Category: History

The WWI Christmas Truce: a Beatle, a Beagle, and a Brooks

The truce created by common soldiers during one World War I Christmas has inspired artists such as Paul McCartney and Garth Brooks.

On Christmas day in 1914, peace broke out on the battlefield among common soldiers. Several artists have interpreted the World War I Christmas Truce, including folksinger John McCutcheon (“Christmas in the Trenches“).   Two of the biggest recording artists in history — Paul McCartney and Garth Brooks — have also incorporated the historical event into their work.

Although the songs about the truce ignore some of the nuances of the historical record, there is only so much one may do in a three-minute song.  But many artists have used the historical event to create powerful art.

The Christmas Morning Truce

Silent Night and WWI Christmas TruceOn Christmas morning in 1914 at several places along the trenches, an informal peace broke out among the troops.  At some places, German troops started singing carols, and then the British joined in.  Soon, some of the soldiers began showing themselves, and the enemies met in no-man’s land to exchange food and cigarettes, and in some places they played soccer.

The truce occurred spontaneously at different locations with different men.  And it is estimated that more than 100,000 British, French, and German soldiers participated.

Reactions to the Informal Truce

But the World War I leaders on both sides did not appreciate the common soldiers’ truce.  Many days later, after word spread about the Christmas Truce, officers ordered that soldiers who possessed gifts from the enemy would be punished. At many places along the lines, the leadership broke up groups who participated in the truce and transferred the men elsewhere along the front lines.

The following year, there would again be some informal truces, but due to pressure from the officers and due to the increasing brutality of the war, the 1915 truces were not nearly as widespread as the 1914 truces. The moment of peace had passed.

Paul McCartney’s “Pipes of Peace”

The video to Paul McCartney’s 1983 song, “Pipes of Peace” — from the album of the same name — shows a dramatization of the truce.  In the video, we see English Paul and German Paul meeting on the battlefield. (Fortunately, none of the Pauls from the “Coming Up” video appear).

The lyrics of “Pipes of Peace” do not describe the Christmas Truce and are vague enough to be used either as an anti-war song or a love song.  It is sort of like “Love is All You Need.”

In “Pipes of Peace,” Paul sings: “All round the world little children being born to the world/ Got to give them all we can till the war is won / Then will the work be done.”

Garth Brooks and “Belau Wood”

By contrast, in Garth Brooks’s 1997 “Bellau Wood” — from one of his last pre-retirement albums, Sevens (1997) — the lyrics directly describe the Christmas Truce. The story is a fictionalized version of the truce set at the location of a later 1918 World War I battle.

Brooks describes the peace starting with someone singing “Silent Night”: “As we lay there in our trenches / The silence broke in two/ By a German soldier singing / A song that we all knew.” But in the end, the message is similar to the message of the McCartney song:

But for just one fleeting moment
The answer seemed so clear
Heaven’s not beyond the clouds
It’s just beyond the fear

No, heaven’s not beyond the clouds
It’s for us to find it here

Brooks has talked about how emotional it is for him to sing the song, so much so that often when he is asked to perform it in concert he performs a shorter version of the song so he can get through it without tearing up. I recall an official video of the Garth Brooks song “Bellau Wood,” but it does not seem to be available on the Internet. You may hear the song with a fan video below.

The Film Joyeux Noel and a Book

Not surprisingly, others have written about the truce in books. An excellent 2005 French movie is based on the truce, Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas). Also, a nonfiction book by Stanley Weintraub called Silent Night tells the real story in more detail.

Although the movie Joyeux Noel is a fictionalized account of the truce, it does a good job of portraying the reaction to the truce, something that is often overlooked in the sweet versions of the story.

In Weintraub’s book, he described how the High Command on both sides were not happy, but “many troops had discovered through the truce that the enemy, despite the best efforts as propagandists, were not monsters.  Each side had encountered men much like themselves, drawn from the same walks of life — and led, alas, by professionals who saw the world through different lenses.”

At the end of his book, the author wonders what the world would be like today had the informal truce led to an immediate end of the war that was just beginning.

Although the leaders’ reactions against the truce show the darker and realistic side of war, the fact that the truce took place at all is somewhat hopeful for our species. When France dedicated a WWI Christmas Truce memorial in 2008, German and French soldiers played a game of football (soccer) where their predecessors had played in 1914. This time, the peace endured.

Snoopy and The Red Baron

Finally, here is one more song that incorporates the WWI truce, featuring someone more famous than Paul McCartney and Garth Brooks: Snoopy.

In this holiday season and in the upcoming year, may you understand that your enemies are not so different from you.  Peace to all the world and good will to men and women. Happy holidays.

[November 2014 Update: The grocery store chain Sainsbury incorporated the Christmas truce story into a commercial.] Which song do you prefer? Leave a comment.

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    Madoff Raised a Tragedy

    Madoff
    Bernie Madoff Mugshot

    Today it was announced that Mark Madoff, the son of Bernie Madoff, apparently hanged himself in his New York City apartment. His father was arrested two years ago today.

    There are accusations about whether or not Mark Madoff and his brother had knowledge about what their father was doing and whether or not they benefited from it. But it was Mark and his brother who turned in their father.

