Joyeux Noel and a Moment of Peace in World War I

For the past week I've been reading the news of the military skirmishes between the Israelis and Hamas in the Gaza Strip with a sense of sadness. I have to admit that I am not very knowledgeable about the issues that have lead up to this latest fight between the two, but after the terrorism in Mumbai, both events just seemed tragic reminders of the problems in this world.

My wife had gotten the movie Joyeux Noel from Netflix, and as I watched the film yesterday night, I began to think about the Palestinians and the Israelis and the tragic history that prevents them from living together in peace.

Joyeux Noel is based on an actual event that took place during Christmas in 1914 in the trenches of the Western Front .

The movie begins with British, French and German school boys reciting the propaganda that their schools taught them to hate their country's rivals. It then focuses on various individuals that make up the French, Scottish and German troops along a stretch of trench lines. On the night before Christmas, the Scottish troops regal each other with Christmas songs accompanied by bagpipes. Across the battlefield, a German singer then regales his comrades with a rendition of Adeste Fideles. When the German singer hears applause from the French and Scottish lines, he bravely walks unarmed into no man's land to plant a Christmas tree in the middle of the battle field. Soon the Scottish, German and French officers meet in the battlefield and agree on a ceasefire for the eve Christmas. The soldiers leave their trenches and begin to share with each other photos of their wives and loved ones, share chocolate and toast each other with champaigne. Two soldiers find out that a cat that they both love has been traveling from the French line to the German lines. An Episcopalian Scottish priest says an impromptu latin mass that the French, Scottish and German troops participate in. The next day, they help each other bury their dead, then play a soccer match and they shelter each other from artillery attacks. A German officer made an effort to find out if the wife of the French officer in occupied France had delivered the Frenchman's baby. The French officer shelters the German singer and his wife who no longer want to fight the war. Eventually their superior officers find out about the fraternizations and they quickly punish the officers and the troops for their moment of shared humanity.

Joyeux Noel is a film that helps reminds us that the people to whom we often disagree with and consider our enemies are also human beings with their own loved ones and dreams and frustrations. The Germans, Scottish and French were taught to view each other as evil, yet on that Christmas day in 1914, they reached out and saw they had more in common than their governments taught them about, they too had wives and parents and children. When they realize that they have to go back to their respective lines to continue fighting the war, they wish each other luck and hope that they could survive the war and perhaps visit each other as civilians.

It also gives a stark window into the war mentality that forces soldiers to dehumanize other people to make it easier for soldiers to kill. The commanding officers from each country punish the soldiers for the Christmas day actions, and they bring in new troops to replace them in the front lines and indoctrinate them. In real life, according to wikipedia:

"The truce occurred in spite of opposition at higher levels of the military. Earlier in the autumn, a call by Pope Benedict XV for an official truce between the warring governments had been ignored.

British commanders Sir John French and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien vowed that no such truce would be allowed again, although both had left command before Christmas 1915. In all of the following years of the war, artillery bombardments were ordered on Christmas Eve to ensure that there were no further lulls in the combat. Troops were also rotated through various sectors of the front to prevent them from becoming overly familiar with the enemy. Despite those measures, there were a few friendly encounters between enemy soldiers, but on a much smaller scale than in 1914."

I first heard about this event in a Paul McCartney video The Pipes of Peace . As I read today's headlines about the fight in the Gaza Strip, I hope those Israelis and Palestinians who just want to live in peace eventually find a way to achieve their goals.