The Christmas Truce of 1914 has been called by Arthur Conan Doyle “one human episode amid all the atrocities.” It is certainly one of the most remarkable incidents of World War I and perhaps of all military history. Inspiring both popular songs and theater, it has endured as an almost archetypal image of peace.
The above is from the addendum to an article written for schoolchildren on the truce at Christmas during the first year of World War I.
I knew about the Christmas Truce but had subsequently heard it was enormously exaggerated if not apocryphal. Apparently, that's not so. According to the above link, a few historians have verified that it really did happen and was quite widespread along the front line. Which made me think: Wow -- for a day, or a few days -- they held a war and no one came.
What's more, this is not as unprecedented as people think. Also from the addendum to the article:
Another false idea about the truce was held even by most soldiers who were there: that it was unique in history. Though the Christmas Truce is the greatest example of its kind, informal truces had been a longstanding military tradition. During the American Civil War, for instance, Rebels and Yankees traded tobacco, coffee, and newspapers, fished peacefully on opposite sides of a stream, and even gathered blackberries together. Some degree of fellow feeling had always been common among soldiers sent to battle.
In more recent times, he points out, cultural and language barriers have prevented informal truces from occurring in many battle arenas. Nonetheless, their historical occurence, along with estimates that (for instance) soldiers only fired 1 in every 7 times they were ordered to fire during WWII, does suggest that sometimes the common people quietly rebel against war. The elites, the CEOs, the war mongers, the intelligence mavens-- these are the men who want war, and bring us to war. The Zbigniew Brzezinskis and Henry Kissingers of the world. And when they garner the populations' support for war, it is always through false pretenses. Lies, propaganda, and false flags (such as the non-existent Gulf of Tonkin attack, or the apocryphal Spanish attack on the USS Maine) are used to whip up fear and anger in a domestic population to allow for war.
There's an anti-war book called War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, that argues that warfare can be exhilirating and addictive to some of its participants, but also to whole societies involved in a war. I shouldn't comment on a book I haven't read, but I would imagine that this process doesn't work quite so well without state propaganda. When I watched the old series Upstairs, Downstairs they showed that many British were gung-ho for war against the Germans, at the start of WWI. But that was on the basis of outrageous propaganda about the evil Huns. Remember those Iraqi soldiers who knocked over the incubators of premature babies in a Kuwaiti hospital? It never happened, but it's very much like the WWI anti-German propaganda. Take all that away, and would the common people feel so inspired by war? I doubt it. It's just that war, because it involves death, enemies, and "the Other," provides for the most potent propaganda there is.
We are constantly being told how terrible human beings are, but the worst atrocities are committed not because people run amok, outside the control of any State, but rather, on the orders of the State.
Except when, sometimes, they refuse.
Reminds me a little of "Homage to Catalonia," George Orwell's book about fighting in the anarchist army in Spain's civil war. The anarchist soldiers would not follow orders, so officers had to stand around and explain why they needed any given action carried out. Luckily the pace of trench warfare was not too great. Presumably, if they weren't fighting for their homes, they all would have walked away.
People have a strange romance with the chain of command, as if without rules and orders everyone would forget how to be a human being and take to sitting in their own feces. But as you've shown, humanity returns to the surface when people take a break from the machine-like life of fulfilling orders.
Posted by: Ethan | January 03, 2012 at 11:42 AM
I would urge you to read Hedge's book. It really is a very thoughtful exploration of war and identity. As much as I like the Christmas truce stories and have always found them inspiring, I think that Hedges pessimistic viewpoint is equally important.
The truth is - both are right. Sometimes they give a war and people don't want to cooperate - but to be precise, they DID show up, and only then decided it wasn't so great. The point is, sometimes people get caught up in war and seek it out, for a variety of reasons, and it isn't entirely blame-able on "there was propaganda". Propaganda is part of it, but there are other things going on as well.
Hedges makes the point that for people who are disenfranchised, marginalized, or otherwise lack meaning in their lives, a war can GIVE them meaning, and that this sense of power, belonging, purpose, and rightness can be seductive. People's identity often becomes caught up in war precisely because it provides such a powerful sense of identity.
It's been a while since I read the book, so I don't remember Hedge's own examples. But I do remember his main point, as described above (without doing it full justice). Coming up with my own examples for the above, I can think of the following: Poor, disenfranchised Americans with no good job prospects, whose communities and economy have broken down, may see the military as a "way out"; in order to be happy with this "choice" (such as it is), they must by necessity become invested in the military, and in the idea of "patriotism", war, and the idea of having an enemy. Yes, there is plenty of propaganda - but wars can also provide a sense of meaning and identity, which is why it's possible for people to become invested in them in the first place. They - and their "military families" and "military communities" - will vote for politicians who launch and perpetuate unnecessary wars, and vilify anyone who disagrees as a traitor, while getting caught up in exciting "patriotic" feelings. People almost surely get a sense of belonging and identity out of it, and it can extend past direct involvement to include other "patriotic Americans". Or, think about the conflicts in places like Northern Ireland or the Middle East - do you really believe that many Irish, Israelis, and Palestinians don't derive a sense of identity and meaning based on their participation (direct, or indirect via an "in-group" status) in these never-ending conflicts? That's the kind of point Hedges was making, to the best of my recall.
Of course people are propagandized to - but propaganda has to WORK, and one of the ways it works is by getting people to find meaning and identity in war. If it were that hard for people to find meaning in war, it wouldn't happen, no matter how much propaganda there was. Before those soldiers got sick of war and stopped shooting in 1914, a whole lot of them had volunteered for the war. They wouldn't have volunteered so readily if it wasn't so easy for the propaganda to tap into an existing desire for belonging/meaning/identity that was already there, and direct it towards the war. Which is maybe the crux of the issue (from my perspective, anyway) - yes, there is propaganda, but propaganda works as well as it does to push war as a force of meaning because meaning was lacking in the first place. (For that matter, happy, fulfilled people with their own sense of purpose aren't eager for war anymore than they're eager to shop for an identity, climb a competitive career ladder, or accumulate material wealth, which are some of the other options for "meaning" that our society propagandizes for. And it works.)
Sorry so long - but I like Hedges and think he's worth reading, even if he is a pessimist.
Posted by: Ellie | January 05, 2012 at 03:02 PM