History Nexus / History Websites
Posted by
alancleaver
355 days ago
- Average Rating: 4.75 with 4 vote(s)
(www.christmastruce.co.uk)
Category: archive and reference
5 Comments
History Nexus is a new on-line history community site.
Submit and recommend a history website to others.
Submit and recommend a history website to others.
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general
ancient history
archive and reference
biographies
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cultural history
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labor history
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museums and institutions
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Comments
This is probably the oddest, but most inspiring events in modern history - the World War One Christmas truce of 1914.
As Rifleman E. E. Meadley of the Queen's Westminsters is recorded on the website as writing:
'You will be very much surprised to hear I had one of the best Christmas Days I have had for years. On Christmas Eve I went to the trenches and the Germans were singing carols to our men and we were singing to them. They then shouted to us 'A Merry Christmas, British comrades. You English are fine singers." After that some of our men went out and met some of the Germans halfway. One of our chaps gave a German a Christmas pudding and the Germans in return gave hima bottle of wine and some cigars. Then they arranged that there should be no shooting on either side till after midnight on Christmas Dy they kept to their promise. I must say the Germans were very sporty and wanted to arrange a football match with us for the Christmas afternoon which, however, when the time came fell through. On Christmas Day our men were walking about in front of the trenches and talking in a friendly way with the Germans and asking them how long they thought the war would last and also exchanging souvenirs.'
What is so special about this website is that it is based, or aims to be based, on user contributions.
Called 'Operation Plum Pudding', readers are encouraged to research their local papers for letters from the front detailing the truce.
More information here:
http://www.christmastruce.co.uk/howtkpart.html
It's worth reading Stanley Weintraub's Silent Night: The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914 which is still available on Amazon for a reasonable price.
A short piece of work, this book would make, and I'm not being facetious here, a great Christmas present.
This looks a promising project.
That book you listed Andy is quite an interesting read, hardly an epic of 'Making of the English Working Class' historian standards, but worth an examination.
The last chapter is quite intriguing: What would have happened to 20th century history if the unofficial truce had held?
I just changed the title from www.christmastruce.co.uk to as it is.
The previous title was breaking the layout of the site.
The last survivor the 1914 Christmas Truce is interviewed in 2004:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1376965,00.html
This is a really good idea. There's an awful lot of useful information on the Great War in local papers but it's often hard to find. I think this kind of digitization from below has the potential to achieve more than expensive top-down projects if it's done right and if enough people get involved. The site would be even better if it was based on wiki software - the present system of e-mailing stuff for the editors to put up is a potential bottleneck and might put off people who can make a small contribution but can't commit too much time - but it's great that this information is being made freely accessible.