Christmas Mutiny : A Story of War and Peace, of What Happened and What Could Have Happened

"What would happen, I wonder, if the Armies suddenly and simultaneously went on strike and said some other method must be found of settling the dispute?" --Winston Churchill, November 1914 In December of 1914, soldiers along the battlefront laid down their arms and observed a Christmastime truce. That much is true. They buried their dead, sang and drank together, roasted pigs and rabbits they had caught, and had bicycle races. And there was more than one football game. The first part of The Christmas Mutiny is as close as I can manage to what really happened, allowing for dramatic license. I wanted to have a diverse cast of young characters, so I allowed an American pilot to be forced down near the front, a Turkish observer to be present among the Germans, and so on - they weren't there, but they could have been. The second part of the book is something very different. It tells a story of what might have happened. It's not the only way things might have happened, and maybe I'm wrong and it couldn't possibly have happened the way I describe. You may certainly feel free to disagree. If you feel so strongly that you want to write your own version, I'd be very happy to read it.