Jonathan Bha­gan

“Joy to the world; the Lord is come; Let Earth re­ceive her King,” the Christ­mas car­ol echoes through the shop win­dow at your lo­cal mall. Tin­selled trees, fes­tive wreaths and gar­lands fill pub­lic spaces, yet de­spite this, a som­bre mood even as news head­lines warn of im­pend­ing con­flict.

As De­cem­ber be­gins, the count­down to Christ­mas 2025 in Trinidad and To­ba­go lingers in the shad­ow of the largest mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment in the Caribbean since Amer­i­can and British forces hunt­ed down Ger­man U-boats dur­ing World War II.

Even as litur­gi­cal church­es fly their Ad­vent colours and light can­dles, the prayers of the faith­ful are for Je­sus Christ, the Prince of Peace, to avert un­nec­es­sary blood­shed this Christ­mas sea­son.

This con­tra­dic­to­ry spir­it fills the air, but it is not un­known to his­to­ry that, over 100 years ago, the spir­it of Christ­mas con­quered the fires of war on one no­table oc­ca­sion.

The spir­it of Christ­mas pre­vailed in the form of a truce dur­ing World War I in 1914.

World War I was a par­tic­u­lar­ly bloody war marked by the first use of chem­i­cal weapons, aer­i­al bom­bard­ment and the in­ven­tion of the tank to break through the trench war­fare that claimed the lives of mil­lions on fields such as Flan­ders and the Somme. It is es­ti­mat­ed that be­tween 15 and 22 mil­lion peo­ple were killed dur­ing WWI.

Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans took part in these bat­tles, in­clud­ing one of my an­ces­tors, Ce­cil Mar­tin Gooch, who an­swered the call to fight along­side British troops dur­ing the bat­tles of World War I. I was told as a child that my great-grand­fa­ther, Ce­cil Mar­tin Gooch, was cap­tured for some time by the Ger­mans and held as a pris­on­er of war, but was re­leased and re­turned to T&T safe­ly.

De­spite the hor­rors of World War I, there were at­tempts for the spir­it of Christ­mas to be re­spect­ed by some sort of truce, a tem­po­rary end to the fight­ing.

To this end, an open Christ­mas let­ter was writ­ten and signed by 101 British suf­frag­ists (fem­i­nist women who ad­vo­cat­ed for women to have the right to vote). This let­ter was part of a wider con­ver­sa­tion with Amer­i­can fem­i­nist Car­rie Chap­man Catt, the pres­i­dent of the In­ter­na­tion­al Woman Suf­frage Al­liance (IWSA) and Ger­man women’s rights ac­tivists.

An ex­cerpt from the let­ter reads

“To the WOMEN OF GER­MANY & AUS­TRIA.

Sis­ters,

Some of us wish to send you a word at this sad Christ­mas­tide, though we can but speak through the press. The Christ­mas mes­sage sounds like mock­ery to a world at war, but those of us who wished and still wish for peace may sure­ly of­fer a solemn greet­ing to such of you who feel as we do. Do not let us for­get that our very an­guish unites us, that we are pass­ing to­geth­er through the same ex­pe­ri­ences of pain and grief.

Caught in the grip of ter­ri­ble cir­cum­stances, what can we do? Tossed on this tur­bu­lent sea of hu­man con­flict, we can but moor our­selves to those calm shores where­on stand, like rocks, the eter­nal ver­i­ties—Love, Peace, Broth­er­hood.

We pray you to be­lieve that come what may, we hold to our faith in Peace and Good­will be­tween na­tions; while tech­ni­cal­ly at en­mi­ty in obe­di­ence to our rulers, we own al­le­giance to that high­er law which bids us live at peace with all men.”

On De­cem­ber 7, 1914, Pope Bene­dict XV plead­ed for an of­fi­cial Christ­mas truce be­tween the war­ring gov­ern­ments; how­ev­er, this call was re­fused by gov­ern­ments on both sides of the war.

His­to­ry records that be­tween De­cem­ber 24 and 26, 1914, many of the men in the trench­es on op­pos­ing sides of the con­flict de­cid­ed to lay down their arms to take part in joint bur­ial cer­e­monies, pris­on­er swaps, and even en­gaged in singing Christ­mas car­ols.

The men even ex­changed food with some sol­diers, be­ing giv­en fried ba­con, sauer­kraut, red wine, Christ­mas pud­ding, choco­late and or­anges.

At least 100,000 Ger­man and British troops took part in these in­for­mal frater­ni­sa­tions in 1914, with re­ports of Ger­mans putting can­dles on the trench­es and on trees while singing car­ols, and the British car­olling as well.

The peace that last­ed through the Christ­mas of 1914, un­for­tu­nate­ly, was not re­peat­ed in a wide­spread man­ner for the rest of World War I, as the bit­ter­ness over the de­ploy­ment of chem­i­cal weapons and heavy ar­tillery made both sides grow cold.

We can look to this his­tor­i­cal ex­am­ple of the Spir­it of Christ­mas over­com­ing blood­shed dur­ing our own Christ­mas 2025, even as we wait and see the out­come of pos­si­ble hos­til­i­ties be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela.

Fol­low­ing the ex­am­ple of Je­sus Christ to love our neigh­bours, we can, as a na­tion, re­ject po­lit­i­cal po­lar­i­sa­tion, pan­ic and xeno­pho­bia and em­brace the teach­ings of the Prince of Peace even dur­ing un­cer­tain times.

I hope that this col­umn has brought a unique per­spec­tive and rekin­dled hopes of Christ­mas cheer be­ing pos­si­ble, even in the midst of our present cir­cum­stances in T&T and the wider Caribbean.