December 01, 2025

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The Christmas Truce of 1914

It was 24 December 1914. The first shots fired during World War I had occurred five months earlier. Now, soldiers from Great Britain and France found themselves facing their German counterparts in a treeless expanse along the French- Belgian border. Life in the trenches was wet and cold. Death from artillery fire, sniper attack or a full-scale assault was a constant threat. Then something remarkable happenedPeace broke out. From Thursday, 24 December, to Saturday, 26 December, 1,00,000 troops from both sides laid down their guns to celebrate Christmas. Non-commissioned soldiers and officers alike left their mudfilled trenches and met in between, in an area called No Man's Land. There, they sang carols, exchanged gifts and conducted the solemn act of burying their dead. At one point, it's been reported, 100 soldiers from both sides played a game of soccer"The Christmas truce was unique, and nothing like it happened again to that scale," says Anthony Richards of England's Imperial War Museums. "Immediately after the truce, the high command of both sides stepped in to make sure that fraternization and ceasefires like this would not happen in the same way." And it didn't. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace estimated that 9.7 million soldiers from dozens of nations lost their lives in World War IBut for a brief period, humanity held sway. One witness to this remarkable event was a British captain named Reginald John "Jake" Armes. In a letter to his wife, he described how it unfolded.

I Am My Mother's Older Brother

FOR A LONG time, it was my fervent wish that my parents would come live with me after their retirement. But my father died, and my mother refused. She insisted on living entirely on her own terms. Only when she became completely dependent in every way, did my wish come true. I am my mother's eldest, the one who first gave her the experience of childbirth and of being a mother. All her ideas of how to raise children with care and a scientific temperament she put into practice on me. By the time my sister and brother came along, idealism had given way to practicalityWhen I was five years old, her older brother--who was also her father, mother, and best friend--went underground to organise landless peasants to take up arms against landlords. It was a great loss to my mother. She needed to talk about him, and in me she found a rapt and sympathetic listener. In this way, she transmitted to me his ideals, which she shared--justice, equality, solidarity with the poor and oppressedGrowing up in the small South Indian town of Kakinada, I was keenly sensitive to my mother's troubles in life. She was burdened every morning with the drudgery of cleaning dishes, washing clothes, cooking. Then hurrying off to college to give lectures in history. When she returned late in the evening, again she had to cook and clean. In her appearance, she was extremely modest, partly because we had little to spend and partly because she had no time to think of clothes or jewellery. Her personality was a curious mix. To almost everyone, friend or stranger, she was pleasing to a fault. But when it came to confronting social evils, as when she stood up in public meetings to make a speech, she was fierce. Many people admired her: neighbours, her students, my father's students, my teachers, my classmates, their parents, activists of all kinds. They came to her for solace and advice, and she would always go out of her way to help themThe year after my mother retired, my father died. She was then 59 years old, and for the first time in her life, she was alone. I flew home from New York to be with her. For once, she wasn't all smiles when I met her, glowing with delight, saying endearing things, giving me news of relatives and friends, cooking specially for me, boiling water for my bath. She was not the helper and consoler but the one in need of support.