VIRTUAL CLASS: Christmas Truce 1914

INGLÈS PARA PROPOSITOS ACADÈMICOS 

VIRTUAL CLASS: Since we've been missing several classes...THIS ENTRY will be 
our VIRTUAL CLASS. You'll have to work ON YOUR OWN. 
Any queries, let me know ASAP.

The Christmas Truce of 1914 is often celebrated as a symbolic moment of peace in an otherwise devastatingly violent war. We may like to believe that for just one day, all across the front, men from both sides emerged from the trenches and met in No Man’s Land to exchange gifts and play football. But first-hand testimonies help us get closer to what really happened.

Along the Western Front, a scattered series of small-scale ceasefires did happen between some German and British forces. But this brief festive reprieve was far from a mass event. Where it didn't occur, 25 December 1914 was a day of war like any other. Where it did, accounts suggest that men sang carols and in some cases left their trenches and met in No Man's Land....
Along parts of the front, some men responded to the events of Christmas Eve by tentatively emerging from their trenches into No Man’s Land on Christmas Day. Where it happened, enemy soldiers did indeed meet and spend Christmas together.

Spontaneously, they exchanged gifts and took photos - but it was importantly an opportunity to leave the damp of the trenches and tend to the dead and wounded of No Man’s Land. There wasn't a single organised football match between German and British sides. There may have been small-scale kick-abouts – but these were just one of many different activities men took the time to enjoy.

Adapted from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zxsfyrd

Watch the video carefully and listen to the lyrics.




Some interesting facts:

• "The line in the song, "In love our problems disappear" was taken from the 1913 Nobel Prize winning Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). The original quotation was: "In love all of life's contradictions dissolve and disappear." "
• "The music video featured Paul McCartney playing two different soldiers on opposing sides of trenches in World War 1. It recreated the incident where the opposing sides played a football match in No Man's Land on Christmas Day, 1914. .."  source:http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=11256
•  "...It portrays a British and a German soldier, both played by McCartney, who meet up in No Man's Land and exchange photos of their loved ones while other soldiers fraternise and play football. When a shell blast forces the two armies to retreat to their own trenches both men realise that they still have each other's pictures..." source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipes_of_Peace_(song)

Would you like to read the LYRICS? Go HERE

PORTFOLIO 

• Paste the LYRICS onto your portfolio.
• Look up the following words:
• TRUCE
• NO MAN'S LAND
• SWAP
• CHRISTMAS DAY vs CHRISTMAS EVE
• SHELL BLAST
• CAROLS
• CEASEFIRES
• TOLL, TAKE A TOLL
• CASUALTIES
• CHEMICAL WEAPONS
• Imagine you're one of these soldiers and write a SHORT LETTER home explaining your wife/husband/family/mother/ sister...what happened on Christmas Day 2014.

DEADLINE: June 29th

stella