Whether it rises from a congregation in a chapel or drifts in multiple languages across the carnage of no man’s land, Silent Night is a Christmas carol that wields with its soothing melody and reverent words a remarkable power to unify. Whether that unity lasts, though, depends on us.
Bits and pieces of stories I’ve heard through the years have established in my mind a hazy understanding that Silent Night was the catalyst for a Christmas truce on the battlefields of…some war. I’ve had World War II in my head, but before I wrote a post extolling this beloved carol for bringing two enemies out of their trenches in the 1940s to spend Christmas together, I thought I should have more than a foggy idea of what exactly happened when.
My research has left me in a whole new kind of fog.
A Truce in a German Forest
There was a Christmas truce of sorts during World War II at the time of The Battle of the Bulge, called by a German woman who, with her son, found their small cabin in the forest filled on Christmas Eve with three American and four German soldiers. The lost Americans, one of them severely wounded, found her first. As she roasted for them the chicken meant to be her own family’s Christmas dinner, the Germans arrived, also seeking shelter.
Through the terror of being caught in the treasonous act of harboring the enemy, she told them they were welcome, but there were others inside who they would not consider friends. One of them demanded whether they were Americans. She said firmly, “It is the Holy Night, and there will be no shooting here.”
She made them leave their weapons outside, put the Americans’ weapons out with them, and they passed the night in peace, parting ways in the same manner the next morning. The Germans even offered the Americans a compass and directions to find their army again.
Unfortunately, this truce wasn’t widespread. Not that Christmas or any Christmas for the war’s duration. Not since 1914.
Did Silent Night Really Call a Truce?
It was only a few months into World War I. No one believed the conflict would last much longer than that, but events were proving their optimism grossly overstated. Come Christmas, all the glory of going off to fight had disappeared in the misery and filth of the trenches.
The Pope asked “that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang,” but the idea was rejected. It seems officials were doing all in their power to prevent, not encourage, interaction with the enemy.
Sometimes opposing trenches were near enough they could hear the enemy and smell their cooking. According to an article in Time magazine, “The commander of the British Second Corps, General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, believed this proximity posed ‘the greatest danger’ to the morale of soldiers and told Divisional Commanders to explicitly prohibit any ‘friendly intercourse with the enemy.’ In a memo issued on Dec. 5, he warned that: ‘troops in trenches in close proximity to the enemy slide very easily, if permitted to do so, into a “live and let live” theory of life.”
If just smelling the enemy’s cooking could elicit such a “dangerous” mindset, I guess no one wanted to find out what a Christmas truce would do.
So, across the front, many guns paid no attention to Christmas.
But also across the front, for a day and in some places until New Year’s, about 100,000 soldiers paid no attention to their guns.
Time states that most accounts suggest the truce began with carol singing. One specifically mentions an exchange of carols between sides until they started O Come All Ye Faithful, when the Germans, instead of waiting for them to finish, joined in with Adeste Fideles.
I didn’t find any account about how the gentle tones of “Stille nacht, heilige nacht” pierced the hearts of British soldiers and opened their eyes to the humanity of their German enemies. Or how the returning “Silent night, holy night” did the same for the Germans. All the snippets of details from that Christmas Day are so numerous and varied, it seems nearly impossible to say with certainty what exactly happened or how it came about.
But whether it was the official miracle worker of 1914 or not, I don’t doubt Silent Night played a starring role.
The Aftermath
After burying their dead, who had lain unreachable in no man’s land for weeks, after exchanging small gifts and apparently even enjoying a friendly game of soccer, they returned to their trenches. One British soldier 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.”
Instead, the war raged another three years and claimed upwards of 16 million lives. Not counting civilians. Some troops attempted Christmas truces again, and there were a few small successes, but officials warned that anyone caught fraternizing with the enemy would be severely punished.
As the war ground on, its horrors hardened its soldiers, and the events of 1914 were never repeated. Not on that scale.
Are you shaking your head yet?
That’s all I could do as I read all this.
War Doesn’t Make Sense
I don’t pretend to understand the nuances of war. I’m certainly no scholar in this one, so I can’t say there weren’t good reasons for prohibiting “friendly intercourse with the enemy”. The danger of spies, maybe? Of losing sight of the cause you’re fighting for? And consequently, the fight?
I suppose while you may find individuals among the enemy who are as human as you, with beliefs, hopes, traditions, and families, who love, feel, and hurt just like you, they are still driving a force that threatens all you stand for and hold dear. Your freedom, your happiness, your life. Maybe it’s easier to kill that force when you don’t get personal with any faces within it.
But would there be a force to drive anymore, or anyone left to drive it, if you got personal with those faces? Let them get personal with you? If every soldier on every battlefield on Christmas Day of 1914 had rubbed shoulders with the enemy in a temporary truce–would it have only been temporary? Would there have been an enemy anymore?
