Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Silent Night Holy Night The Story of the by Stephen Wunderli Silent Night Holy Night: The Story of the Christmas Truce by Stephen Wunderli. The History of Christmas Epilogue: Time Was, Is Now. My twelve day look at the History of Christmas is over. Obviously, there are many other significant entries I could have made and you might be wondering why I chose what I did and left out other seemingly more important features of this wondrous holiday. I included what is here because these articles contain a connecting thread that I feel is significant in the celebration of the Christmas season. That thread is the awe and wonder and even the spiritual fulfillment that the human race has experienced over the years from the dawn of mankind up to and including our own time. I chose to express my history in the form of conversations and letters. I’ve always felt a more personal approach to history allows it to be embraced, appreciated, and more easily understood by the majority of people. Call it my ‘style,’ if you will. Hopefully, it didn’t detract from your enjoyment. Some may wonder why I did not include the nativity, or as it is called. the Christmas Story. Although it has produced an awe and wonder of its own, it has done so at the expense of the true history of the holidays. While I have nothing against the Christian expression of Christmas as the birth of the Christ child, you have to agree that much of the story has simply been tacked on to a season of joy that predated Christ’s birth by thousands of years. Had the Christian church been willing to join in the age-old celebration and embrace the traditions of the past, I would have included it. But the honest truth is the church has tried to capture the wonder of the season and pass it off as its own. It has “Christianized” many of the traditions and stories that started elsewhere and claimed their expression of them as holy and righteous. Then it has turned around and vehemently attacked the original traditions claiming them heretical and labeling them as pagan evils in the eyes of God. No one knows the date of Christ’s birth. The Bible is mute on the issue, just as it doesn’t suggest anywhere that the birth of Jesus should be celebrated. But since the story tells us that shepherds were tending their flocks outside at night it stands to reason that the birth month would have been in October or March. During the bitter cold of December in Palestine, it is highly doubtful that Jewish shepherds would have been outside with their charges. What I’ve tried to show above all else is that Christmas has been and always will be many things to many people. It is as complicated as the love it engenders. It’s a time for joy, peace and happiness. Yet, at the same time, it is a period of high stress and depression for many. The truth is – the wonders of the season are most evident in homes where the holiday is celebrated as both a secular and spiritual festival. The celebration of the season has always been somewhat commercial, more secular than sacred. Merchants from the beginning of time have profited from its merriment. Yet, without doubt, there has always been a touch of the sacred, whether by myth or miracle, that has always been included in the festivity. Thank for stopping by and reading. I wish you all the best in the New Year. Short Bibliography : 4,000 Years of Christmas: A Gift from the Ages by Earl W. Count, Alice Lawson Count, and Dan Wakefield. Silent Night Holy Night: The Story of the Christmas Truce by Stephen Wunderli. The original German lyrics of the song Stille Nacht were written by Austrian priest Josef Mohr. The original melody was composed by the Austrian headmaster Franz Xaver Gruber, although the version of the melody that is usually sung today, does differ slightly from the original. Particularly noteable is the fact "Silent Night" was sung by French, British, and German troops during the Christmas Truce of 1914 as it was one of the few carols that soldiers on both sides knew. Silent night! Holy night! All is calm, all is bright; Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child. Holy Infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night! Holy night! Shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from Heaven afar, Heavenly Hosts sing Alleluia, Christ the Saviour is born. Christ the Saviour is born. Silent night! Holy night! Son of God, love's pure light. Radiant beams from Thy Holy Face With the dawn of redeeming grace, Jesus, Lord, at Thy Birth. Jesus, Lord, at Thy Birth. CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. 