I’ve watched 5 films about the subject of this film to choose the one I’m running today, about the little-reported Christmas Truce of World War One, which occurred in several locations along the Western Front, in what is called The Great War of 1914-1918.
This was a moment when the Germans and the British broke ranks and sang the same Christmas carols, in the same tune but in their different languages. This was followed by many garrisons trading their scarce goods among each other and playing football. These soldiers – like most soldiers – were kids, barely in their 20s.
Finally, their commanders prevailed upon them to resume shooting at each other.
Before British forces were successfully indoctrinated against their enemy, as one British soldier who survived here reports, “We were very much against the…policy of the German government…and the Kaiser, particularly – but the individual Germans, well, we thought they were just doing their job, the same ways we were…being shot was an occupational hazard and it applied to both sides and that’s the way which we sort of looked at it.”
Over 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians died as a result of this war (including the victims of a number of genocides). WWI was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and it paved the way for major political changes, including the subsequent revolutions in many of the nations involved, most of which were social-engineering tests against these nations’ own populations.
All wars are bankers wars. All soldiers are cannon fodder, fighting on behalf of gargantuan financial interests. This has always been the case in living memory.
I pray that all soldiers involved in any active conflict today question whether what they’re involved in is indeed righteous.
Merry Christmas.
