{"id":320,"date":"2014-12-24T11:35:45","date_gmt":"2014-12-24T11:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/?p=320"},"modified":"2014-12-24T11:35:45","modified_gmt":"2014-12-24T11:35:45","slug":"a-christmas-truce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/?p=320","title":{"rendered":"A Christmas Truce"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/sawbo-footie.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-316 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/sawbo-footie-300x201.jpg\" alt=\"sawbo footie\" width=\"439\" height=\"294\" \/><\/a>Hello,<\/p>\n<p>The above photograph comes from a report on a recent charity football\u00a0 match in memory of the famous 1914 Christmas Truce Match of 1914. It was published in the Herts and Essex Observer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The event was well attended and raised \u00a3 500 for the Herts Memorial Fund.\u00a0 See\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/www.hertsatwar.co.uk\/memorial for more information.\u00a0 Three cheers for Gary Hanson\u00a0 who organised the event.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of information\u00a0 abut the Truces (there were a number of them) has recently come to light. There is even a dedicated website : http:\/\/www.christmastruce.co.uk\/\u00a0 People may also have noticed\u00a0 that the diary of Regimental Sergeant Major George Beck is being uploaded.\u00a0 the link is http:\/\/news.dorsetforyou.com\/rsm-beck-diary\/ Thanks to the Herts at War people for alerting me to this.<\/p>\n<p>The truces arose spontaneously and were not much appreciated by high command on either side of the fence.\u00a0\u00a0 Pope Benedict V had already failed to bring about an official one.\u00a0 The story also goes that after the event participating soldiers were moved about for fear that fraternization with the army had weakened their resolve.<\/p>\n<p>That is why in 1915 and subsequent years there were no repeats. The below article (from the Dundee Courier of 23-12- 1915 ) shows how quickly the media switched back to brute hostility mode.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Dundee-Courier-Thursday-23-December-1915-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-318 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Dundee-Courier-Thursday-23-December-1915-1-279x300.jpg\" alt=\"Dundee Courier - Thursday 23 December 1915 1\" width=\"367\" height=\"394\" srcset=\"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Dundee-Courier-Thursday-23-December-1915-1-279x300.jpg 279w, http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Dundee-Courier-Thursday-23-December-1915-1.jpg 527w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 367px) 100vw, 367px\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-319 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Dundee-Courier-Thursday-23-December-1915-2-300x254.jpg\" alt=\"Dundee Courier - Thursday 23 December 1915 2\" width=\"355\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>Even today when, thanks to modern communication methods, we should be able to understand one another\u00a0 better, there is little proof that that is happening. It is far too easy to blame it all on Johnny Foreigner. Let us not do that. Let&#8217;s work together!<\/p>\n<p>Have a Happy Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>Theo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello, The above photograph comes from a report on a recent charity football\u00a0 match in memory of the famous 1914 Christmas Truce Match of 1914. It was published in the Herts and Essex Observer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The event was well attended and raised \u00a3 500 for the Herts Memorial Fund.\u00a0 See\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/www.hertsatwar.co.uk\/memorial for more information.\u00a0 Three cheers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339,"href":"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vandebilt.co.uk\/history\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}