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Additionally, our company's websites contain some adverts which we are paid to display, but whose content is not selected by us, such as Google AdSense ads. For more detailed information, please see Advertising/Endorsements Disclosures. Our sites use cookies, some of which may already be set on your computer. Use of our site constitutes consent for this. For details, please see Privacy . Click privacy for information about our company's privacy, data collection and data retention policies, and your rights. Media Things :: Categories >> History. A history of militant fundamentalism in Islam: We hear more about Muslim extremists than ever before, but Kepel argues that the terrorism seen today throughout the world results from the failure of Islamic fundamentalism and not its success. Beginning. The news behind the events; the news mainstream media isn't reporting: The most complete book I know of, summarizing the relevant background and foreground intersecting upon the events of September 11. -- Barry Zwicker, Vision TV Insight. The third of three books written about the Christmas Day Truce of WWI. For the full story see this entry. The second of three books about 's Christmas Day Truce. For the full story see this entry. One of three books about the impromptu WWI Christmas Day Truce. Here's the story: GLW: The soldiers' Xmas truce http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2002/480/480p21.htm BY PHIL SHANNON It was the war that was supposed ``to be over by Christmas''. It very nearly was. A. This little play, Wallace Shawn's monologue of 112 pages, rocked me when I first encountered it at the Vancouver Fringe Festival sometime in the mid '90s. Perhaps I'll add some commentary later, but for now, try these links: A reading. In Flanders Fields In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. An acclaimed introduction for young readers to the poem, World War II, and war generally. According to reviews I've read, be prepared to question your understanding of "freedom." Consider which freedom is the most valuable: to speak freely or to feed your family. For example, in dealing with enemies (say, Pol Pot, or Maoist China). The long-awaited primary-source companion to A People's History of the United States. For this new book, Zinn and Arnove have selected testimonies -- speeches, letters, poems, songs, memoirs, protests -- from our rich history of resistance. Here, in their own. I saw Chalmers Johnson in the film Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire, in which he spoke compellingly concerning the processes by which American foreign policy has elevated American reach and power to global proportions. So. Noam Chomsky]]>" dc:creator="Patrick" dc:date="2004-06-30T10:22:02-08:00" /> --> A recommendation gleaned from the chomskychat forum on ZNet. Adapted from the novel of the same name by Milan Kundera this film features Daniel Day Lewis, Juliet Binoche and Lena Olin, the two women in their breakout performances. This was not a simple adaptation by any means. Kundera's text. Recall that Parecon (Participatory Economics) represents one option to Capitalism now that Communism is dead. Anarcho-Syndicalism is a second option. The full text of this book is available online, here. Epic (944 pages!) novel set in Victorian England. Reads well, and more quickly than one might expect with such a chunky volume. Unlike other somewhat revisionist time-pieces, everyone here regardless of gender or class comes off somewhat doltish, though victimhood. Snow's epic recounting of months spent with China's Red Army during the Civil War. Includes extensive biographical material on numerous players on all sides of the conflict as well as an inspiring telling of the Long March. Snow also describes. I'm just a few dozen pages into this book, so I'll comment more later. For now, I'll just say it's an interesting take on post-abolition plantation life in the US South. The Hoe in question, sharpened to a fine point. The Unbelievable, Inspiring Story Behind 'O Holy Night' “O Holy Night:” It’s a tough song to sing, isn’t it? Also hard to play on the piano (so I’ve been told since I can’t play anything but the radio). But it is a “show stopper” at all the Christmas cantatas. You just can’t help but get a thrill when you belt out the chorus “Fall on your knees…” The carol “O Holy Night” was actually banned by church leadership, and if it were not for the common people, the powerful song would have faded into obscurity. In 1847 a wine merchant in France, Placide Cappeau, was asked by his parish priest to write a poem for the Christmas Eve service. On a hard carriage ride to Paris, the gentleman imagined himself a witness to the birth of Christ. The wonder of that glorious moment flowed through his pen, and he gave us the poem “Cantique de Noel” (song of Christmas). Cappeau had the words, but now he needed the music to lift souls heavenward in song. So … he asked his friend, Adolphe Charles Adam. It was an unusual request. Adam was certainly a trained classical musician, so writing a tune was no big deal for him. But he was not a Christian — he was of the Jewish faith! Nevertheless, he good naturedly received his friend’s request and began at once to compose an original tune for the poem. It was a perfect match and the song was performed for the congregation on Christmas Eve. The French loved the song! Here is a performance of the original song in the French language with English