I wonder how many soldiers sat in their trenches after that friendly exchange and asked themselves, “What the hell are we doing here?” (Pardon the language, but there’s no other way to say it when you’re in a trench.)
The question had to have been rampant on both sides as they picked up their guns again and started shooting the men they’d just played soccer with. Sung Silent Night with. Given their buttons, cigarettes, and candy to. Made friends with.
I can’t make sense of it. I don’t know how they could.
Don’t Let History Repeat Itself
World War I happened how it happened, so who can say how it might have gone differently if only? Would an official Christmas truce across the entire battlefront have been enough to end it all? Or would it still have taken three more years of horror to do that? Was it a tragic waste of life that didn’t have to happen? Or the only way to win the fight?
We’ll never know.
But we can learn from it. If we try in our own lives to do what they wouldn’t or couldn’t, perhaps we won’t have to ask of our journey, as I and no doubt countless others have asked of that war, “Did it have to be that way?” We won’t have to wonder how it might have been because we’ll be at peace with how it was. Or at least with how we handled ourselves. If we couldn’t end a war, at least we’ll know we didn’t contribute to it anymore.
It takes getting close enough to see people as people. It takes finding common ground. And holding it. That means you don’t go back to the trenches when Christmas is over. It means you don’t pick up your weapon again to shoot at someone who can only be a friend when you’re singing Silent Night together.
If you knew why they were a friend when you sang Silent Night together, you wouldn’t want to. In fact, you might agree with me that the whole concept of a Christmas truce–one that ends when Christmas does–is actually kind of absurd.
What a Christmas Truce Should Be
I’ve never fought in a filthy trench on a frozen battlefield. But I’ve been in wars and trenches of my own. Isolated and weary. Cold and lonely. From that place, I’ve come together with a congregation at Christmastime to sing Silent Night. And realized how much I have in common with so many people I thought I was miles away from.
Life has brought us all our own unique experiences, led us on our own individual paths, and sometimes in the shuffle, we’ve found ourselves not only on different roads from each other but on opposite sides of a few proverbial fences. Yet we all sing Silent Night with the same reverence because whatever our differences, we agree that we have a Savior, that his name is Jesus Christ, and that we need him.
He is our common ground.
Which is why it makes no sense to only stand on it for Christmas.
“Let the hostilities cease while we remember the birth of Jesus, and then you can start shooting again.”
In other words, shake hands over his manger and then throw in his face the very reason he came to lie there.
I’m not saying that’s what the Pope or anyone else had in mind when they called for a Christmas truce. War is complicated. Considering how it went just suggesting a Christmas truce, I don’t suppose asking for a truce period would have gone over well.
But if it’s a true Christmas truce, entered out of a common love for Jesus Christ, a common reverence for the events of that silent night and everything that followed, a truce period should be an automatic byproduct.
Let That Silent Night Influence the Whole Year
There are so many facets of war and just as many facets of ending them. It’s beyond the scope of this post to go into all the balances you have to find.
How to make peace with an enemy who won’t make peace with you.
How to not go back to a trench when life is the trench. When you never actually get out of it for Christmas, only pretend to because that’s the best you can do.
The care you have to take to not sacrifice principles for peace, to love your enemy, but not at the expense of standing for truth. There is right and wrong, and sometimes wrong’s greatest triumphs are carried on the shoulders of people who were just trying to love their neighbor. Love is not turning a blind eye.
Life and all its struggle is a delicate process and a complicated journey we all have to prayerfully figure out for ourselves. The message of this post is simply to say that while you’re figuring it out, whatever trenches you’re in, whatever enemy you’re up against, whatever no man’s land you’re staring across—put Christ at its center. See what light he sheds on you and everything around you. And notice how many people are trying to do the same thing.
Then, when Christmas is over, keep him there. And see what happens.
Have a merry Christmas, and may the peace of Silent Night be the catalyst for a truly happy new year.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, the everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6
Thank you for reading. I hope these words may infuse peace in your Christmas season and the year that lies ahead. Please share this post if it’s touched your heart in some way, leave a comment, and have a merry Christmas!
“Silent Night” Lyrics
Words by Joseph Mohr Music by Franz Gruber Silent night! Holy night! All is calm; all is bright 'Round yon virgin mother and Child, Holy Infant so tender and mild. Sleep in heavenly peace; Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night! Holy night! Shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from heaven afar; Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia; Christ the Savior is born! Christ the Savior is born! Silent night! Holy night! Son of God, love's pure light Radiant beams from thy holy face, With the dawn of redeeming grace, Jesus, Lord, at thy birth, Jesus, Lord, at thy birth.
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