    We do not know what other dark clouds Mark Madoff was facing, but it is easy to see that his life was changed by the actions of his father. Add to that the albatross from his own choice to betray his father. Unfortunately, Mark Madoff’s children now carry their father’s burdens, even though Mark’s wife worked to lessen the connection to their grandfather by changing their last name. According to reports today, Mark Madoff’s two-year-old son was sleeping in the bedroom next to the room where Mark hanged himself. One’s heart goes out to the family, despite the suffering created by Bernie Madoff himself. I cannot help but wonder how Bernie Madoff feels about all of the tragedy he has wrought on so many lives, including his own sons.

    Bruce Springsteen has written several songs touching on the father-son relationship, borne out of his own troubles. The lyrics to “Adam Raised a Cain” seem relevant here: “They fit you with position/ And the keys to your daddy’s Cadillac./ In the darkness of your room,/Your mother calls you by your true name.” It is unfortunate that the sins get passed on from generation to generation.

    You’re born into this life paying,
    for the sins of somebody else’s past,
    Daddy worked his whole life, for nothing but the pain,
    Now he walks these empty rooms, looking for something to blame,
    You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames,
    Adam raised a Cain.

    In one of his most beautiful songs, “Long Time Comin’,” Springsteen sings one of the best wishes a parent could have for a child. In a single line, he gently erases the curse of “Adam Raised a Cain.”

    “Well if I had one wish for you in
    this God forsaken world, kid
    It’d be that your mistakes will be your own.
    That your sins will be your own”

    On this cold winter day, may your sins be your own.

    Leave your two cents in the comments. Photo via public domain.

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    Steve Earle’s “Ellis Unit One” & Justice Stevens

    Not long after he retired, former United States Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens was in the news for writing a book review, followed by an appearance on 60 Minutes. The attention on Justice Stevens and his changing views on capital punishment remind me of Steve Earle’s haunting song, “Ellis Unit One.”

    In several appearances after he retired, Justice Stevens described how he changed his mind about the death penalty. Over time, he came to conclude, as the New York Times summarized, that the Supreme Court has “created a system of capital punishment that is shot through with racism, skewed toward conviction, infected with politics and tinged with hysteria.”

    Justice John Paul Stevens
    Justice Stevens was on the Supreme Court in 1976 when the Court, in effect, established the modern death penalty.  In 1972, the Court held that the nation’s death penalty laws violated the constitution, but in 1976 the Court upheld new death penalty laws. In those cases and in cases throughout the decades, Justice Stevens voted to uphold the constitutionality of the death penalty. But in his final few years on the Supreme Court, he came to conclude that the death penalty system was unfair and constituted a pointless taking of life that does not serve society.

    At the time, Justice Stevens joined two other U.S. Supreme Court Justices who voted to uphold the death penalty in 1976 but by the end of their careers had changed their minds: Justices Harry Blackmun and Justice Lewis Powell.  More often than one might guess, over time, some who advocated for and implemented the nation’s death penalty — judges, prosecutors, police officers, wardens, legislators, executioners — eventually conclude that the punishment is unfair, racist, useless, risks executing innocent defendants, and that society would be better off replacing the death penalty with life in prison.

    The news about Justice Stevens reminded me of a song that tells one of these stories, Steve Earle’s “Ellis Unit One,” which appeared on the soundtrack for the 1995 movie Dead Man Walking and is one of the most moving songs ever written about the death penalty.  The song is told from the perspective of a prison guard.  The guard describes getting transferred to death row at Ellis Unit One, the Texas prison unit that housed condemned prisoners at the time the song was written.

    The narrator does not say what he thinks about the death penalty. Steve Earle’s genius here is to understand that the description is enough.

    Well, I’ve seen ‘em fight like lions, boys
    I’ve seen ’em go like lambs
    And I’ve helped to drag ‘em when they could not stand.
    And I’ve heard their mamas cryin’ when they heard that big door slam
    And I’ve seen the victim’s family holdin’ hands.

    Many of the judges who have condemned people to death may have had dreams similar to the one described in “Ellis Unit One”: “Last night I dreamed that I woke up with straps across my chest / And something cold and black pullin’ through my lungs.” Having such a heavy responsibility may haunt one’s dreams, even if the judge is confident in the choice made. Similar dreadful dreams may have led Justices Stevens, Blackmun, and Powell to renounce their earlier decisions.

    When we read about a horrible crime and have the normal initial human reaction to want the perpetrator killed, we often ignore the death penalty system’s toll on the many people it touches, including the guards, the wardens, the judges, the lawyers, the families of the victim, and the families of the condemned.  Whether or not we agree with Justice Stevens, one must acknowledge the costs caused by the continuing use of capital punishment.  While Justice Stevens’s change of heart reveals the legal and practical issues surrounding the death penalty, Steve Earle’s poetic song exposes some of the human toll.

    Bonus Song Information: The reference to “the Walls” in the song is to the nickname for the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas, about twelve miles away from Ellis Unit.  It is where the Texas inmates are executed.