subtitles: Unfortunately, a few years later it was learned that Cappeau had left the Church for the philosophy of socialism, and after it was discovered that the composer was not of the Christian faith, the Church leadership in France banned the song from their liturgy. The Back Story to ‘O Come O Come Emmanuel’ Next Page: But the French would not let this beautiful song die. But the French would not let that song die. Ten years after the song was composed, an American abolitionist, John Sullivan Dwight, heard the carol in French. He heard the vibrant message of hope — especially the verse that said in French, “The Redeemer has broken every bond/ He sees a brother where there was only a slave/ Love unites those that iron had chained.” Dwight freely translated from the French, switched a few things around (while keeping the same basic meaning), and gave us his English version which we sing today. In his version the line about oppression is translated, “Truly He taught us to love one another/ His law is love and His gospel is peace/ Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother/ And in His name all oppression shall cease.” He brought the song to the United States where it quickly became popular before and during the American Civil War. Here is an amazing a cappella rendition of Dwight’s version which has the words we all know and love: Legend has it that the French Catholic Church finally received the song back into their services after an encounter between French and German soldiers in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. During a lull in the fighting on Christmas Eve, some French soldiers began singing “Cantique de Noel.” The German soldiers were impressed with their tune and responded with their own German Christmas songs. A truce held for 24 hours. Pastor Tells Kids at Texas Mall: ‘Santa Claus Does Not Exist’ Next Page: The inspiring end of the story. The end of the story involves the beginning of modern technology — the invention of the radio. On Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden (a former colleague of Thomas Edison) was experimenting with a microphone and a telegraph. He played on his phonograph “Ombra mai fu” by George Frideric Handel. Then he picked up his violin and began playing — you guessed it — “O Holy Night.” He finished by reading the story of Christ’s birth as recorded in Luke 2. Wireless operators on ships in the Atlantic were stunned as they heard what was the very first AM radio broadcast ever! And it was about the song and scripture of the birth of the Messiah. “O Holy Night.” Written by a wine merchant, set to music by a Jewish composer, banned by the Church, kept alive by the French, adopted by an American abolitionist, sung between warring troops, and at last broadcast into the world through invisible radio waves. What a story. What a message. “Fall on your knees. O hear the angel voices. O night divine. O night Christ was born.” Christmas truce. The Christmas truce was a series of widespread, unofficial ceasefires that took place along the Western Front around Christmas 1914, during World War I. Through the week leading up to Christmas, parties of German and British soldiers began to exchange seasonal greetings and songs between their trenches; on occasion, the tension was reduced to the point that individuals would walk across to talk to their opposite numbers bearing gifts. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, many soldiers from both sides – as well as, to a lesser degree, from French units – independently ventured into "no man's land", where they mingled, exchanging food and souvenirs. As well as joint burial ceremonies, several meetings ended in carol-singing. Troops from both sides were also friendly enough to play games of football with one another. [1] The truce is seen as a symbolic moment of peace and humanity amidst one of the most violent events of modern history. It was not ubiquitous; in some regions of the front, fighting continued throughout the day, while in others, little more than an arrangement to recover bodies was made. The following year, a few units again arranged ceasefires with their opponents over Christmas, but the truces were not nearly as widespread as in 1914; this was, in part, due to strongly worded orders from the high commands of both sides prohibiting such fraternisation. In 1916, after the unprecedentedly bloody battles of the Somme and Verdun, and the beginning of widespread poison gas use, soldiers on both sides increasingly viewed the other side as less than human, and no more Christmas truces were sought. A cross, left in Saint-Yves (Saint-Yvon - Ploegsteert; Comines-Warneton in Belgium) in 1999, to commemorate the site of the Christmas Truce. The text reads: "1914 – The Khaki Chum's Christmas Truce – 1999 – 85 Years – Lest We Forget" In the early months of immobile trench warfare, the truces were not unique to the Christmas period, and reflected a growing mood of "live and let live", where infantry units in close proximity to each other would stop overtly aggressive