Christmas 1914

In the Cotswolds, along the Rhine, throughout Paris, church bells ring celebrating
the birth of the Christ Child. Near the Western Front of this war to end all wars
bells toll for the perished. Christmas Eve, the trenches. Living dead huddle,
ghosts acclimating to their graves, covered in mud and blood and the blather
of officers exhorting them over the top to win less territory in a week than the
length of a dead man’s outstretched body. Hymns echo in churches and
cathedrals, and suddenly, as tentative as a first kiss, along the battle lines
as well, bringing soldiers from both sides, zombies picking their way through
fog and the dead to meet, weaponless, in no man’s land where they might
reclaim their humanity. Hands clasp rough enemy hands, arms drape around
broad foreign shoulders. Cigarettes and mementos are exchanged. Ale, schnapps,
and wine flow. There is song and dance, and soccer games are played, the
soldiers gamboling about like lambs. Light comes, wraithlike figures retire to their
respective bastions, and the stillness, soft as a Sunday morning, holds. Safely
behind the killing fields great generals fume, but the common men of Christmas pray, reflect, celebrate this thing called life. Only a few, including a young Austrian corporal, Adolph Hitler, decry their comrades’ divine insubordination. The day passes, the officers reassert their earthly authority, and the normalcy of the abnormal  returns. Snipers find in their sights men they had hugged only hours before, and fire away. Grenades are tossed, guns as big as trees awaken, tearing at the earth and bodies. Death regains the upper hand. The Great War will see three more Christmases come and go and will not end all wars, and killing hardens men. There are no more Christmases like 1914, and the devil does the dancing.