Crossing Lines and the Christmas Truce of 1914

So already, last weekend, the Hingham-based Unicorn Singers and the Broad Cove Chorale joined musical forces to perform a musical-dramatic program commemorating the Christmas Truce of 1914.* The historical event is completely stunning in its own right. But it feels particularly stunning and relevant to me at our current precarious national and global moment. Who can cross what lines today? Who will cross them? How do we determine our personal and national bottom lines--and how well do we really know what they are? How does our knowledge of those bottom lines--or lack thereof--affect our abilities to reach out and cross other lines, particularly those that separate us from "our enemies"?

As the concert program explained, Unicorn Singer Joan Gatturna "dip[ped] into her experience as librarian, researcher, and historic storyteller to create the narration" for "All is Calm, All is Bright."** Michael Theobald, a former Milton Academy administrator, rendered that narration, composed largely of soldiers' letters and reports from the time, with sensitivity to the writers' thoughts, feelings, and backgrounds. Margo Euler, musical director of both groups, selected and conducted pieces that cast her singers sometimes as soldiers in the trenches; sometimes as citizens watching and waiting on their particular home fronts; and--particularly through Daniel Moe's "Fall Softly, Snow," Morten Lauridsen's "Sure on This Shining Night," and Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Dona Nobis Pacem: Reconciliation"--sometimes as a Greek chorus acknowledging war's terrible expense and yearning for healing, redemption, even for the end of war itself. Unicorn bass Rich Jensen arranged music to connect the program's five sections that ranged across time and space to suggest lessons learned and lessons lost from this extraordinary event.

The Unicorn Singers Performing at the October Gala****

In fact, last weekend's performances of "All is Calm, All is Bright" were not the Unicorn Singers' and Broad Cove Chorale's first, though they were my first***: the positive response to the combined groups' performances of the program several years ago led to the decision to do the program again on the actual centennial of the Christmas Truce. In explaining to the assembled at each performance that their ticket money was supporting the Wellspring Multi-Service Center's Diane Edson Fund, Unicorn Singer Kathy Reardon emphasized that Wellspring and the Truce shared a respect for the common humanity of all people that transcended the real and perceived differences among them.

Kathy's comments were part of what compelled me to use the Christmas Truce as a springboard for thinking beyond the Truce. Kathy did not equate making a charitable donation with reaching out to forge a person-to-person connection with someone dealing with extremely difficult life circumstances. Still, her comments got me thinking about how and when people "reach across,"***** and when exactly their "reaching across" communicates the equality of another person's humanity and their own.

Listening to the Unicorn men sing as soldiers on both sides of the conflict on that distant Christmas Eve, I recalled Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, which I'm sure I taught no fewer than twenty times over the course of my teaching career.  Paul Bäumer, the book's main character and narrator, dies one month before the Armistice is signed. In the book's final chapter, reflecting on his alienation and loneliness--few of those with whom he fought and lived are still alive, Paul says,  

And men will not understand us--for the generation that grew up before us, though it has passed these years with us already had a home and a calling; now it will return to its old occupations, and the war will be forgotten--and the generation that has grown up after us will be strange to us and push us aside. We will be superfluous even to ourselves, we will grow older, a few will adapt themselves, some others will merely submit, and most will be bewildered;--the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall into ruin. 

But perhaps all this that I think is mere melancholy and dismay, which will fly away as the dust when I stand once again beneath the poplars and listen to the rustling of their leaves.******

On the novel's next page, Paul dies: "He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front." In the last scene of the 1930 movie version of the novel,  a sniper shoots Paul, portrayed by Lew Ayres, as he reaches for a butterfly that flits incongruously and enticingly above the desolate landscape.

I also thought about Remarque's novel last June when the French railway strike required my husband Scott and me to rent a car and drive across France from Paris to Strasbourg on Route A4.******* Less than an hour outside of Paris, we began seeing signs for World War I battlefield memorials and cemeteries. My first surprise was how far west the Western Front had been: I had not understood how quickly and how far the German forces had penetrated into France. 

My second surprise was the tranquility of the countryside through which we were driving.******** Not that I would have expected the land not to have healed and the world not to have embraced its peacetime ways. But the landscape was so pristeen and picturesque that it was hard to imagine that anything had transpired in the region other than the routine changing of the seasons and the agricultural processes associated with them. 

