Last Christmas marked exactly one hundred and ten years since an incredible event that is as important today as it was then and that always restores faith in humanity, at least for a brief moment that lasts no more than a blink of an eye...
Christmas, 1914.
The Western Front, death and suffering, attacks on barbed wire across no man's land, from the English Channel to the Swiss border, a mass slaughter was taking place. To make things even worse, if that were possible, nature joined in on the human evil by sending the lowest winter temperatures since they were measured. Snipers were waiting for an opportunity to kill some careless soldier or, better yet, an officer of the enemy. In such an atmosphere, Christmas Eve arrived.
On both sides of the trenches on the front line, people were slouching, freezing and waiting for dawn.
Suddenly, strange sounds began to reach from the German trenches. With each note, more and more intelligible, through the fog and the stench of rotting corpses, through the craters full of poisoned water, rats, blood and mud, through the murky night, across no man's land - the verses of Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht began to reach British and French ears. First individual voices and then more and more German soldiers began to sing. Soon, along the entire line, tens of thousands of throats were singing the most famous Christmas carol.
The first tears appeared on the cheeks of the frozen and shocked Allied soldiers. It was probably the last thing they expected in the world at that moment. Death was certainly expected with much greater certainty. The song began to be shyly sung in both English and French, in both versions.
One song, three languages, one night.
After a while, the guards noticed German soldiers with white flags and without weapons appearing in no man's land and saying something. A few more desperate, more runaway or more humane soldiers from the Allied side (for whom how) arbitrarily rushed to meet their `enemies`. The first peaceful contact between people on both sides occurred. Soon the meeting became massive and cigarettes were exchanged, those who knew the enemy's language started chatting, and modest meals were shared among themselves. The British also had a completely British idea at dawn, several improvised footballs appeared and several football matches began. That day, no one fired a shot and orders were almost ignored everywhere.
The officer cadres on both sides were shocked and concerned by such outbursts of humanity and the senior generals decided to put an end to such deviant and unpatriotic phenomena as playing football and sharing a portion with yesterday's opponent. The first death sentences for treason were handed down and people were shot for sharing a cigarette with a man mobilized and brought to the front - from the opposite side.
In the following days, young men were taken out to be shot, made to sit on a chair at dawn after having been isolated in barracks all night, probably to contemplate their `sin`, tied to the chair and unable to control their bladder and bowels from fear, screaming and crying - only contributing to the curse of the situation, scenes that are impossible for any film, but which served as a warning that the state expects you to kill the designated peer, the `enemy`, and not to sing Christmas carols with him. The event, as expected, remained on the margins of history, although it is more important than all the disgusting battles and military operations that wiped out an entire generation...
That night. That morning. That Football.
That night atoned for all the sins of humanity in one magical moment.
(Roger Mortis, 059)
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