'Silent Night' brings to life one of the most unlikely and touching events in the annals of war. The First World War had been underway for only a few months but had already been stalemated into the brutality of trench warfare. As Christmas approached, men on both sides - Germans, British, Belgians and French - laid down their arms and joined together in a spontaneous celebration with their enemy. For a brief, blissful time a world war stopped.
In this book, Stanley Weintraub has written a beautiful and moving evocation of this astonishing episode in history based on firsthand accounts from both the German and the allied side. He recreates through letters, diaries and unit reports, the gradual lull in hostilities as Christmas approached and then the first tentative overtures as men bravely stood up unarmed as a gesture of peace under the watchful eyes of the snipers.
Soldiers lit candles, decorated Christmas trees and serenaded each other with carols. Along the Western Front, troops from both sides ventured out into No Man's Land to exchange gifts and food, smoke, drink and even play football.
Stanley Weintraub establishes that between-the-trenches football, which has been thought of as an isolated aberration or even a myth, was actually played at many places along the front lines. Never free from the horrors of trench warfare, the truce also gave men the opportunity to bury their dead.
The soldiers defied orders, firing harmlessly into the air and warning about artillery barrages they could not stop. But, reluctantly, the truce dissolved as unavoidable pressure from above was brought to bear and the men were forced to re-start history's most horrific war.
Stanley Weintraub brilliantly conveys this strange episode, which is also one of the most extraordinary of Christmas stories. Tellingly, he also examines what might have happened if the soldiers had been able to continue the truce.
