When the guns fall silent by James Riordan

When the guns fall silent by James Riordan (OUP, 2000)

ISBN 978-0-19-273570-6

25 chapters; 157 pages

Subjects: World War One, France, football, Christmas, truce, trenches, deserters, young adult fiction (Year 9-11)

Synopsis

Jack and Harry, friends and keen footballers, go off to fight in WW1. The football game played in the Christmas truce of 1914 (the time “when the guns fall silent”, in the title) only takes up two or three chapters at the end, although there is more about football at the beginning as well. This main narrative is framed by the story of 12-year-old Perry, visiting the WW1 graves in France in 1964 with his grandfather (the older Jack.)

I don’t think I would give this to a child as their first book about WW1. The descriptions of death and battle are very graphic, possibly nightmare-inducing; they include references to firing squads, suicide, mercy killings, rumoured German atrocities and horrible injuries.

    

Parts of the dialogue are written in dialect, which can be hard to read aloud. The depiction of the officers is almost invariably critical. They are all “chinless wonders from Winchester”, apart from one poet-officer who is killed leading his men into battle; the rest of them are chateau generals who enjoy fancy food behind the lines and face no personal danger.

Some of the story is told in letters which would have been unlikely to get past the censors, but no reference is made to the issue of censorship (which is part of the war story, after all).  However I did like the inclusion of the poems, chants and songs at the start of many of the chapters, especially one I didn’t know before called “Achtung! Achtung!” by Mary Hacker.

The book was first published in 2000 but has been recently re-released for the centenary of the beginning of WW1 in 2014.

Reviews: 

The Bookbag calls it “a moving story which fully captures the horrors of war, and doesn't shy away from being fairly graphic in its telling of them.” Their reviewer also notes the puzzle of which age group to recommend it to: "I think thoughtful younger readers will get a huge amount out of it, but I know many parents and guardians will want to be warned of those things. Teens may initially be surprised by its short length, but it packs a lot into its relatively few pages."

Scribbles book review makes the same point (“A hard-hitting, graphic and, at times, upsetting account of soldiers on the front line during the First World War”), and draws an interesting comparison about the difference between graphic violence in fantasy or sci fi and in war books.

And finally, there's one more review here in Thoughts about Books. 

Author’s website

James Riordan died in 2012, aged 75, and you can read an obituary for him in the Guardian.  He certainly led an interesting life, which included joining the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1959 and going to live in Russia for many years; he was a keen footballer and football supporter and became the only foreigner to play in the Soviet football league.  

James Riordan (Photograph: BBC)

About the illustrator

Caroline Tomlinson did the cover and typography and you can read about her method of working here.

Other books you might like:

War game by Michael Foreman tells the story of a football game played between opposing sides during a temporary truce. Look at my blog posting on that book for more details about Christmas and other truces that took place during the First World War. 

Truce : the day the soldiers stopped fighting by Jim Murphy is a non fiction book on the same topic.

Or you can read more about the Christmas truce on the BBC Sport website here.

Valentine Joe by Rebecca Stevens also uses the device of a child visiting the war graves with a grandfather to frame the story.  

Things I didn’t know:

• That the English national anthem God save the King (back then) was based on a German tune, and the Germans sang a hymn Heil Dir im Siegesktanz to the same tune in the trenches.

• That the English Government banned all “alien” music, which included Mendelsohn’s Wedding march. (So I suppose you couldn't have it played at your wedding!) 

• That in England during WW1, German shepherd dogs were renamed Alsatians.

Have you read it?

Have you read this book? Let me know what you think!

Truce: the day the soldiers stopped fighting by Jim Murphy

Truce : the day the soldiers stopped fighting by Jim Murphy (Scholastic Press, 2009)

ISBN 978 0 545 13049 3

6 chapters; 116 pages with maps, photographs, posters, paintings and a timeline

Subjects: World War One, France, Christmas, truce, football, non fiction (Year 4-8)

Synopsis

The story of the Christmas truce of December 1914 is well known, but here it is presented in a large format, easy-to-read non-fiction book with plenty of illustrations.

