The Great War episode 2 Stalemate

The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century, a KCET/BBC co-production in association with The Imperial War Museum, 1996

>>As WWI began, the British correspondent,
Philip Gibbs, was reporting from Paris.

>>[Gibbs] In those first days of the
war I saw many scenes of farewell.

Hundreds of women were in the
crowd waving handkerchiefs.

The sting of parting was forgotten in the
enthusiasm and pride which rose up to

those who were on their way to fight for
France and to uphold their old traditions.

I could see no tears then but my own.

I was seized with an
emotion that made me shudder.

For beyond the pageantry of the
cavalcade I saw the fields of war.

[explosions and gun fire]

I smelled the stench of blood for I had
been in the muck and misery of war before.

And had seen the convoys of wounded
crawling down the rutty roads.

With men who had been strong
and fine, now shattered, twisted,

and made hideous by pain.

[music]

>>This program was made possible by a
grant from the National Endowment for

the Humanities, a Federal agency that
supports research, education, and

humanities programs for
the general public.

And by the Arthur Vining
Davis Foundations.

Funding for this program was also
provided by the Corporation for Public

Broadcasting, and by annual financial
support from viewers like you.

[music]

[bell ringing]

>>When the call to arms
was read in Germany,

a young student named Walter Lemmer
was eager to serve his country.

>>[Walter] August 3, 1914,
at last I have got my orders.

Dear Mother, please try to keep constantly
before your mind what I have realized.

If at this time we think of ourselves and those
who belong to us, we shall be petty and weak.

We must have a broad outlook and think
of our nation, our Fatherland, of God.

>>All across Europe, soldiers
were mobilizing for war,

saying goodbye to their families
and rushing to the front.

>>[Walter] Our march to the station
was a gripping and uplifting experience.

It seemed as if one lived through as much in that
one hour as ordinarily in months and years.

This hour is one such as seldom
strikes in the life of a nation.

[crowd cheering]

>>Not everyone was as excited as
Walter Lemmer. Some were terrified.

But, the German army
had never lost a war.

The strategy called the Schlieffen plan
was daring and required precision timing.

In the east, the Russian
army would be held at bay.

In the west, the German army would avoid
France's line for forts by sweeping west

through neutral Belgium and then turning
in a huge arc south into France.

The French army would
be destroyed in Paris.

The war on the western front
would be over by Christmas.

Then the German army
would turn to Russia.

The German Kaiser, Wilhelm II,
summed up the plan in a phrase:

"Paris for lunch,
dinner in St. Petersburg."

>>[Walter] My dear ones, be proud that you
live in such a time, and in such a nation.

And that you too have the privilege of
sending several of those you love into

this glorious struggle. It is a joy to
go to the front with such comrades.

We are bound to be victorious.

>>Walter Lemmer's illusions of
victory were about to vanish.

For what awaited him was a new kind of
war. He was killed in his first battle.

[music]

On the morning of August 4, 1914, the German
cavalry crossed the border into Belgium.

Facing them was an army
of the last century.

The small Belgian force
was poorly equipped.

Now they face the world's
mightiest army, ten times their size.

The Belgians could have allowed Germany
to pass through their territory.

Instead, they chose to fight.

Belgium's only hope rested with the
forts ringing the gateway city of Liège.

This complex of underground fortresses was
considered one of the strongest positions in Europe.

But, the German army had planned for the
forts and unveiled a secret weapon...

...Big Bertha, the world's largest cannon.

Concrete forts, once thought impregnable,
collapsed from Big Bertha's one ton shells.

Some Belgian soldiers went mad in
anticipation of the next explosion.

Others swore they would
fight to the last man.

>>[Belgian soldier] The fort is now in
ruins. We are in complete darkness and

scarcely able to breath on account
of the poisonous and noxious gases.

A truce bearer demanded the surrender of
the fort. We prefer dying to surrendering.

>>The Belgian commander was knocked
senseless in the final bombardment.

When he awoke he was a
prisoner of the Germans.

"I was taken unconscious," he told his captors.
"Be sure to put that in your dispatches."

The German army began flooding
across the Belgian plains.

They expected no further resistance,
but to their surprise,

Belgian snipers, known as
francs-tireurs, started shooting.

>>[Fritz Nagel] War for Belgium
soon became a hideous experience

because the population
took part in the fight.

>>Fritz Nagel was a
frightened German soldier.

He saw the fear of those around him turn into
acts of reprisal against innocent civilians.