    Bonus Alternate Versions Information:  In addition to the soundtrack version of the song, Earle has another outstanding version that is a demo with The Fairfield Four providing background singing. The Fairfield Four version appeared on the EP Johnny Too Bad and Earle’s collection of random songs from various side projects, Sidetracks. The latter appears to be available as an import, and the former seems hard to find and overpriced for an EP, but you may hear a clip with the Fairfield Four through the “Johnny Too Bad” link.  This version is worth seeking out.  Finally, a live version of the song is on Steve Earle’s Live At Montreux 2005 album.

    One of Cleveland’s favorite son performers, Michael Stanley, also recorded a version of the song. As a former Clevelander I have the required fondness for MSB, but his version is inferior to Earle’s. As his version progresses, he adds instruments and background singers to the point I thought he was going to break into a full-blown uplifting rock song with a last-minute stay of execution. Still, Stanley has good taste in choosing to cover such a great song, and perhaps it merely suffers by comparison to Steve Earle’s excellent versions. And some may prefer Stanley’s voice and his cover. Leave a comment to let me know what version you like.

    Has anyone ever started talking about a Supreme Court Justice and ended up talking about Michael Stanley?

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    Today in History: John Brown’s Body

    On the morning of December 2 in 1859, the abolitionist John Brown was hanged in Virginia for treason and for inciting a slave insurrection.

    That fall, Brown led 21 men on a raid of Harpers Ferry Armory in what is now West Virginia with the hope that others would join and there would be a slave uprising. That day, a baggage master who was a free black man became the first man killed by Brown’s group in their attempt to free the nation’s slaves.

    Brown was an interesting person. Assessments indicate he was part demented and part prophet, part terrorist and part patriot, part genius and part failure, part hero and part villain, part powerful and part powerless. How do you classify a man who was so right in his cause? He died for what he believed, and he was right in his goal. As for his means . . . ?

    John Brown's Grave (jlk)
    Where John Brown\’s Body lies a\’mouldering.

    The first shots fired at Harpers Ferry were the first shots of the Civil War. There were many connections between Brown and the upcoming war. At Harpers Ferry, Colonel Robert E. Lee led the U.S soldiers against Brown, and an army lieutenant named J.E.B. Stuart first talked to the raiders in negotiation attempts. In the audience for Brown’s December execution were John Wilkes Booth and Thomas Jonathan Jackson, who less than two years later would earn the nickname “Stonewall” on the battlefield.

    Then, there is the song. Although the Pete Seeger version is more famous, here is an older version of “John Brown’s Body” by J.W. Myers in 1913. According to some accounts, the song started out as a fun song created by soldiers singing about a comrade named “John Brown,” and when others heard the song they assumed it was about John Brown the abolitionist and added verses to that effect. Then, of course, Julia Ward Howe created new lyrics for the music to create another song for the Union that you know from school: “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

    John Brown’s Body by J.W. Myers

    Photos: John Brown (public domain); John Brown’s Grave (by Chimesfreedom)

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    Ten Sentences: Gettysburg Address

    Gettysburg Address On an autumn day on this date in 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech that only took a few minutes and was a mere ten sentences long.  The most famous photo of the speech shows Lincoln stepping down after finishing, because the photographer had assumed the speech would last longer than it did.

    The Gettysburg ceremony took place to dedicate a new national cemetery several months after the July 1-3 battle that left around 50,000 soldiers injured or dead.  Organizers invited Lincoln to deliver a few remarks after the main oration by Edward Everett, a former Secretary of State, Governor, and Senator.  Everett spoke for two hours, while Lincoln took only a few minutes to deliver his ten sentences.  Newspaper reviews for the President’s speech at the time were mixed, often along partisan lines, but soon people recognized how his ten sentences defined the war and the nation.

    Gary Wills in his book Lincoln at Gettysburg, as well as others, note historical parallels between the language of the speech and Greek sources, the Bible, etc.  One of my favorite connections was noted today by James Hume, who was a speechwriter for Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush.  He wrote that when Lincoln was ten, a farmer loaned Lincoln a book, Mason Weems’ Life of George Washington.  After the book was significantly ruined by rain that had leaked into the cabin, Lincoln had to work off the book by pulling tree stumps, and then the waterlogged book became one of the boy’s few possessions.  A page that was still legible showed a picture of Washington at a Valley Forge memorial with the inscription, “That these dead shall not have died in vain.”  The 54-year-old Lincoln incorporated those words into his famous speech.

    It took me twelve sentences to tell the above background story.  Lincoln defined a nation in ten.

    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.  Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

    But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

    Often, Lincoln actors have deep booming voices — with one exception being Henry Fonda’s wonderful portrayal in the movie Young Mr. Lincoln.  But Lincoln actually had a high-pitched voice, so the recording below done by Jeff Daniels — where he also realistically seems to be sort of yelling as Lincoln would have had to do at the event without artificial amplification — is probably more accurate than most simulations.

    For those of you who prefer your information in Powerpoint, click here.

    Photo of Lincoln at Gettysburg via public domain. Update: In 2013, a second photo was found that featured Lincoln at Gettysburg. Leave your two cents in the comments.

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