Rating: 
Summary: A break in the war for Christmas
Review: "War is the continuation of politics by another means". So said Carl Von Clauswitz in his treatise "On War". When reading this book, it becomes painfully obvious that war really is a continuation of politics - the generals and the politicians dictate the war, but the soldiers in the trenches dictate the flow.Stanley Weintraub has told us the story of a fascinating truce declared by the soldiers over the Christmas Holiday in 1914. His writing is easy to follow, and the story makes you feel as if you are there. Although it seems that the same premise resurfaces numerous times during the book, this is to illustrate Weintraub's point that the soldiers themselves decided to make this truce happen, not the Generals. I found the variations on the theme interesting to read, and especially interesting to understand how widespread this action really was, rather than a single group of soldiers declaring an informal truce. I personally disagree with the conclusions reached from this study; I do not believe that had the truce continued and ended the war at this point that history would have been altered in the drastic fashion that Weintraub writes of. I recommend this book to all who have the desire to see the humanistic side of soldiers in wartime. I encourage those who have interest in what might have happend to read the last chapter especially carefully to see if you agree or disagree with the author's conclusions.
Rating: 
Summary: Remarkable temporary return to sanity...
Review: Christmas Eve, 1914. A remarkable event was in the offing because two great armies from two different persuasions met not to slit each other's throats but to exchange gift parcels, goodwill and Christmas carols. It is one of the most unheralded events of the First World War, largely unsung in history until Professor Weintraub recreated the strained and eerie peculiarity that held the trenches on that bleak and cold December night. As a schoolboy starting to get fascinated with European history, I came across some references about this event in some books but in very short passages. It is only now that a historian has finally crafted a very poignant story of the events using material from the letters and diaries of the participants, and from newspaper accounts. It is an account of common human decency surfacing in one brief moment in time, in a sea of the savagery of war. It was the men, the ordinary fighting soldiers, not their officers who extemporaneously planned this truce. The first signs and signboards appeared from the German lines, proclaiming that "You no fight, we no fight." And so slowly and almost imperceptibly, the men began to emerge from their mud soaked trenches. They swapped cigarettes and food, helped bury each others dead and even engaged in some games. For that brief moment sanity prevailed, European culture prevailed and the author concludes that "the war restored rules evoking an earlier century and a less complicated world." The unplanned truce lasted through the whole night and all throughout Christmas day. It worried some officers and Generals that its spirit might spread like wildfire and lead to a cessation of hostilites--and to their relief the violence eventually resumed, and would continue for three more Christmases and end six weeks just shy of a fourth. It is a narrative so refreshingly free of sentiment that it reads like a novel about a remarkable chapter in the history of the First World War, when combatants on both sides laid down their arms and invoked the spirit of their shared religious tradition. Remarkable
Rating: 
Summary: Boring, Disorganized, and Highly Repetitive
Review: I have read over 40 books about World War I, and this is the worst book I've ever read on the subject. The book is boring, disorganized, and relentlessly pursues it pacifist agenda. The book is repititous ad nauseaum. In the author's attempt to convince his readers that the ordinary soldiers didn't want to fight, he presents a huge number of barely discernible short stories and excerpts throughout the book. The text is erratic and disorganized. This unconvincing book seems not like the work of a published author, but the work of a human psychology student's term paper. Much of the book simply consists of word-for-word extracts from other published media. Ignore the positive reviews on the back cover - it's clear these reviewers didn't read more than the first few pages. This book isn't worth the paper it's printed on!
Rating:
Summary: Eye Opener
Review: In 'Silent Night' Weintraub has given the World an invaluable treatise on an incredible event that occurred during WW I in which individual and spontaneous humanitarian actions by soldiers on the front transcended the cold orders from the top brass not to fraternize with the enemy and to proceed with the war on Christmas Eve and Day. When I tell people about the Christmas truce of 1914, that soldiers from opposing sides shook hands, exchanged gifts and played soccer, the response is invariably "no way!" My thanks to Stanley Weintraub for telling us this story, and in such detail. There are few books that I have read as fast as this. It is great Christmas time reading.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful look at a very special Christmas
Review: In 1914, as the Great War turned from a glorious adventure into a grinder of human meat, something unexpected and beautiful happened. When Christmas Eve arrived, quite against orders, peace mysteriously broke out. In many places along No-Man's Land, soldiers from the opposing armies mingled, traded trinkets, sang songs, and even played impromptu soccer matches. This is the story of that all too brief interlude in that human tragedy that was the First World War. The author of this book has brought together a wonderful book. It is a collection of anecdotes about that Christmas Truce, complete with a series of pictures. Being a minor student of that tragic war, I could not help but be touched by this story, being at times brought close to tears by some of the stories. I must admit that I found the author's speculation on what might have happened if the opposing armies had decided to make the peace permanent to be quite fanciful, and rather anticlimactic. That said, though, this is a wonderful book, one that is quite informative on a little studied chapter of World War I. I highly recommend this book to all readers!