behaviour, and often engage in small-scale fraternisation, engaging in conversation or bartering for cigarettes. In some sectors, there would be occasional ceasefires to allow soldiers to go between the lines and recover wounded or dead comrades, while in others, there would be a tacit agreement not to shoot while men rested, exercised, or worked in full view of the enemy. The Christmas truces were particularly significant due to the number of men involved and the level of their participation – even in very peaceful sectors, dozens of men openly congregating in daylight was remarkable. Contents. Background [ edit | edit source ] The first months of World War I had seen an initial German attack through Belgium into France, which had been repulsed outside Paris by French and British troops at the Battle of the Marne in early September 1914. The Germans fell back to the Aisne valley, where they prepared defensive positions. In the subsequent Battle of the Aisne, the Allied forces were unable to push through the German line, and the fighting quickly degenerated into a stalemate; neither side was willing to give ground, and both started to develop fortified systems of trenches. To the north, on the right of the German army, there had been no defined front line, and both sides quickly began to try to use this gap to outflank one another; in the ensuing "Race to the Sea", the two sides repeatedly clashed, each trying to push forward and threaten the end of the other's line. After several months of fighting, during which the British forces were withdrawn from the Aisne and sent north into Flanders, the northern flank had developed into a similar stalemate. By November, there was a continuous front line running from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier, occupied on both sides by armies in prepared defensive positions. [2] The approach to Christmas [ edit | edit source ] In the lead up to Christmas 1914, there were several peace initiatives. The Open Christmas Letter was a public message for peace addressed "To the Women of and Austria", signed by a group of 101 British women suffragists at the end of 1914 as the first Christmas of World War I approached. [3] [4] Pope Benedict XV, on 7 December 1914, had begged for an official truce between the warring governments. [5] He asked "that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang." [6] This attempt was officially rebuffed. [7] Christmas 1914 [ edit | edit source ] British and German troops meeting in no man's land during the unofficial truce (British troops from the Northumberland Hussars, 7th Division, Bridoux-Rouge Banc Sector) Though there was no official truce, roughly 100,000 British and German troops were involved in unofficial cessations of fighting along the length of the Western Front. [8] The first truce started on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1914, when German troops began decorating the area around their trenches in the region of Ypres, Belgium and particularly in Saint-Yvon (called Saint-Yves, in Plugstreet/Ploegsteert - Comines-Warneton), where Capt. Bruce Bairnsfather described the Truce. [9] The Germans began by placing candles on their trenches and on Christmas trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas carols. The British responded by singing carols of their own. The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were excursions across No Man's Land, where small gifts were exchanged, such as food, tobacco and alcohol, and souvenirs such as buttons and hats. The artillery in the region fell silent. The truce also allowed a breathing spell where recently killed soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties. Joint services were held. The fraternisation carried risks; some soldiers were shot by opposing forces. In many sectors, the truce lasted through Christmas night, but it continued until New Year's Day in others. [7] Bruce Bairnsfather, who served throughout the war, wrote: "I wouldn't have missed that unique and weird Christmas Day for anything. . I spotted a German officer, some sort of lieutenant I should think, and being a bit of a collector, I intimated to him that I had taken a fancy to some of his buttons. . I brought out my wire clippers and, with a few deft snips, removed a couple of his buttons and put them in my pocket. I then gave him two of mine in exchange. . The last I saw was one of my machine gunners, who was a bit of an amateur hairdresser in civil life, cutting the unnaturally long hair of a docile Boche, who was patiently kneeling on the ground whilst the automatic clippers crept up the back of his neck." [10] [11] German soldiers of the 134th Saxon Regiment and British soldiers of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment meet in no man's land, December 26. Captain Sir Edward Hulse Bart reported how the first interpreter he met from the German lines was from Suffolk where he had left his girlfriend and a 3.5 hp motorcycle. Hulse Bart went on to describe a sing-song which "ended up with 'Auld lang syne' which we