It is with awe that people speak of the unprecedented Christmas Eve truce amongst those all along the Western Front in 1914, the first winter of World War I. Nothing like it had ever been seen before or since. The German troops risked life and limb to place their Christmas trees along the parapets and trenches. Guns fell silent, replace by the sound of voices raised in harmony to sing carols. Men from oppossing forces came together,, crossing into No-Man's Land to exchange gifts of cigarrettes and Christmas treats sent from home. It is a singularly unique event in the history of war.

This makes for a fascinating topic, but sadly a not so fascinating book. The book is simply a collection of anecdotes, letters from or to soldiers, fictional accounts of this event, and memories of the soldiers who were there, even references to soongs in which it is mentioned (think Snoopy and the Red Baron). While at first this was interesting, by page 50 it had become quite repetitive. By page 175 it was tedious. Thanfully that was the end. The book is very well-researched with a thorough bibliography. I really wish I could have rated this book higher. I wanted to like it, but in the end it just didn't work for me.

This is an enjoyable and well written account of the 1914 truce that happened during World War 1 on the Western Front in the improbable setting of the trenches. Time and again Stanley Weintraub uncovers examples of how, despite orders from senior officers, the troops in the trenches came together to sing carols, exchange gifts, eat and drink together, and even play football. In most of these examples the troops discovered how alike they were and how much they shared in common.

I am not sure this subject warrants a whole book and there is quite a bit of repetition as Stanley Weintraub gives numerous different examples of the different ways the truce occurred in different parts of the Western Front. 

The book concludes with a short chapter titled "What if....?" in which Stanley Weintraub speculates what might have happened had the war ended with the 1914 Christmas truce which felt a bit pointless.

Interesting, if inessential.

3/5

This is an enjoyable and well written account of the 1914 truce that happened during World War 1 on the Western Front in the improbable setting of the trenches. Time and again Stanley Weintraub uncovers examples of how, despite orders from senior officers, the troops in the trenches came together to sing carols, exchange gifts, eat and drink together, and even play football. In most of these examples the troops discovered how alike they were and how much they shared in common.

I am not sure this subject warrants a whole book and there is quite a bit of repetition as Stanley Weintraub gives numerous different examples of the different ways the truce occurred in different parts of the Western Front. 

The book concludes with a short chapter titled "What if....?" in which Stanley Weintraub speculates what might have happened had the war ended with the 1914 Christmas truce which felt a bit pointless.

Interesting, if inessential.

3/5

I never knew a lot about the Battle of the Bulge, it seems to be one of those battles from WW2 that is often briefly mentioned in high school and college courses and not much more. So my limited knowledge of it came from the one episode in Band of Brothers where Easy company was involved in the fighting. So reading a book about those 11 days which had one of the highest casualty rates of the war (10,276 killed and 23,218 missing). It was intriguing to read about the different personalities of the leaders and how each of them positively or negatively influenced the outcome of the war. Overall, I had to say that had the American's been less cocky about how they were doing in the war, then the d&d (and no, that doesn't mean dungeon's and dragon's) tactics of the Germans might have not been as effective and the outcome could have been totally different.I will definately be looking for more historical non-fiction by Weintraub in the future.