>>[Fritz] Unless they shot first,
nobody knew where the enemy was.

Whenever they had the chance, they
shot down German soldiers. [gun shots]

There was little defense against that
sort of warfare because the streets were

full of civilians and
so were the houses.

It was nerve-wracking
in the extreme.

And resulted in savage and merciless
slaughter at the slightest provocation.

As we marched towards Louvain,
frightened civilians lined the streets,

hands held high as a
sign of surrender.

To see those frightened men, women,
and children was a terrible sight.

And now the German soldier
was frightened too.

>>[Wolfgang Mommsen] Once the opinion comes
up that there is systematic [inaudible] action,

then you get the orders from
above to be as harsh as possible

in order to stifle this
from the very first moment.

And that triggers off this wave of rather violent
actions, and atrocities, against the civilian population.

>>Ten civilians, the Belgians were threatened,
would die for every German killed.

The Germans made good
on their word.

Hundreds of men, women, and
children were round up and shot.

Word of the atrocities quickly spread.
With each retelling they became more vicious.

Soon images of a less-than-human
German Hun began appearing.

Exaggerated stories were taken as fact
and found their way into newspapers:

"British war correspondents in Belgium have
seen little murdered children with roasted feet."

"This was done by German troops. Men
with children of their own at home or

with little brothers and sisters of the same age
as the innocents they tortured before killing."

"The things done to Belgian girls and
women are so unspeakably dreadful

that the deeds cannot be printed."

>>[Jay Winter] Many of the stories that
rapidly became well-known through the

press formed the basis of a very substantial,
probably the first substantial,

propaganda campaign in history. And it
gave the allies an extraordinary weapon

because what it suggested was that
the Germans committed atrocities,

not because they were soldiers, not
because they were occupiers of Belgium,

but because they were Germans. There was
something genetic about their viciousness.

And this was made into
the imagery of the Hun.

>>The Belgians had held up the German
army only a few days, but the real cost

to Germany was the image of the violation
of a small nation fighting for survival.

The symbol of poor, little Belgium would
haunt the Germans for years to come.

[sound of typing]

>>[Philip Gibbs] The thunderbolt
fell with its signal of war and

in a few days Paris was changed
as though by some wizard's spell.

A hush fell upon Montmartre and the
musicians and its orchestras packed up

their instruments and scurried with scared
faces to Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest.

The Seine River was very
quiet beneath its bridges.

The women were hiding in their rooms,
asking God how they were going to live

now that their lovers
had gone away to fight.

>>Journalist, Philip Gibbs, was in
France at the outbreak of war.

Forbidden to travel with the army, he
reported from Paris, a city he found in shock.

>>[Gibbs] There was no wild
outbreak of Jingo fever,

no demonstrations of bloodlust against
Germany, in Paris or any town in France.

The call to arms came without any
loud clamor of bugles or orations.

The quietness of Paris was astounding.

>>This was not the first time France
had gone to war against Germany.

In 1871, a victorious Germany had taken as spoils of war
two of France's richest provinces: Alsace and Lorainne.

Now a new generation of France's sons
was called upon to defend their nation.

>>[Madame Drumont] The continuous
stream flows out towards death.

Soldiers pass, singing and shouting:
"to Berlin!" Others go by in silence,

fierce-looking and determined. On this scene
of desolation the sun shown gloriously,

indifferent to the
troubles of this Earth.

>>The call to arms cut
across all social boundaries.

Madame Camille Drumont, a
member of France's upper class,

was not spared the
pain of saying goodbye.

Her son was among those going off to war.
"Would she ever see him again," she worried.

Or simply be left with a
house filled with memories.

>>[Drumont] Now that the quiet of evening is falling
I am thinking more than ever of you, my darling child.

Where are you?

What are you doing?

This morning I went into the drawing
room and my eyes fell on your violin.

I burst into tears and
ran from the room.

>>Like most in Paris, Madame Drumont
was not ready for another war,

but the French commander
believed his army was ready.

Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre
was a champion of the offensive.

Speed and bravery were
of the essence.

"The bayonet," he told his soldiers,
"was a supreme weapon for victory."

>>[Trevor Wilson] The infantry, bearing
their bayonets, their rifles with bayonets,

are really intended to terrify the
enemy by the sight of cold steel.

It is believed that an attacking force
will look so ferocious and will behave

so ferociously that an enemy will quail before the
sheer valor and the bravery of this oncoming force.