all, English, Scots, Irish, Prussians, Wurttenbergers, etc, joined in. It was absolutely astounding, and if I had seen it on a cinematograph film I should have sworn that it was faked !" [12] Nor were the observations confined to the British. Leutnant Johannes Niemann: "grabbed my binoculars and looking cautiously over the parapet saw the incredible sight of our soldiers exchanging cigarettes, schnapps and chocolate with the enemy." [13] General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, commander of the British II Corps, issued orders forbidding friendly communication with the opposing German troops. [8] Adolf Hitler, then a young corporal of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry, was also an opponent of the truce. [8] Later truces [ edit | edit source ] In the following months, there were a few sporadic attempts at truces; a German unit attempted to leave their trenches under a flag of truce on Easter Sunday 1915, but were warned off by the British opposite them, and later in the year, in November, a Saxon unit briefly fraternised with a Liverpool battalion. In December 1915, there were explicit orders by the Allied commanders to forestall any repeat of the previous Christmas truce. Individual units were encouraged to mount raids and harass the enemy line, whilst communicating with the enemy was discouraged by artillery barrages along the front line throughout the day. The prohibition was not completely effective, however, and a small number of brief truces occurred. [14] An eyewitness account of one truce, by Llewelyn Wyn Griffith, recorded that after a night of exchanging carols, dawn on Christmas Day saw a "rush of men from both sides . [and] a feverish exchange of souvenirs" before the men were quickly called back by their officers, with offers to hold a ceasefire for the day and to play a football match. It came to nothing, as the brigade commander threatened repercussions for the lack of discipline, and insisted on a resumption of firing in the afternoon. [15] Another member of Griffith's battalion, Bertie Felstead, later recalled that one man had produced a football, resulting in "a free-for-all; there could have been 50 on each side", before they were ordered back. [16] In an adjacent sector, a short truce to bury the dead between the lines led to official repercussions; a company commander, Sir Iain Colquhoun of the Scots Guards, was court-martialled for defying standing orders to the contrary. Whilst he was found guilty and officially reprimanded, this punishment was quickly annulled by General Haig, and Colquhoun remained in his position; the official leniency may perhaps have been because he was related to Herbert Asquith, the Prime Minister. [17] In the later years of the war, in December 1916 and 1917, German overtures to the British for truces were recorded without any success. [18] In some French sectors, singing and an exchange of thrown gifts was occasionally recorded, though these may simply have reflected a seasonal extension of the live-and-let-live approach common in the trenches. [19] Evidence of a Christmas 1916 truce, previously unknown to historians, has recently come to light. In a letter home, 23-year-old Private Ronald MacKinnon told of a remarkable event that occurred on 25 December 1916, when German and Canadian soldiers reached across the battle lines near Vimy Ridge to share Christmas greetings and trade presents. "Here we are again as the song says," the young soldier wrote. "I had quite a good Christmas considering I was in the front line. Christmas eve was pretty stiff, sentry-go up to the hips in mud of course. . We had a truce on Christmas Day and our German friends were quite friendly. They came over to see us and we traded bully beef for cigars." The passage ends with Pte. MacKinnon noting that, "Christmas was 'très bon', which means very good." [20] MacKinnon was killed shortly afterwards during the Battle of Vimy Ridge. In the following years of the war, artillery bombardments were ordered on Christmas Eve to try to ensure that there were no further lulls in the combat. Troops were also rotated through various sectors of the front to prevent them from becoming overly familiar with the enemy. Situations of deliberate dampening of hostilities still occurred. For example, artillery was fired at precise points, at precise times, to avoid enemy casualties by both sides. [21] French-German truce [ edit | edit source ] Richard Schirrmann, who was in a German regiment holding a position on the Bernhardstein, one of the mountains of the Vosges, wrote an account of events in December 1915: "When the Christmas bells sounded in the villages of the Vosges behind the lines . something fantastically unmilitary occurred. German and French troops spontaneously made peace and ceased hostilities; they visited each other through disused trench tunnels, and exchanged wine, cognac and cigarettes for Westphalian black bread, biscuits and ham. This suited them so well that they remained good friends even after Christmas was over." He was separated from the