Jim Murphy describes the events leading up to the declaration of war in August 1914, the terrible battles in the latter part of 1914 and the beginning of trench warfare all along the Western Front before he introduces the Truce itself. Seen in context like this, the Christmas Truce underlines the futility of men being sent to war to kill other men with whom they had no personal quarrel, and whom, in fact, they could easily get on with. 

There are some amazing photographs of German and British officers and soldiers mingling in No Man’s Land. “No army photographers were present during the Christmas Truce, so most of the photos of the event were taken by amateurs and are dark and a little out of focus.” (pg 74).  

Reviews:

There are excerpts from several reviews on Jim Murphy's website here, and a fuller review on The Children’s War blog: “Truce is a wonderful book that not only tells the story of the unofficial Christmas Truce of 1914 during World War I, but also gives a coherent, thorough history of the events leading up to the hostilities and just what those terrible first months of war was like in the trenches. “

Author’s website

Jim Murphy is the author of more than 30 books about American history. You can read more About the Author on his website

There are also some Questions and answers (What were you like as a kid? Did you know you wanted to be a writer when you were growing up? Where do your book ideas come from?)

Other books you might like:

War game by Michael Foreman and When the guns fall silent by James Riordan both cover the story of the Christmas truce and football games. 

NZ links

There have been many re-enactments of the Christmas truce football games planned for the centenary in December 2014. In Wellington, young players from schools across the city gathered for a tournament in the presence of the NZ Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae, the British High Commissioner and representatives from the German and French embassies. 

The British High Commissioner said that such events were taking place all over the world, "like a giant Mexican wave". He also made the interesting comment that it was rare for representatives from the British, German and French governments to gather together to commemorate the war.

Of course another re-enactment occurs in the Sainbury's Christmas ad - which also raises interesting questions about whether it's appropriate to merge marketing and commemoration like this - or whether it's to be commended as a way of helping people to remember (with profits going to charity.) 

Remember the peace makers

Or do we? Read a thought-provoking article here about Why no one remembers the peace makers. 

Sainsburys Christmas ad

War game by Michael Foreman

War game by Michael Foreman (Arcade Publishing, c1993)

ISBN -1-55970-242-7

68 pgs (unnumbered); no contents page, but 3 short chapters (The kickoff, The adventure, To the front) and one long chapter (No-man’s-land.)

Subjects: World War One, football, Christmas, armistice, truce, junior fiction (Year 5-8)

Four boys from the same village in Suffolk - Will, Lacey, Billy and Freddie – dream of playing soccer for England, but instead they sign up in August 1914 to go to war. Life in the trenches is miserable and the war shows no sign of ending. Then on Christmas Day, a miracle happens. British and German soldiers start to sing carols, the Germans put up lighted Christmas trees and both sides meet in the middle to exchange Christmas wishes. A game of football starts and for a while, the young men make up two opposing sports teams, not two sides at war.

The book contains lots of full page illustrations, with some small fact boxes and a few reproductions of newspaper articles and advertisements. The endpapers contain examples of recruiting posters.

Make sure you look at the dedication to the author’s four uncles who died in the Great War.

There is a fascinating website about the Christmas truce here. It has been put together by two English journalists who are encouraging volunteers to search through old newspapers and local archives for details of the 1914 Christmas truce (which took place all along the lines, and was larger than just this one football match.)

Reviews:

There is a short review of the book on the Booktrust website. 

Questions:

What made boys like Will, Lacey, Billy and Freddie decide to join up?

What did they expect the war to be like? When did they realise they might be wrong? What was it like?

The last four pages contain only pictures, no words. What do you think happens at the end? Why did Michael Foreman choose to finish the book like this? If you wanted to write some final words to go with the pictures, what would they be?