>>[Gibbs] In the dawn and pallid sunlight
of the morning, they came across the bridges

with glinting rifles. And the blue coats
and red trousers of the infantry made

them look, in the distance, like tin
soldiers from a children's play box.

I close my eyes to shut out the glare
and glitter of this kaleidoscope.

What does it all mean?
This surging of armed men?

What would it mean in a day or two when
another tide of men had swept up against it?

>>Joffre was determined to strike out against
Germany and win back France's lost provinces.

Mistakenly believing that the Belgian
thrust was a diversionary attack,

most of the French army moved northeast
toward Alsace and Lorraine.

Paul Lantier, a young French soldier, was
about to enter battle for the first time.

He was ready, he wrote in his diary, "to
sacrifice his life to retake the soil of France."

[gun shots]

>>[Lantier] I felt a choking
sensation grip my throat.

The hour had come for me
to sacrifice my life.

My bleeding body would lie stretched out on
the field. I seem to see it, it was the end.

It had not been long in
coming for I am only 21.

>>Against heavy artillery and machine guns,
Lantier's courage counted for little.

His regiment lined up in formation better suited
to the 19th century and advanced in full view.

>>[Lantier] Shells continue to fly
over us. The enemy was advancing.

Entire companies of
infantry fell back.

We had lost the battle.
I did not know why or how.

>>[Mommsen] They were devastated.
The French were slaughtered.

Many of them were still wearing the brightly colored
uniforms that armies used to wear in the past.

Now, in the past, armies wore brightly
colored uniforms because there was so much

smoke on the battlefield that if you didn't
have bright uniforms you couldn't see who

were your friends and
who were your enemies.

With the invention of long range rifles and machine
guns, with the invention of smokeless power,

this was not a problem. The problem was if you wore
a bright uniform you were a very conspicuous target.

>>In 4 days, over 40,000 French soldiers
were killed. 27,000 alone on August 22, 1914.

The bloodiest day in
French military history.

Soon the French army
was in retreat.

>>[French soldier] A deep sense of shame
oppressed us as we filed through these villages,

which we were powerless to protect. Which
we were abandoning to the fury of the enemy.

>>As the French army fell back,
Joffre notified his government.

In 12 days the Germans would
be at the walls of Paris.

"Would the city be ready,"
he asked, "to withstand a seize?"

Everyone who could, fled from the advancing Germans.
Rails and roads were flooded with refugees.

Madame Drumont watched
them stream passed her window.

>>[Drumont] One can imagine nothing more dismal
than the stream of fugitives along the roads of France.

We saw them passing by our houses,
coming from goodness knows where.

Piled up on carts with their animals, their
bedding, and all their household goods.

They had come through Paris, their horses almost dropping
with fatigue, to seek a refuge in some friendly district.

But, where that would
be, they knew not.

For the moment their only idea was to go a long,
long way off to the other ends of the earth.

>>As the German army neared Paris,
Madame Camille Drumont chose to flee too.

She escaped by train for the French coast.

>>[Drumont] Trains full of soldiers, and even of
wounded, were hung up like us on parallel lines.

All this confusion brought home to one the
panic and terror of this herd of human beings

who, in order to escape from the enemy, were
rushing headlong into inconceivable troubles.

Another train had also drawn up,
and in the moonlight,

the two trains looked like
long funeral processions.

With my face in my hands I was crying.

All of a sudden the most exquisite
song rose in the tragic night.

The voice came from the other train.
It was a man's voice,

and he sang the serenade from
"The Damnation of Faust."

[singing in French]

This song lifted my spirits from
gloom and my soul from despair.

In the moonlight in the midst of all this
human misery and distress it was sublime.

>>Refugees were fleeing the
face of war in Germany, too.

They were escaping from two Russian armies who were
invading Germany in support of their French allies.

The Kaiser was urged by his commanders to pull
his forces back, but he would hear nothing of it.

He appointed two new commanders, Paul
von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff,

to stop the Russian advance. The Russian army was an
enormous force, outnumbering the Germans 4 to 1.

But, they were poorly
trained and incompetently led.

>>[Orlando Figes] The general staff had quarters
that resembled more a gentlemen's club than it did

a military headquarters. After dinner
they'd have plenty of time for cigars.

Most of the generals had plenty of
time to write voluminous memoirs.

And they had a really outdated
notion of military strategy.

They believed that the bravery of the Russian
soldier would be enough to see Russia through.

>>Bravery was no substitute
for modern weapons.

Even in the first days, artillery
shells had to be rationed.