French troops by a narrow No Man's Land and described the landscape as: "Strewn with shattered trees, the ground ploughed up by shellfire, a wilderness of earth, tree-roots and tattered uniforms." Military discipline was soon restored, but Schirrmann pondered over the incident, and whether "thoughtful young people of all countries could be provided with suitable meeting places where they could get to know each other." He went on to found the German Youth Association in 1919. [22] Public awareness [ edit | edit source ] The events of the truce were not reported for a week, in an unofficial press embargo which was eventually broken by the New York Times on 31 December. The British papers quickly followed, printing numerous first-hand accounts from soldiers in the field, taken from letters home to their families, and editorials on "one of the greatest surprises of a surprising war". By 8 January pictures had made their way to the press, and both the Mirror and Sketch printed front-page photographs of British and German troops mingling and singing between the lines. The tone of the reporting was strongly positive, with the Times endorsing the "lack of malice" felt by both sides and the Mirror regretting that the "absurdity and the tragedy" would begin again. [23] Coverage in Germany was more muted, with some newspapers strongly criticising those who had taken part, and no pictures published. In France, meanwhile, the greater level of press censorship ensured that the only word that spread of the truce came from soldiers at the front or first-hand accounts told by wounded men in hospitals. [24] The press was eventually forced to respond to the growing rumours by reprinting a government notice that fraternising with the enemy constituted treason, and in early January an official statement on the truce was published, claiming it had happened on restricted sectors of the British front, and amounted to little more than an exchange of songs which quickly degenerated into shooting. [25] Legacy [ edit | edit source ] Descendants of Great War veterans, in period uniforms, shake hands at the unveiling of a memorial to the truce on 11 November 2008 in Frelinghien, France. In the 1933 play Petermann schließt Frieden oder Das Gleichnis vom deutschen Opfer ( Petermann makes peace: or, the parable of German sacrifice ), written by Nazi writer and World War 1 veteran, Heinz Steguweit (German) , a German soldier, accompanied by Christmas carols sung by his comrades, erects an illuminated Christmas tree between the trenches, but is shot dead by the enemy. Later, when the fellow soldiers find his body, they notice in horror that enemy snipers have shot down every single Christmas light from the tree. [26] The video for the song "Pipes of Peace" by Paul McCartney depicts a ficitionalized version of the Christmas truce. The song was released in 1983. 's song "Christmas in the Trenches," from his 1984 album Winter Solstice , presents a composite account of attested events of the truce from the perspective of a fictitious English soldier. (Mike Harding's song "Christmas 1914", from his 1989 album Plutonium Alley , and Garth Brooks's song "Belleau Wood", from his 1997 album Sevens , contain similar depictions of the truce.) The truce is dramatized in the 2005 French film Joyeux Noël (English: Merry Christmas), depicted through the eyes of French, Scottish and German soldiers. [27] The film, written and directed by Christian Carion, [28] was screened out of competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. [29] In 2011, the Premier League established the Christmas Truce Tournament in 2011, a football tournament for youth players from England, Belgium, France, and Germany. The tournament will be played annually until at least 2014, the centennial anniversary of the original Christmas truce. [30] Silent Night , an opera based Joyeux Noël , received the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2012. [31] Snoopy's Christmas , performed by The Royal Guardsmen which is still a holiday favorite on some American radio 'oldies' stations and on many radio stations in New Zealand, depicts Snoopy and the Red Baron, who was Snoopy's in-universe archenemy, taking part in the Christmas Truce of 1914 somewhere behind the Rhine in German territory. The song depicts the Baron— who was a German war hero— as being the one to initiate the friendly contact once the pair had landed. The two part ways amicably, knowing they are destined to meet in combat again eventually. The song "Let the Truce Be Known" by Orphaned Land takes inspiration from the event, but refers to it with Jewish and Muslims soldiers rather than British and German. Monument [ edit | edit source ] A Christmas truce memorial was unveiled in Frelinghien, France, on 11 November 2008. Also on that day, at the spot where, on Christmas Day 1914, their regimental ancestors came out from their trenches to play football, men from the 1st Battalion, The Royal Welch Fusiliers played a football match with the German Battalion 371. The Germans won 2–1. [ citation needed ]