When the shooting stopped

After six months of savage fighting, soldiers on both sides were firmly ensconced in their respective trenches. Bullets had incessantly rifled through the air. Planes rained hellfire from above. Masses of bodies lay strewn along the battlefield, falling where warriors had succumbed to the cruel truth of their mortality. The living prayed for relief. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the weapons of war fell silent. Against all rational expectation, a spontaneous truce had begun. A poignant story from that day recounted how one side heard the other side singing, with inescapable irony, “Silent Night”. Other accounts detailed how one side heard calls from their enemies to “meet them halfway” on the battlefield. Slowly, hesitantly, heads began to pop up from the trenches like prairie dogs wary of predators. The trickle eventually became a flood. The uneasy peace hadn’t been dreamt up – and certainly was not sanctioned by – the men who designed meticulous battle plans. Indeed, those men would issue stern warnings and even threats to their troops not to engage in unauthorized respite from the carnage. But why had the fighting abruptly halted? What caused the combatants to stop their aggression? The answer is that they did so...