Some soldiers went into
battle without a rifle.

The Russian commanders, Paul von Rennenkampf and
Alexander Samsonov, were not even on speaking terms.

To bypass a 50 mile chain of lakes the
Russian generals split their armies in two.

The Germans pounced on the opportunity.
They moved their forces south

where they outnumbered and surrounded
Samsonov's army at the battle of Tannenberg.

[gunshots]

>>[Alfred Knox] The German machine guns were
deadly. Mowing down rows of Russians immediately

as they raised themselves in the
potato fields to fire or to advance.

>>Alfred Knox was a British military officer
assigned to observe the Russian advance.

Instead he witnessed the
annihilation of Samsonov's army.

>>[Knox] Samsonov said repeatedly that the disgrace
of such a defeat was more than he could bear.

"The emperor trusted me. How can
I face him after such a disaster."

He went aside and his staff heard a shot.

They searched for his body without success,
but all are convinced that he shot himself.

>>[Jay Winter] What happened was is Samsonov could
not stand the shame of defeat and took his own life.

This is the only case in the first World
War where one of the commanding generals

in a major operation is killed in the course of that
operation. And almost certainly by his own hand.

>>The battle of Tannenberg was Germany's
greatest victory of the entire war.

100,000 Russians were taken prisoner.

30,000 were dead.

>>[Figes] The Russian commanders were trying to
stop the German war machine simply by throwing at it

a mountain of human bodies. The French military
attaché consoled with the Grand Duke Nicholai,

the commander and chief, over these
loses and Nicholai's response was

"It's an honor to make such
a sacrifice for our allies."

>>However disastrous, the Russians had
diverted German troops away from France.

Blood would continue to be shed in the east, but the
decisive battles would now take place on the western front.

[music]

Of all the powers in Europe, Britain
alone relied on a volunteer army.

The minister of war, Earl Kitchener,
was deeply pessimistic.

He believed Britain's small
army would not last long.

The war, Kitchener predicted, would take
3 years and require millions of recruits.

From town halls to church pulpits, men
were urged to take up the "call to arms."

The Yorkshire Post reported how a soccer
match turned into a recruiting drive.

[crowd cheering]

>>[reporter] Stirring scenes were witnessed
on the Leeds City football club's ground

last evening at the end of the match. The Lord Mayor
addressed a crowd of about 4,000 spectators.

There was a spirited rush across
the field and rousing cheers.

Up the steps sturdy, young fellows came to
receive an armlet of ribbon with the national colors.

And to win, perchance with their comrades,
an imperishable glory on the battlefield.

When the rush subsided, it was found
that the number of volunteers was 149.

The lady mayoress called for a further 51.

Another dash was made. Another
round of prolonged cheering.

And to the chorus of "It's a Long Way to
Tipperary" the quota was quickly filled.

[music]

>>From the football field, the recruits
marched to the town hall to enlist.

They found volunteering was
not the same as being accepted.

There were height and chest requirements. They had
to have good teeth and be between the ages of 19-30.

Everyone was encouraged to enlist with his friends.
"Join up with your pals," soon became the recruiting slogan.

[singing] Another little drink. Another little
drink. Another little drink wouldn't do any harm.

Another little drink.
Another little drink..

>>These men joined to defend
their homes, their pubs, their pals.

>>[British man] Well, I said, "I've joined
now. I can't do any more." Well, she said,

"You can either have me or the pals." I said,
"Well, it's got to be the pals." [laughter]

>>Another little drink. Another little drink
won't do any harm. Another little drink...

>>[British man] They asked me my height and
I told them. They hummed and hawed about it.

I'm 5 foot 6 so I filled my shoes with papers.
Anyway, I says, "well, there's my pals joining.

Six of us all joining, all footballers." So, they says,
"Ah, go on, let him go in." So, I was one of the midgets.

>>After the initial rush the
number of volunteers dwindled,

but it would rise again following news of the
British army's huge loses in Belgium and France.

[singing] As the train moved out he said,
'Remember me to all the birds.'

Then he wagged his paw and went away to war
Shouting out these pathetic words:

Goodbye-ee, goodbye-ee,
Wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee,

Tho' it's hard to part I know,
I'll be tickled to death to go.

[bugle music]

>>As volunteers jammed recruiting stations, the
regular British army began crossing the English channel.

Among them was a 20-year-old
Irishman, John Lucy.

Long before the war, he and his brother had joined the
army to escape the boredom of life on an Irish farm.