"Shell craters softened by nature, near Verdun."**********

We did not stop at the battlefield at Verdun, pictured here,********* but I'm not sure I would have assumed the contours of the land were the result of fallen shells had the photographer who took the shot at the left not expressly said so. All I could think was "all quiet, so quiet on the Western Front." Who did remember? Who would remember?

Thinking about the Christmas Truce itself, I found myself asking questions. No doubt historians and others might have some real answers to these questions, but I will still mention them.  How old were the men who stepped out of their trenches into No Man's Land on that winter night, hoping but not knowing that they would survive? My fantasy is that it took young men to take such a hopeful risk. What an amazing thing that these men, at least for a few hours, knew the enemy by face and name--as did many of the Greeks and Trojans in The Iliad and many Union and Confederate soldiers whose allegiances to state and family had dictated the side on which they fought.

Why were there no Christmas Truces in 1915, 1916, and 1917? Was the hope that war could conclude without massive casualties dead by 1915? Or did the higher-ups decide that demonstrations of common humanity had no place in wartime? Yesterday, Joan Gatturna informed me that there was talk at the upper levels of the military about disciplining the commanders of the soldiers who had made peace with their enemies for that one December night. However, the positive popular response to the event, reported by the press, led to the abandonment of that idea.

In addition, I found myself thinking ahead to what happened beyond 1918--another brutalizing, dehumanizing war of large scale. No truces in that war, even though the soldiers who fought in it probably had a clearer idea of what they were fighting for and against. No opportunities for face-to-face connection that wasn't linked to hand-to-hand combat, and even more effective technologies for killing large numbers of people at a greater distance, which allowed them to remain faceless and nameless from the perspective of their killers.

And so if anything, over time, we've generally increased the distance between ourselves and our adversaries--certainly in wartime, and perhaps even in peacetime. How many names and faces do we need to know in order to experience the humanity we share with those who intentionally or unintentionally are set against us, or against whom we set ourselves? Or can an abstract appreciation of our antagonists' humanity suffice to support the kind of "reaching across" needed for peace on earth based on justice for all? Social media makes it increasingly possible to speak to and about our antagonists. But when we speak from behind the semi-fabricated names and enigmatic images that we choose to represent us, we limit others' abilities to trust in our authenticity and good intentions.

Right now, around so many critical issues, the lines************ in America are drawn. Generalizations about any group are bound to misrepresent some members of the group and thus not to be perfectly, completely credible. But that reality is beside the point. There are generalizations, circumstances, situations, causes, effects, that are so entrenched and so predictable that we need to confront them, even if we can find people, places, times, and events that are exceptions to them.

So yes, there's anger and hurt on both sides, especially around the grand jury decisions in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, New York. But that doesn't mean that from an institutional perspective, one side hasn't over time been frequently wronged, targeted, and/or disenfranchised as a result of the other group's exercise of its greater official and unofficial power. Those young men who walked into No Man's Land and shook hands with their enemies on that night in December 1914, though on opposite sides of the conflict, were probably equal in status and power to one another--and far less powerful than the men who, miles from where they stood, designed their movements and, to a great degree, orchestrated their fates.

Even so, those of us who belong to groups that have been victimized can't hide behind that history in every situation. As a Jewish member of the Unicorn Singers, I needed to get beyond my immediate reaction to "Deutschland Lied" ("Deutschland, Deutschland über alles") when the Unicorn men sang it. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that most Jews who lived--or whose parents lived--during World War II think immediately about Hitler, concentration camps, and the Final Solution when they hear that song. But in the context of our performance, it was a pre-Nazi era song sung by the German soldiers to cheer on their team during a pick-up soccer match with "the enemy."************ There are times that we have to cross lines that we draw instinctively inside of ourselves for understandable reasons.

We gave three performances of "All is Calm, All is Bright," and with each performance I grew sadder, more aware of how much war lay ahead of soldiers fighting in 1914, how many more young lives would be lost in the next years, and how, to a great extent, history would repeat itself in the same countries and beyond. Where did that wondrous Truce get anyone? I felt terribly lonely and discouraged. One of the last readings in the program was from a Scottish minister who wondered if the Truce might be interpreted as the work of the Divine on the night that, for his congregation, the son of God had been born. But all I could think about were all the crucifixes I had seen in fields and vineyards in the eastern parts of France through which we had driven. In most cases, the suffering Jesus had seemed so lonely and inconsolable to me. I had imagined him as carrying the suffering of the many townspeople whose sons had died in two wars.

