Joyeux Noël
Al last I have seen Christian’ Carion’s imaginative re-telling of the story of Christmas 1914 in the trenches, when French, German and British troops met in no-man’s land to sing and play football. Carion adds lots of imaginative development to the historical detaisl fo the story, and certainly the British don’t come out particularly well in his telling, although his condemnation is more for the hierarchies, and his most poignantly made point is the profound difference in the experience of this war between those who strategised in offices and headquarters, and those who fought on the ground. I thought a three-language film would be a bit too Brain-stretching, but in fact it’s not hard to follow at all, and part of the charm of the movie is the men from 3 nations trying to understand each other.
It was fantastic to see a REALLY positive image of a priest on screen, beautifully played by Gary Lewis (who was also brilliant in Billy Elliot).
French review: English review:
7 Responses to “Joyeux Noël”
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Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
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I haven’t seen it… must do, but it is interesting that the practice ws banned after 1914, mainly because the Generals felt that the recruits (non-professional soldiers) couldn’t deal with the seperation… they needed to hate the Germans to fight them whereas the professionals could compartmentalise the war and the individuals in the enemy army (and of course for the psyche of the families at home). Also I suppose that as it became more obvious that the war was going to be one of attrition and the casualties rose beyond anyones imagination, the feelings that there were between to the two sides changed significantly. It is clear that there was a major change going on in warfare and the COs hadn’t a clue! Of course Haig is the one who gets the critique but IMHO Kitchener deserves some for his ‘Pals’ recruiting strategy that saw such catastrophic losses for whole towns e.g. Salford, Accrington and Grimsby (it is interesting that we are still feeling the aftershocks – the death of the young men being one reason for the need for mass immigration as the population a generation on could not sustain the industrial growth in many northern towns) and Rawlinson for his ‘tactics’ on the Somme!
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As for the three nations understanding each other… I wonder if it would have been easier if the three heads of state had not bee SO closely related
Mark, wd love to know what you think if you do get to see it. I thought it had more going for it as fiction than history, though still a beautiful film…
Carion played out the idea of their being punishments doled out, as if the fraternisation was against already established rules. I think that’s probably entirely imagination. From my memory of reading about the era, I think the fraternisation in no-man’s land went on a good bit longer – for several months – before they decided to separate them and get them to hate the enemy.
I saw the movie back when it was playing on the big screens in the US–probably a year or so ago. I thought it was a wonderful and poignant evocation of the utter stupidity of war (especially the Great War, which was a particularly stupid waste of human life.)
Someone told me that in Germany the movie was shown dubbed rather than with subtitles, which seems really silly if true. The three languages, I felt, was an important part of the movie, because it conveyed something of the reaching out across the language barriers, and the use of dubbing really loses out on the subtlety of the experience.
1914 wasn’t the last of the truces. Similar things happened in 1915 as well. Interestingly there was a brief truce in December 1915, well before christmas, in the trenches at Monchy au Bois, just north of the Somme/ Ancre battlefields, which is mentioned in Jungers “Storm of Steel” from the German side, and IL Reads memoir “Of Those We Loved” from the British side. The officer class in the British Army did try to maintain a strict offensive spirit, and when taking over so-called “quiet sectors” from the French would immendiately make sure they were quiet no longer. Nevertheless Read mentions a few instances of fraternisation. In 1918 he met some German POWs who had been in a unit in front of him in 1915, and who used to sing British music hall songs to entertain the Tommies.
It’s incredible really what went on, there are stories of songs being sung between the opposing sides… especially where trenches were close e.g. Vimy Ridge (where they were so close they used to throw things across).
A few quotes from the 14 Christmas Truce…
“Scots and Huns were fraternizing in the most genuine possible manner. Every sort of souvenir was exchanged addresses given and received, photos of families shown, etc. One of our fellows offered a German a cigarette; the German said, “Virginian?” Our fellow said, “Aye, straight-cut”, the German said “No thanks, I only smoke Turkish!”… It gave us all a good laugh.”
Captain Sir Edward Hulse of the Scots Guards
“The English brought a soccer ball from the trenches, and pretty soon a lively game ensued. How marvellously wonderful, yet how strange it was. The English officers felt the same way about it. Thus Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time.”
Kurt Zehmisch of the 134th Saxons
Mind you this wasn’t the last football incident… in 1916 the battle of the Somme was expected to be such a ‘walk over’ (literally!) that Captain Wilfred Nevill of the 8th Battalion The East Surrey Regiment bought two footballs with the aim that they should be dribbled across no-man-land… one was recovered close to the German Barbed Wire!
Interesting account here…
http://www.aftermathww1.com/felstead.asp
Showing that a truce did happen in 1915, but…
“This seasonal fraternisation apparently went on for about half an hour, until brought to an abrupt end by a furious British officer, who ordered his men back to the trenches, telling them. in no uncertain terms, the brutal truth of their situation. namely that they were there “to kill the Hun, not make friends with him”.
There were other spontaneous truces along the frontline, but, after 1915, they did not reoccur because, by the following Christmas, few British soldiers had the stomach for them. In the intervening period, the British army suffered its worst casualties in a single day, losing nearly 60,000 men on the opening day in Battle of the Somme on July 1 1916.”
There was a football incident similar to Nevills at the Battle of Arras in 1917; still, enough said, probably!