>>[John Lucy] We were tired of fathers, of advice
from relations, of bottled coffee essence,

of school, and of newspaper offices.

The cattle, fowl, eggs, butter, bacon, and the
talk of politics filled us with loathing.

As a matter of fact, we were full of life and the
spirit of adventure and wanted to spread our wings.

We got adventure! We enlisted.

At first, we could not follow the trend of
events on the continent. Who were we to fight?

French, Russians, Germans?
What did it matter?

The doors of that rapid-fire of ours followed by
an Irish bayonet charge, would soon fix things.

>>On August 23rd, John Lucy's unit
reached the Belgian town of Mons.

The next day they faced a German force
outnumbering them nearly 3 to 1.

The Germans attacked in waves, advancing
shoulder-to-shoulder over open fields.

[gunshots and shouting]

>>[John Lucy] Our rapid fire was appalling even
to us, and the worst marksman could not miss.

And after the first shock of seeing men slowly
and helplessly falling down as they were hit,

gave us a great sense
of power and pleasure.

It was all so easy.

>>But, it only seemed so.

The next morning, John Lucy was surprised to hear
that the British army was being ordered to retreat.

>>[Trevor Wilson] The British were facing such
an overwhelming force, if they stood there they

would be destroyed. So, for 13 days the British
army is in retreat and John Lucy and his brother

just foot-slog back all the way over hundreds
of miles, from Belgium to just outside Paris.

>>[John Lucy] Every cell in
our bodies craved rest.

Men slipped while they marched and they dreamed
as they walked. They talked of their homes,

of their wives and mothers, of their
simple ambitions, of beer and cozy pubs,

and they talked of fantasies. The brains of soldiers
became clouded while their feet moved automatically.

>>Like the British and French,
the German army was also exhausted.

As the German right flank drove deeper, it
separated from the rest of the invading force.

Recognizing their vulnerability, the
Germans pulled up 25 miles before Paris.

Now it was France's chance to attack. But, to fail
this time would be to lose Paris and the entire war.

Every available French soldier
was rushed to the front.

Paul Lantier was surprised to see
even taxi cabs headed for battle.

>>[Lantier] Inside the cabs I caught a glimpse
of soldiers sleeping. "Wounded?" asked somebody.

"No," came the answer from a passing car, "it's the
7th division from Paris. They're off to the front."

>>What followed was a battle of the Marne.
It lasted 6 days and involved 2 million men.

When the battle ended the
German advance had been stopped.

Paris was saved. The
Schlieffen Plan was in ruins.

But, stopping the Germans
was not the same as [inaudible].

To survive against the modern weapons of war,
soldiers abandoned their 19th century tactics

of open warfare and began digging into the earth.
Trenches spread mile after mile. Stalemate was born.

>>[Wilson] And this is the first time that the British
are up against the realities of trench warfare.

And they are absolutely baffled as to why they
have not been able to drive the Germans back,

have not been able to break through.
This is for them, a whole new phenomenon.

>>Reaching stalemate was the
bloodiest period of the entire war.

In 5 months, 400,000
French soldiers were killed.

German casualties were
just as staggering.

The small British force
had been almost wiped out.

John Lucy had survived,
but not his brother.

>>[John Lucy] I dreamed of him at night.
And once he appeared to visit me,

laying a hand on each of my shoulders. Telling me he
was all right. I felt relieved after this curious dream.

I was too weary to
appreciate my own luck.

My eyes weakened, wandered and rested on
the half-hidden corpses of men and youth.

Proudly and sorrowfully
I looked at them,

The Macs and the O's,

and the hardy Ulster boys joined
together in death on a foreign field.

My dead chums.

>>No one knew that 1914
would end in stalemate.

In an attempt to break out of the trenches, all kinds of
inventions, some more medieval than modern, were tried.

Iron netting to protect
eyes from flying shrapnel.

Bullet-stopping body armor.

Mobile encasements for
advancing across no-man's-land.

All were totally useless.

The best they could do was
to continue digging into the earth.

Soldiers who thought the war would be over by
Christmas found themselves living in ditches.

>>[Paul Fussell] The first thing was it smelled
bad. It smelled bad because there were open

latrines everywhere. They weren't always used by
the troops. There were bodies rotting everywhere.

Both the Germans and the
British were troubled with rats.

The rats ate corpses and then they came in and
snuggled next to you while you were sleeping.

Sky study becomes one
of your few amusements.

