The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month

Symbol of the Great War.

Thanks to WWII, the Great War’s end date has been largely forgotten (it is now known as Veteren’s Day in the United States).

But in many places around the world, November 11th is still celebrated as Armistice Day, when fighting ended along the Western Front.

Approximately 20 million people were killed during WWI.  Of course, since none of the issues were resolved and Germany was heavily punished, its sequel began in 1939 with deaths from between 62 million to 78 million.

And so, we remember those who gave their lives so politicians could dawdle and ignore the obvious until fighting began again, changing our world forever.

Just Politics..? honors our veterans (past and present) who have kept us free.

Below is a little piece I wrote some time ago about the Great War but have never published:

- “The Spirit of an Age” -

It is said that what is called “the spirit of an age” is something to which one cannot return. That this spirit gradually dissipates is due to the world’s coming to an end. In the same way, a single year does not have just spring or summer. A single day, too, is the same. For this reason, although one would like to change today’s world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation.

~ The Hagakure

When does one age end and another begin?  Making such a pronouncement is, of course, more art than science.  Many say that the Victorian Age, where many of the mannerisms of the 18th Century uneasily coexisted with the technology of the 19th Century, really ended on April 15, 1912.  On this date the R.M.S. Titanic sank, killing more than 1,500 people.  It is said that the boundless hopes of that era, embodied by the sheer mechanical wonder of such a creation as the Titanic, were sent along with her to the bottom of the ocean.  Just maybe, technological progress was outstripping human abilities of the time.  Shortly after the Titanic sank the world would be plunged into war and, with it, the tremendous changes that it wrought for the Empires that fell and the new problems that were created.  Perhaps the sinking of the Titanic is a demarcation between two eras but, in my opinion, the new era did not truly begin until the final gasps from the old one were smothered.

On the freezing day of December 25, 1914 there was a moment in time when the barbarity of the 20th Century had not yet conquered all of the hearts of men.  For Europe was at war and the advent of poisonous gases, trench warfare, Ariel bombardment, and crudely honed machine guns remade existence for everyone caught in the clutches of conflict.  But, for a few hours on that Christmas afternoon, the old age had not yet passed…

When does one age end and another begin?  Making such a pronouncement is, of course, more art than science.  Many say that the Victorian Age, where many of the mannerisms of the 18th Century uneasily coexisted with the technology of the 19th Century, really ended on April 15, 1912.  On this date the R.M.S. Titanic sank, killing more than 1,500 people.  It is said that the boundless hopes of that era, embodied by the sheer mechanical wonder of such a creation as the Titanic, were sent along with her to the bottom of the ocean.  Just maybe, technological progress was outstripping human abilities of the time.  Shortly after the Titanic sank the world would be plunged into war and, with it, the tremendous changes that it wrought for the Empires that fell and the new problems that were created.  Perhaps the sinking of the Titanic is a demarcation between two eras but, in my opinion, the new era did not truly begin until the final gasps from the old one were smothered.

On the freezing day of December 25, 1914 there was a moment in time when the barbarity of the 20th Century had not yet conquered all of the hearts of men.  For Europe was at war and the advent of poisonous gases, trench warfare, Ariel bombardment, and crudely honed machine guns remade existence for everyone caught in the clutches of conflict.  But, for a few hours on that Christmas afternoon, the old age had not yet passed…

It was the first Christmas of World War I, a conflict that was supposed to last only a short while, and less than five months into the fighting that would rage for another four years, ultimately taking with it an estimated nine million souls.  In fact, as the departing German soldiers marched neatly down Berlin’s main thoroughfare, Unter den Linden, the tens of thousands there threw roses at the troops’ feet perhaps in a spontaneous expression of their notions of the romance of war and the boundless hopes for a swift, glorious victory.  A little man in ill-fitting clothes was even there.  He would soon fight in the conflict and attain the rank of Corporal – his name was Adolph Hitler.

Along the Western Front, where British, French, and German soldiers faced one another from their trenches stretching from Northern France all the way to Belgium the fighting had been bitter but, because neither group could seize the advantage from the other, both sides were deadlocked.

Between the two sides lay No Man’s Land, a strip of earth littered with dead bodies and caked in frozen mud.  Evidence suggests that what took place next was not an isolated event, though I cite a specific example here, but rather it happened spontaneously in several different places, despite the advance warnings from British headquarters against it.  Late on Christmas morning several Germans carefully entered No Man’s Land (how nervous they must have been!) to retrieve their dead.  Several Englishmen also ventured there for a similar purpose and the two sides struck up a conversation.

Though both groups, German and English, were wary and had been trying to kill each other, simple things like cigarettes and bits of chocolate were exchanged and family photos shown.  Soon, several more soldiers from each side gathered with their comrades in No Man’s Land.  One of the Englishmen brought with him a soccer ball and shortly thereafter, a match ensued.  It was Christmas Day after all and these soldiers, though enemies, must surely have sensed their deeper humanity.  There are few specifics as to the match itself but we do know that it did not last long.   The English ended up losing to the Germans, two to three.  After the game ended, both sides exchanged a few words and slowly returned to their side of the battlefield.  No shots were exchanged for the remainder of the day as the soldiers on both sides tried to enjoy their first wartime Christmas and perhaps reflected upon their lives and what Fate might hold in store for them.  We have no way of knowing.  The next morning, after saluting one another from their respective parapets, these men resumed the War.

Although it has only been 90 years since that soccer game, we could hardly imagine such an event taking place on today’s battlefields where death seems to take place on television monitors and an entire generation has never glimpsed such a conflict.  In some ways, we are further removed from our previous era than those young men were from theirs’.

Such a miraculous event as a soccer match, as far as we know, never again occurred on the field of battle in the West.  By December 26, 1914 one ‘spirit of an age’ had come to an end while a newer, more ruthless and bloody one, had come into this world.