The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1915-03-24
TRUCE OBSERVED
IN. TRENCHES ON
CHRISTMAS DAY
German and French Legion Soldiers
Meet on "No-Man's" Land, En-
bracing in Arms of Enemy.
HALT FIRE TO BURY DEAD
Spirit of Yule-Tide Exists and Men
Spent Day in Conversation
"War Not Our Fault"
BY PHIL RAIDER.

BY PHIL RAIDER.
Copyright, 1915, by United Press.
London, March 1-There were
three Americans in that marvellous
Christmas truce in my part of the
trenches, Eugene Jacobs of Pawtuck-
ct, R. l.; Victor Chapman, a Harvard
man from New York, and myself.
We belonged to the foreign legion,
which had been made up in Paris
from men of all nationalities and
we had been in the trenches for 20
consecutive days before Christmas
dawned. For 20 days we had faced
that strip of land, As feet wide be-
tween our trench and that of the
Germans-that terrible no-man's
land, dotted with dead bodies, crisis
crossed by tangled mazes of barbed
wire
| That little strip of land was as
wide and as deep and as full of death
as the Atlantic ocean, as uncrossable
! as the spaces between the stars, as
terrible as human hate And the
sunshine of the British Christmas
morning fell on it as brightly as if
it were a lovers lane or the aisle
| in some grand cathedral
Turk Started Truce.
| don't know how the truce began
in other trenches, but in our hole
Nadem began it-Nadem, a Turk,
who believes that Mahomet and not
Christ was the prophet of God. The
sunshine of the morning seemed to
get into Nadem's blood He was only
an enthusiastic boy, always child
ishly happy and when we noticed at
the regular morning shooting hour
that the German trenches were silent,
Nadem began to make a joke of it.
He drew target on a board, fastened
it <on "a pole and, stuck it above the
trenches, shouting to the Germans,
"tSee*'how we'll you can shoot" With
in a minute the target had been
bull's-eyed. Nadem pulled down the
target, put little white bits of paper
on the spots where the bullets had
struck and put it up again, so the
Germans could see their score. In
doing so Nadem's head appeared
above the trench and we heard him
talking across no-man's land.
Thoughtlessly I raised my head, too.
Other men did the same. We saw
hundreds of German heads appearing.
Terror Fell Away.
Shouts filled the air. What miracle
had happened? Men laughed and
cheered. There was a Christmas
light in our eyes and I know there
were Christmas tears in mine. There
were smiles, smiles, smiles, where for
days there had been only rifle bar
rels. The terror of no-man's land
fell away. The sounds of happy
voices filled the air. We were all
unhumanly happy for that one glor-
ious instant, in which we all-Eng-
lish, Portuguese, Americans and even
Nadem, the Turk, and that savages,
as we had been, cave men as we
were, the awfulness of war had not
filled the corners of our hearts, where
love and Christmas live. think
Nadem. was the first to sense what
had happened. He suddenly jumped
out Of the trench and began waving
his hands and cheering. While he
was doing this, a ponderous German
with happy smile that exposed rows
of glittering white teeth climbed out
of the trench and shouted: "Lieut.
Schroeder presents his compliments
to your lieutenant and desires to
know if he will select four men and
come to the middle of the neutral ter
ritory to arrange for a truce for bury
ling the dead" .
Wanted to Hug Enemy.
:, Our lieutenant agreed in an in
slant. I was one of the four men he
selected and shall never forget how
I felt as we advanced to meet the
I four German soldiers and their lieu
tenant who were coming to meet us.
We felt as if we wanted to throw our
arms about these men. They told
me afterwards that the same desire
was upon them. The horrors of war
had been suddenly withdrawn and it
left vacuum in which we human
beings rushed into contract with
each other. You felt their hand
shakes double handshakes- with
both hands in your heart.
The truce was arranged. There
was to be no more firing for one hour
and the men from both sides were to
come out and bury their dead. The
soldiers focked from both trenches
4 They rushed to each other and shook
hands
81 want to have your photographs"
said the German lieutenant to our
party He sent back for his camera
and we enemies stood with our arms
about each others shoulders in horse
CONTINUED on last pass,.