Messines ( Mesen) : statue by Andrew Edwards depicting British and German soldiers shaking hands during World War One Christmas Truce on Flanders front line
(Browse the collection : West Flanders Province time lapse and video stock footage
It was decided that the right location should be the Belgian town of Mesen, also known by its French name Messines, the closest town to what has become the most well known site of the Christmas Truce at Ploegsteert or “Plugstreet” as it was nicknamed by the troops. No Man’s Land ran directly around the town and was occupied by German troops throughout the war. Already located in the town are the Irish Peace Field and the Peace Village and it seemed the appropriate site for the statue.
Christmas Eve 1914, the Great War was in full and terrible swing with many thousands of lives lost. Trenches were gouged into the land for hundreds of miles to form the Western Front. We can’t possibly understand the misery of those cold, wet, wretched men as they contemplated that first Christmas at war. But on Christmas Eve something unexpected happened all along the line of the Western Front. After mercilessly slaughtering each other just hours earlier, men laid down their arms and embraced Christmas together.
The symbolic Christmas truce of 1914 wasn’t just about football, of course. The majority of the 100,000 British, French, Belgian and German soldiers who lowered their weapons and emerged from the trenches simply talked, told jokes and swapped keepsakes.
File names, codec and sizes | ||
mestru02_fhd | mestru02_5K+ | mestru02_web |
Mov ProRes 422 HQ | mov ProRes 422 HQ | H264 Mp4 |
220 Mo | 2,18 Go | 12,9 Mo |