You never see your enemy and the only thing
you can see is the sky up above actually.

>>Living in the trenches, some men
thought, was like being buried alive.

To stay sane soldiers sang songs, wrote
letters home, and relied on their humor.

>>[soldier] I've a little, wet home in a trench,
Where the rain storms continually drench;

There's a dead cow close by with her feet towards
the sky and she gives off a terrible stench.

Underneath in the place of a floor
there's a massive wet moat and some straw.

But, with shells dropping there, there's no place
to compare with my little, wet home in the trench.

>>But, the brutality of war
could not be laughed away.

The German soldier, Franz Blumenfeld, wrote
home of the strain of living in a trench.

>>[Franz] Dear Mother, Your wishing you could provide
me with a bullet-proof vest is very sweet of you,

but strange to say I have no fear, none at all,
of bullets and shells, but only of this great

spiritual loneliness.

I am afraid of losing my faith in human nature,
in myself, in all that is good in the world!

How is it possible that it gives me
more pain to bear my own loneliness

than to witness the suffering
of so many others?

What is the good of escaping all the bullets
and shells, if my soul is injured? -Franz

>>A few yards away, the British and
French were enduring the same hardships.

To stay alive, soldiers conspired to limit the
killing. It was called "live and let live."

>>[Wilson] Command made it clear that a certain
number of shells had to go over every day in

order to make life
miserable for the enemy.

But, ok, you've sent them over at that time of
day when the enemy would not be having dinner.

You wouldn't fire at a position where you
were likely to hurt many of the enemy.

You actually hadn't done the enemy a lot of damage,
but then he hadn't done you a lot of damage.

And therefore you would
live to fight another day.

>>[Franz] Dear Mother, I have now
got so used to the life here that

I am extremely sorry that I wrote
you such a miserable letter at first.

We neither shoot nor are shot at much. Our
occupations consist chiefly of sleeping,

eating, playing chess, writing
letters, and reading the paper.

When someone makes music on a harmonica and
the others softly or loudly hum the same tune,

really it can be astonishingly snug.
You see, it is quite a pleasant life. -Franz

>>"Live and let live" did not
save the life of Franz Blumenfeld.

He was killed 11 days before Christmas. One of a
million soldiers who died on the western front in 1914.

On Christmas Eve, 1914, temperatures
dropped below freezing on the western front.

In some places it began
snowing, obscuring the moon.

Then all across the German lines,
lights began to appear.

At first, the British thought the
Germans were preparing to attack.

But, instead of rifle fire, sounds of
singing drifted across no-man's-land.

[singing in German]

>>[Peter Simkins] Germans would be
heard singing "Stille nacht, heilige nacht."

The British would respond
with a British Christmas carol.

In some places food was thrown
over to the opposing trenches.

In one or two instances the Germans erected Christmas
trees and there was a kind of mutual curiosity.

And certainly instances of soldiers
applauding each other's singing.

>>The curiosity led to something never
again repeated on the battlefield.

>>[Simkins] In one or two places on
Christmas Day itself, the first curious,

slightly head-strong people perhaps,
poked their heads above the trenches.

Being made aware that somebody over on the
other side wasn't going to shoot it off,

then clamored cautiously out.

>>One of the first to take part
was Captain Charles Stockwell.

>>[Charles] I ran out into the trench and
found the Saxons (Germans) were shouting,

"Don't shoot! We don't want to fight
today. We will send you some beer."

A German officer appeared and walked
out into the middle of no-man's-land.

So, I moved out to meet him amidst the cheers
of both sides. We met and formally saluted.

He introduced himself as Count something-or
-other. And seemed a very decent fellow.

>>By now these soldiers knew that the
war was going to last a long time.

And that many of them would not survive.

The unofficial truce was a chance to bury
the dead. At one funeral in no-man's-land,

soldiers from both sides gathered to honor
the fallen by reading the 23rd Psalm:

"The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.

He maketh me lie down in green pastures;
he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me in the
paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."

>>[Fussell] The Christmas truce was
the last twitch of the 19th century.

By that I mean it was the last public moment
in which it was assumed that people were nice.

It was the last gesture that human beings were
getting better the longer the human race goes on.

>>[soldier] December the 26th, at 8:30 I fired 3 shots in
the air and put up a flag with "Merry Christmas" on it.

The Germans put up a sheet with "thank you" on it.
And the German captain appeared on the parapet.

We both bowed and saluted.
He fired 2 shots in the air.

And the war was on again.

[gunshots]