In the first few months of WWI, people were saying it would all be over by Christmas. Commanding officers, soldiers, analysts, the media, the public. I’ve been reflecting on that catchcry this week.
When studying the war in high school, I couldn’t understand how anyone truly believed it. With the benefit of hindsight it seemed impossible to imagine the war would have ever been over by Christmas 1914.
As a history student, I’ve learnt a lot about the war in the years since that class. I came to better understand that belief but I didn’t comprehend its significance until this year. I understand now that the 1914 catchcry wasn’t just about military arrogance, naivety, or a commitment to out-dated models of warfare. It was also about hope, about maintaining morale on the front lines and at home. It was a necessary coping strategy.
This year we’ve all be using the same strategy, particularly as we went in lockdown. We set internal deadlines to get us through. Every conversation about the pandemic seems to come back to when it will end. As the year has continued and many of those early assumptions have been vanished, we all hold onto the idea of Christmas and all that it symbolises. In Australia, the Christmas of 2019 was marred by the horrendous bushfire crisis. My family spent Christmas Eve with our community packing meals and presents for the firefighters' Christmas breakfast. We had been looking forward to actually celebrating this year. So we tell ourselves that surely by Christmas restrictions will have eased, the domestic borders will have opened, and gatherings will be permitted… Even if we logically know the pandemic is inherently unpredictable and that such deadlines are unreliable, we hold onto them because that belief gets us through the current crisis.
WWI obviously wasn’t over by Christmas, but they did have the Christmas truce. Maybe we can aim for that.