Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works High brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vocal bomb. Here today, I've got a Christmas story
Speaker 1: for you, and I promise it has a happy ending.
Speaker 1: The beginning is a little bit harsh though a World
Speaker 1: War One gave the world its first brush with efficient
Speaker 1: and widespread death. More than eight point five million people
Speaker 1: would lose their lives to the war. Troops used trench
Speaker 1: warfare for the first time. The hundreds of miles of
Speaker 1: trenches that marked the landscape from the English Channel to
Speaker 1: Switzerland held an astounding average of one soldier for every
Speaker 1: four inches. Both sides held tenaciously to their positions. The
Speaker 1: Battle of Verdun lasted nine months, caused three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: deaths and resulted in almost no change in the position
Speaker 1: of the lines. New technology made its way into battlefields
Speaker 1: of France, Germany and Belgium, bringing death to soldiers in
Speaker 1: new horrible ways. Machine guns, which had made their debut
Speaker 1: in the American Civil War, became more efficient over the
Speaker 1: ensuing decades, and by the early twentieth century they could
Speaker 1: deal six hundred rounds per minute. Chemical warfare was we
Speaker 1: find in the form of mustard, chlorine, and phosgene gas.
Speaker 1: Airplanes were used for the first time in major combat,
Speaker 1: including the concept of mass casualty bombings. The tank and
Speaker 1: the flamethrower both made their debuts with mixed results, and
Speaker 1: the casualties of World War One extended to civilians, making
Speaker 1: the Great War a total war. In the midst of
Speaker 1: all this madness, however, an event took place that serves
Speaker 1: to renew a little faith in humanity. The Christmas Truce
Speaker 1: was a brief moment of sanity, standing out against the
Speaker 1: chaos of war. One of the first public statements Pope
Speaker 1: Benedict the fifteenth made when he was elected to the
Speaker 1: papacy was to plea for a truce on Christmas Day.
Speaker 1: Although the Germans entertained the idea of a Christmas truce,
Speaker 1: the Allied forces rejected it. Benedict's request fell to the wayside.
Speaker 1: World War One had begun in earnest on the Western
Speaker 1: Front in the Flanders area of Belgium. The Christmas season
Speaker 1: arrived amid heavy fighting. Both sides were dug in and miserable.
Speaker 1: Soldiers learned what it meant to live in discomfort and fear.
Speaker 1: In some cases, enemy soldiers fought from trenches just thirty
Speaker 1: yards or twenty seven meters from one another, all along
Speaker 1: the front that Christmas, British and German troops received packages.
Speaker 1: Inside they found notes of appreciation, chocolates, putting, tobacco, and
Speaker 1: other tokens in their packages. The German troops received Christmas trees.
Speaker 1: The small trees at ten and bombs in German were
Speaker 1: sent to the front, replete with small candles to light.
Speaker 1: On Christmas Eve of nineteen fourteen, German soldiers lit the
Speaker 1: candles and set some trees up on the ledges of
Speaker 1: their trenches. When they began singing, the British troops joined in.
Speaker 1: Wary hopeful soldiers began to peer over the trenches. As
Speaker 1: Christmas broke over Flanders, a truce was carved. From the
Speaker 1: spirit of the season. Germans held up signs Uni fight,
Speaker 1: wen Know Fight. British troops responded with signs proclaiming Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1: This Christmas did turn out to be a merry one.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Josh Clark and produced by
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil. By the way, if you're listening to data,
Speaker 1: episode publishes Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. For more on
Speaker 1: this and lots of other seasonal topics. Visit our home planet,
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com.