is a remarkable
example of humanity and unlikely camaraderie in an otherwise monstrous 4-year
slaughter_.

Very modest of the BBC to suggest it's because of a BBC comedy series from
1989, though, which I don't remember even depicting a football game.

~~~
vidarh
The Blackadder episode in question is renowned for being seen as so poignant
it was repeated as part of BBCs Armistice Day coverage that year. I can't find
viewership numbers but I'd be surprised if the Paul McCartney video in
question has been viewed anywhere near as much. If anything many have accused
the Blackadder series in question of largely shaping modern perception of WWI

You don't remember it depicting a football game because it didn't - it comes
up as one of the characters reminisces about the Christmas truce.

That said the article gives that as just one of a number of examples of how
the story has been perpetuated.

------
junkscience2017
It's a long way to Tipperary? By Christmas 1914 the war's brutality was not
yet in full effect. Within one year of the Christmas truce neither side would
be particularly interested in splitting a bottle of Sherry. Poison gas came on
the menu instead. By 1918 they were shooting at each other within minutes of
the scheduled final ceasefire, when there was literally nothing to be gained
beyond watching an enemy die one last time.

I'm not sure why the Christmas Truce continues to fascinate...it amounted to
nothing in the grand scheme of the conflict other than to expose the final
shred of naivete on both sides.

~~~
gerdesj
Not sure why you were DV'd. We all have some insight on events that happened a
long time go and yours is not unreasonable.

------
johansch
"This content is currently not available on this device. Please try again
later."

VPN time I guess...

(Location: Sweden)

~~~
lostlogin
Working from New Zealand - I have a VPN specifically for BBC content but it’s
not on at the moment.

~~~
johansch
Maybe it's a Commonwealth thing? :)

~~~
salad77
<humor>There's plenty of opportunities for former members (e.g. USA) to re-
apply to join in the post-Brexit world. One of the many benefits could be
access to the BBC iPlayer !</humor>

~~~
brians
We will be happy to accept application for statehood from England. I expect
Scotland to rejoin the EU.

󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿?

~~~
mikestew
OT: I wonder why there’s a skull/question mark overlapping where the reply
button should be? Something something Unicode, but for static text like
“reply”? iOS 11 on an iPhone 6.

EDIT: page refresh and the reply button shows up, still with the unrendendered
Unicode bit.

~~~
taejo
It's a sequence of Unicode characters that's supposed to render as the Welsh
flag. The first character U+1F3F4 BLACK FLAG seems to be missing (at least
when I copy and paste it); that's followed by "tag letters" from the
U+E0061-U+E007A spelling "gbwls". See
[https://unicode.org/reports/tr51/#valid-emoji-tag-
sequences](https://unicode.org/reports/tr51/#valid-emoji-tag-sequences)

I think the BLACK FLAG is getting removed by HN's emoji filtering, but the
modifier characters after it are remaining.

~~~
mikestew
Thanks for the explanation. On my phone, so tools for diagnosis are lacking,
but it sounds like you might know your Unicode better than I do anyway. :-)