Information about the author:

http://www.walker.co.uk/contributors/Michael-Foreman-2741.aspx

http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0,,1000010989,00.html

http://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/author/1043/Michael-Foreman.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/07/michael-foreman-general-children-illustrator

Michael Foreman is primarily an illustrator, but his book War boy : a wartime childhood tells of growing up (he was born in 1938) in an English fishing village during World War Two. It is followed by After the war was over. He has also illustrated two other war stories, Billy the kid and Farm boy (both by Michael Morpurgo.) His very first book, The General, is an anti-war story (written in 1961 during the Cold War) about General Jodhpur who suddenly notices the beauty of grass, flowers and nature when he falls off his horse, and decides to concentrate on peace, not war, from then on. 

Illustration from The General (1961) 

Other books you might like:

The duck in the gun by Joy Cowley has a similar anti-war message to The General.

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo also shows the pressure put on young men to join up.

One of the letters in Harry and the Anzac poppy by John Lockyer describes the misery of being in the trenches on Christmas Day, longing for home, with nothing for dinner except bully beef stew.

Near the end of War game, Will finds himself in a shell hole with a German soldier. Read The red poppy by David Hill for another similar encounter.

Football in war:

• More on football from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission: http://www.cwgc.org/glorydays/flash.html

"Football has a long history, and some of it is tied up with war. In 1914, when the First World War broke out, football was the most popular national sport, especially with young men just the right age to fight for their country. Entire football teams joined up to fight together, and some died together too.

Many footballers joined up in the Second World War too, and many lost their lives.

This site tells some of their stories and looks at how the Commonwealth War Graves Commission remembers them by recording their details and looking after their graves and memorials."

• There are plans to re-create the Christmas truce football game on Boxing Day 2014 at Messines. It has recently been announced that David Beckham may be called out of retirement to lead the English side against a German team. 

New Zealand connections:

When war was declared in August 1914, many people thought it would be over by Christmas. Men from New Zealand and Australia hurried to enlist so they didn’t miss out. They knew it would take weeks to get there by ship and worried that the fighting would be finished by the time they arrived, but in fact it dragged on for four more years.

Frank Duncan and Company. Postcard. Christmas greetings from New Zealand. [Album of postcards donated by the Hurley family. 1905-1920].. Ref: Eph-B-POSTCARD-Vol-17-010-1. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22506829

For the first Christmas of the war, 17-year-old Princess Mary (daughter of King George V) sent all the troops a Christmas gift: a brass tin containing tobacco, sweets, pencils, a card and a picture of her. You can read more about the Christmas tins on the Museum Victoria site. 

This one belonged to Hami Grace, whose story is told on pg 22 of Anzac Day: the New Zealand story in the section called “Maori in the Great War”.

If you go to the National Library website and search on ”Christmas” and “war”, then filter the results by type (Images) and date (1910s), you will find some photographs of wartime Christmas celebrations.

New Zealand Commander curves the turkey on Christmas Day, Chateau Segard, 1917. RNZRSA :New Zealand official negatives, World War 1914-1918. Ref: 1/2-013034-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22904056

The Christmas football game is not the only occasion when soldiers from opposing sides met in a temporary truce. In May 1915, a ceasefire was arranged at Gallipoli so both sides could bury their dead (see pg 15 of Anzac Day: the New Zealand story in the section called “A long, tough campaign”.) One story goes that only Australian soldiers who were over six foot (1.8m) tall were chosen for this job, so the Turks would think that all the Australians were that big.

The bodies were lying out in the open on no-man’s-land and it was hard to dig graves in the rocky ground, but the work was lightened by the fact that the men could walk around freely in the open for once without having to worry about being hit by snipers or shells. Soldiers from each side talked together (in sign language if they didn’t have a common language) and swapped cigarettes and food. At the end of the day, they went back to their own trenches and the war started up again.

Armistice day, Gallipoli, Turkey. Powles family :Photographs. Ref: PA1-o-811-23-3. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22861242

• Michael Foreman tells an intriguing story about why British soldiers are known as “Tommies” – after a soldier named Thomas Atkins - although a bit of Internet research reveals that there are conflicting theories as to where the name originated. The soldiers’ nicknames for each other are also shown in Ataturk’s famous speech on the Johnnies and the Mehmets (see pg 35 of Anzac Day: the New Zealand story in the section with that title.)