The Christmas Truce of 1914

This post may be a few days off, but alas, the Christmas Season lasts until the Epiphany, so here goes!

On Christmas Eve of 1914 during the ‘War to End All Wars,’ the soldiers on both the German and English sides formed an unofficial cessation in hostilities to wish each other a Happy Christmas and celebrate the Holy Day. The armistice started when the German troops started to decorate their trenches and began singing several Christmas Carols, particularly “Stille Nacth.” The British troops in the trenches opposite them began singing English Christmas Carols in response to the German Celebrations. The singing soon turned to shouts of Christmas cheer across the lines, eventually causing the troops to cross the ‘No Man’s Land’ between the trenches. The two sides began to exchange small gifts between each other. This cessation allowed for the recently wounded and injured to be cared for, one interesting intanse was during a funural for a soldier in the ‘No Man’s Land’ where both Germans and British soldiers gathered together to recite some prayers and a passage from the 23rd Psalm. Enclosed below are some letter written by several British soldiers who was present at the Stalemate.

THE WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS IN THE TRENCHES: Sergt. A. Lovell, A Company, 3rd Rifle Brigade, writing to relatives at Walthamstow, on Christmas Day, says: “Christmas Day! The most wonderful day on record. In the early hours of the morning the events of last night appeared as some weird dream – but to-day, well, it beggars description. You will hardly credit what I am going to tell you. Listen. Last night as I sat in my little dug-out, writing, my chum came bursting in upon me with: “Bob! hark at ‘em!” And I listened. From the German trenches came the sound of music and singing. My chum continued. “They’ve got Christmas trees all along the top of their trenches I Never saw such a sight!”. Climbing the parapet, I saw a sight which I shall remember to my dying day. Right along the whole of their line were hung paper lanterns and illuminations of every description, many of them in such positions as to suggest that they were hung upon Christmas trees.

GERMANS ASK FOR TIPPERARY

And as I stood in wonder a rousing song came over to us – The Watch on the Rhine. Our boys answered with a cheer, while a neighbouring regiment sang lustily the National Anthem. Some were for shooting the lights away, but almost at the first shot there came a shout in really good English: “Stop shooting!”. Then began a series of answering shouts from trench to trench. It was incredible. “Halloo! Halloo! you English; we wish to speak.” And everyone began to speak at once. Some were rational, others the reverse to complimentary. Eventually some sort of order obtained, and lo! A party of our men got out from the trenches and invited the Germans to meet them half-way and talk. And there in the searchlight they stood, Englishman and German, chatting and smoking cigarettes together midway between the lines. A rousing cheer went up from a friend and foe alike. The group was too far away for me to hear what was said, but presently we heard a cheery “Good-night.” A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all,” with which the parties returned to their respective trenches. After this we remained the whole night through singing with the enemy

Carolus Magnus

It has been a long day, celebrating the Christmas with the family, going to Mass, and having a jolly ol’ time eating, drinking, and being merry. But alas, my mind always ends up wandering to some event of historical significance. The Coronation of Charlemagne as the first of the Holy Roman Emperors by Pope Leo III on December 25, 800 A.D. The establishment of a new Roman Empire reunited the collapsed and ruined foundations of the old Empire in an attempt to bring about a stronger and more stable society, which slowly evolved into the wondrous thing known as Christiandom.

Merry Christmas

I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!  I’ll get back to posting soon, but it’s been kind of busy the past few days, and I haven’t had much time to get many posts up.  My next post will be ‘Halo 3′ so please be patient with my slow schedule!

‘Archbishop’ Speaks – By What Authority?

My father mentioned an interesting article to me the other day, so I’ve decided to do a post on it.  The topic was about the ‘Archbishop’ of Canterbury dismissing the story of the Three Wise Men as legend, even going so far as to say there is the possibility that everything which is included in the classical Nativity never actually happened. And concerning the star which led the Three Wise men to the manger, he discredited that by saying: “stars just don’t behave like that.” Without a doubt, he has lost all faith and is simply looking for a ‘reasonable’ explanation for everything in the Bible. Hmmm…I thought that the Protestants threw out the use of both Reason and Faith and simply stuck with Faith… Now it’s vice-versa. Lol, they never can seem to make up their mine on what they want to believe in. (You can read the full article here: Archbishop of Canterbury Dismisses Nativity Scene as Nothing but ‘Legend’) Without a doubt, he has no authority whatsoever to make such a claim, being in fact continuing the separated heretical sect of the Anglican Church. On the top left-hand corner of this post is a picture of the ‘Archbishop’ of Canterbury being initiated into a druid cult. So, by what authority does this archibishop-druid speak out on Christmas and the Nativity? Hmmm…I wonder.

Its Officialy Official

Its wonderful news, they really are going to make the Hobbit into a two movie prequel to the Lord of the Rings. Here is the movie’s official blog. Right now it doesn’t have too much on it but it’s only pre-production. ENJOY!!!

Born of Hope

Here is an interesting site for a movie being made by some Lord of the Rings fans. The story revolves around Aragorn’s parents, Arathorn II and his wife Gilraen. The film attempts to explain the death of Arathorn and Aragorn’s early childhood. There isn’t too much on the entire plot of the film, but it looks promising. Still looking forward towards a release date. I’ve added the trailer below, It looks fairly good, but like one of my home-made films… Except they have costumes, swords, realistic sets, and better special effects.

Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King – Favorite Extended Scenes

 

With the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Extended Edition being about 4hrs in length, I have to say that I have at least 3 favorite scenes. I was quite disappointed that Gandalf’s confrontation with the Witch-King didn’t make it into the theatrical cut of the film, and I’m quite glad to have it in the Extended Edition. With the Houses of Healing scene being cut out of the theatrical version, it left the viewer who never read the books pondering: “Why are Faramir and Eowyn randomly standing by each other, holding hands, and smiling?” lol And finally, the Mouth of Sauron. The scene adds to the tensity of the plot, since Tolkien divided the books into two parts each. The first part of the Return of the King dealt with the story of Aragorn, Gandalf, and Merry, and the second part dealing with the adventures of Frodo and Sam, so the entire scene of the Mouth of Sauron doesn’t have the effect to be had in the book.

Gandalf’s Confrontation with the Witch-King

Halo 2

Finally, the second post for my Halo series has arrived. In the last post I mentioned several articles of hidden interest, such as genetic engineering, and a negative portrayal of religions with a hierarchy or ‘ruling authority.’ One of the main things I’ve noticed lately, is that people are more and more willing to associate the negative portrayals of religion as attacks from Atheism. But when we study the nature and ideal of atheism, we find that all so called ‘atheists’ all have created a personal god out of some object or goal in their lives, whether it be money, pleasure, or any other thing. Now, my main reason for posting this article is to make people aware of the bad name receives in Microsoft’s Halo Video Game series. As I mentioned before, the Covenant are the enemies of the human race, or rather the U.N.S.C. (United Nations Space Command.) Enclosed below is a description of the Covenant Society, which sounds awfully like an intended twisted look at theocracy, thus giving religion a bad name.

Covenant:

Background

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers! It’s already been 5 years since it has been released worldwide in 2002. Being the Second Film in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Series, The Two Towers continues to tell the tale of Frodo’s epic journey to destroy the one ring of Sauron in the fires of Mount Doom.  This is nearly one of my favorite films, I still struggle with choosing a favorite film out of the entire series. You can read more about the movie here. The Site has some pretty cool wallpapers and multimedia.