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Title: Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce by Stanley Weintraub ISBN: 0-452-28367-1 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: November, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.33 (27 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Masterful account of a true story
Comment: Heard the taped version of SILENT NIGHT: THE REMARKABLE
1914 CHRISTMAS TRUCE by Stanley Weintraub . . . imagine a
war that all of a sudden stops because both sides would rather
exchange gifts and play soccer than fight . . . and what if
the soldiers had refused to take up arms again? . . . unfortunately,a few stray bullets escalated the hostilities again--but for too short a time there was an actual cessation of all fighting . . . one infantryman summed up things the best: "Nobody said we couldn't like them. They just said to had to kill them. A bit stupid, isn't it?" . . . this true actually happened, by the way, and Weintraub's portrayal of it is masterful . . . I only wish that ending all wars could be so simple!
Rating: 5
Summary: Eye Opener
Comment: In 'Silent Night' Weintraub has given the World an invaluable treatise on an incredible event that occurred during WW I in which individual and spontaneous humanitarian actions by soldiers on the front transcended the cold orders from the top brass not to fraternize with the enemy and to proceed with the war on Christmas Eve and Day.
When I tell people about the Christmas truce of 1914, that soldiers from opposing sides shook hands, exchanged gifts and played soccer, the response is invariably "no way!" My thanks to Stanley Weintraub for telling us this story, and in such detail.
There are few books that I have read as fast as this. It is great Christmas time reading.
Rating: 4
Summary: Cultural History of a little-known Episode of the Great War
Comment: In the first months of World War I, while the mud was still new and disgusting to the troops in the trenches, and the killing was still novel to them, Christmas approached. Some of the soldiers on both sides (but chiefly, curiously, the Germans) crossed no-man's-land and met to exchange gifts, sing carols, play games of soccer, and socialize. This so-called Christmas truce lasted in some sectors for several days or even a couple of weeks, and was localized and generally restricted to areas where the British were facing non-Prussian units of the German army, though there were many exceptions. The Belgians and French, less friendly towards the invaders of their country, were only involved sporadically.
This book, then, is the story of this truce, and its impact on Western society, both in terms of the actual effect and the effect it could have had. The author uses diaries and later interviews with participants, newspaper articles of the time, and the few official histories which mention the events, to bring the account to life. He supplements these with versions of the event in fiction in various places, but is careful to tell you the accounts are fictional, and there's generally a reason for including them. One of the best-known British writers from the Great War, Robert Graves, apparently based a fictional account of the event on stories he heard after the fact, for instance. The book also includes a sort of mini-history of the history of the event, including everything from a British rock group in the seventies to Snoopy and his mythical duel with the Red Baron.
The book concludes with a what-if speculation, that tries to imagine the world after a Christmas truce that lasted, and forced the politicians to peace. This is somewhat clumsily handled, because the image of the French or Belgians accepting the German occupation of parts of their country at this stage isn't believable, and the Germans weren't going to give up what they'd fought so hard to capture. The author acknowledges this somewhat in the main part of the book when he recounts that the Germans often boasted that they would be defeating their enemies soon, even while they were exchanging gifts and carols with them. This speculative chapter is the weakest part of the book.
I did enjoy the book overall, though, and would recommend it.
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Title: General Washington's Christmas Farewell : A Mount Vernon Homecoming, 1783 by Stanley Weintraub ISBN: 0743246543 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 10 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Christmas Truce: The Western Front December 1914 (Pan Grand Strategy Series) by Malcolm Brown, Shirley Seaton ISBN: 0330390651 Publisher: Trans-Atlantic Publications, Inc. Pub. Date: December, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Silent Night, Holy Night: The Story of the Christmas Truce by The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Walter Cronkite ISBN: 1590381661 Publisher: Shadow Mountain Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Death's Men: Soldiers of the Great War by Denis Winter ISBN: 0140168222 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: March, 1993 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: An Illustrated History of the First World War by John Keegan ISBN: 037541259X Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 30 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
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