Our musical dramatic program began and ended with "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." I hadn't known that the famous old carol was a musical setting of a poem Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had written to convey and then transcend his despair after his son was severely wounded in the Civil War and his wife had passed away in a terrible accident.************* There's so much anger and despair in America right now--but also a tremendous amount of energy looking to be channeled effectively. I am thinking a lot about how we might in this country reach across our differences and transcend, and maybe even transform, our anger and despair. Really doing so will involve a tremendous amount of authentic soul-searching; a willingness to be flexible, vulnerable, and surprised; and the courage to risk trusting others whose soul-searching, flexibility, and vulnerability may very much be works-in-progress. In my estimation, there are many people out there who have the skills and the will to foster that transformation. But I fear they won't be encouraged and appreciated.

I'm also thinking about the young people in our country************** who are standing up and speaking out, many for the first time, and who may not be burdened by the bitter hopelessness some of their elders have understandably developed over the years. Maybe the real message of the Christmas Truce is the hope of youth, especially when it supports the courage and activism of youth. If this is the case, I hope that we, their elders, are wise and brave enough ourselves to counsel, encourage, and comfort them wisely and hopefully.

As I was sitting in First Parish Church in Cohasset last Sunday during the latter half of our program, sometimes listening, sometimes singing, sometimes watching the late afternoon sunlight fade warmly, the final stanza of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" came to mind:

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

So many "ignorant armies" to think about. It's almost impossible to believe that an event like the Christmas Truce could happen. And what does it say about us that we choose to remember it not annually, but only at its major anniversary? Still, the Truce did happen, and that's what gives me hope. Hope that we might reach across lines, differences, and histories that divide us and do something new and something better than we have in the past. Hope that reconciliation that begins as a truce between two groups in conflict might grow into an enduring peace that respects, comforts, supports, and inspires all stakeholders.

* Screen shot of <http://www.todayifoundout.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Christmas-truce.jpg>.
**  Screen shot from <http://www.bcc-us.org/>.
*** I became a Unicorn Singer in September--and felt immediately welcome.I chose the Unicorns because I wanted to sing again and knew I could attend rehearsals on what used to be school nights; because I wanted to feel more connected to the South Shore; and because I felt excited by the different kinds of concerts--and thus the different kinds of singing--the Unicorns do annually. Since joining, I've relished the group's spirit: every request for volunteers is met with a quick, enthusiastic "yes" response, often by multiple individuals. I take pride in the fact that a percentage of the proceeds from our ticket sales often benefit others: our concerts of last weekend benefitted the Wellspring Multi-Service Center's Diane Edson Fund, and our Valentine's Day Broadway Review will support Horizons for the Homeless. We work hard to make good music, but we do more than that, too.
**** A Donald Burroughs photo; thanks, Donald! 
***** Screen shot of <http://www.evenimenteoradea.ro/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/maini-atingere-cautare-sursa-foto-galleryhip-punct-com.jpg> 
*(6) Quotations from pp. 139 and 140 of Remarque, Erich M. AQWF - Full Text. N.p.: Myteacherpages, n.d. Pdf. "Simpson" is the person who probably created the pdf file.
*(7) Screen shot of <http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/98257062.jpg> 
*(8) Screen shot of <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/France,_Marne,_Auve,_Autoroute_de_l%27Est_%28A4%29.JPG/290px-France,_Marne,_Auve,_Autoroute_de_l%27Est_%28A4%29.JPG> 
*(9) Screen shot of <https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtLAh6Hb02gDPrlz8txTr-V8T6Oa5dNqclBl2QiW3FhBsq8OHWuwHMTJNK1m5-Wg8Bd97d7zCMWb6pNcT_-X197r3PAZ-ZmrqBQxSx-Aq0I0waUqGPE3mQ5RlWefNhmUL8VTQebj2qMw4/s1280-h/YIMG_2411.JPG>
*(10) Quoted from <http://modestine2.blogspot.com/2007/07/verdun.html>. 
*(11) Screen shot of <http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/12/07/23D27FE600000578-0-image-a-25_1417934924261.jpg> 
*(12) Screen shot of <http://i.ytimg.com/vi/hriz6rcCT3Y/0.jpg>
*(13) "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" article on Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Heard_the_Bells_on_Christmas_Day> Downloaded on December 18, 2014
*(14) Screen shot of <http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20141201/NEWS/141209601>
*(15) Screen shot of <http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-forgotten-christmas-truce-of-1914-unlearned-lessons-which-could-have-prevented-a-century-of-war-1914-2014/5420256>