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Summary: Cultural History of a little-known Episode of the Great War
Review: In the first months of World War I, while the mud was still new and disgusting to the troops in the trenches, and the killing was still novel to them, Christmas approached. Some of the soldiers on both sides (but chiefly, curiously, the Germans) crossed no-man's-land and met to exchange gifts, sing carols, play games of soccer, and socialize. This so-called Christmas truce lasted in some sectors for several days or even a couple of weeks, and was localized and generally restricted to areas where the British were facing non-Prussian units of the German army, though there were many exceptions. The Belgians and French, less friendly towards the invaders of their country, were only involved sporadically. This book, then, is the story of this truce, and its impact on Western society, both in terms of the actual effect and the effect it could have had. The author uses diaries and later interviews with participants, newspaper articles of the time, and the few official histories which mention the events, to bring the account to life. He supplements these with versions of the event in fiction in various places, but is careful to tell you the accounts are fictional, and there's generally a reason for including them. One of the best-known British writers from the Great War, Robert Graves, apparently based a fictional account of the event on stories he heard after the fact, for instance. The book also includes a sort of mini-history of the history of the event, including everything from a British rock group in the seventies to Snoopy and his mythical duel with the Red Baron. The book concludes with a what-if speculation, that tries to imagine the world after a Christmas truce that lasted, and forced the politicians to peace. This is somewhat clumsily handled, because the image of the French or Belgians accepting the German occupation of parts of their country at this stage isn't believable, and the Germans weren't going to give up what they'd fought so hard to capture. The author acknowledges this somewhat in the main part of the book when he recounts that the Germans often boasted that they would be defeating their enemies soon, even while they were exchanging gifts and carols with them. This speculative chapter is the weakest part of the book. I did enjoy the book overall, though, and would recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Great Story
Review: Let me open by saying that the book is not all that well written. However the story is amazing. I am shocked that I have never really heard about this prior to reading this book. Everyone should read this book especially those who think peace will never happen. Very good lesson.
Rating: 
Summary: Overall good but somewhat superfacial
Review: The author definitely done his research. The book is crammed with anecdotes, remembrances, drawings, soldier's songs, newspaper headlines centered around that remarkable Christmas day. All of them interesting, but reading through them is a disjointed experience due to the book's one-thing-after-another organizing style. In the last chapter author tried to introduce a little theory for the smorgasgord of facts he had so impressively assembled, speculating unconvincingly about the historical significance of the informal truce. Interested people who wish to consider/speculate how this event fit into European history could try The Rites of Spring, by Modris Ekstein, a cultural history of Europe of that period. Nonetheless, the facts of the event shines through.
So if you are interested in gaining general knowledge of the 1914 Christmas truce, it's a good book. But don't look for discussions on why this event occurred or why no truces approaching its scale ever happend again.
Rating:
Summary: Briefly: Peace on Earth
Review: The author, Stanley Weintraub, notes that records dating back to ancient Troy show "Live-and-let-live" accommodations occur in all wars with "cessations in fighting to bury the dead, to pray to the gods, to negotiate a peace..." However, the author notes, "None had ever occurred on the scale of, or with the duration, or with the potential for changing things, as when the shooting suddenly stopped on Christmas Eve, 1914." In December 1914 "both sides of the front line in Flanders, astride the borders of Belgium and France...faced off from rows of trenches..." On Christmas Eve 1914 toward midnight, firing ceased and soldiers from both sides met halfway between their positions. The text notes, "Almost always, it was the Germans who at least indirectly invited the truce" shouting the words "You no shoot, we no shoot." "The initiatives were at first rebuffed, but both sides wanted it, and a truce materialized" as up and down No Man's Land the two sides-even the French-were coming together with burial of corpses a "tacit precondition for fraternization." In most areas the truce was from Christmas Eve lasting until midnight Christmas Day with some areas extending the truce through December 26th. In other areas, bad weather discouraged resuming fighting on December 26th. The text gives several examples of Christmas 1914 truces and fraternization. Officers up to the rank of colonel were involved but kept a low profile. Both Allied and German high commands were concerned about the implications of fraternization, and opposed the Christmas truce. However, the "fraternization, dangerously unwarlike from the headquarter perspective, seemed unstoppable." The text recounts several stories about impromptu soccer games. One soldier wrote, "Everywhere you looked, the occupants of the trenches stood about talking to each other and even playing football." On page 122 the book states "although the truce seemed to end as it had begun-from the bottom up, with random acts of violence-the High commands on both sides were also demanding renewed war, and by orders and threats they made it happen", and the truce ended with a few stray bullets and shells as few in the trenches wished to return to the killing field. While the truce is basically dismissed in official histories as a minor occurrence of no inconsequence, in the last Chapter, the author asks the question what would have happened if soldiers on both sides refused to resume fighting. Several "What Ifs" are outlined and the author states, "Much of this speculation may be frivolous," but notes it "hinges upon one of the twentieth century's most potentially significant events." The book states "...Christmas 1914 reopened imaginations to the unsettling truth that at each end of the rifle, men were indeed the same..." and ends noting "However much the momentary peace of 1914 evidenced the desire of the combatants to live in amity with one another it was doomed from the start by the realities beyond the trenches." This book is an interesting account of peace slipping through mankind's figures.
Rating: 
Summary: Great story, but book is hard to follow
Review: This is a great story for the holiday season and is a great anomaly in what was a horrible war of attrition. However, the book is more of a collection of thoughts rather than an oral history or an actual story. At times I couldn't tell which side I was reading about unless the names were totally obvious. Also it may be tougher to understand if you don't know the geography or the history of the WWI era and how it came to pass.
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