Goodbye pumpkin spice-flavored everything; the Christmas commercials have begun. A trip to my local grocery store reveals an entire aisle dedicated to red and green—scented candles, greeting cards, rustic welcome mats with phrases like “Let you heart be merry.”

“But it’s only November,” you might say. “Let’s all just slow down and enjoy all the great November holidays.”

Great November holidays? Like Thanksgiving? I’m going to have to stop you right there, because there’s one November holiday everyone seems to be forgetting. Veterans Day!

Veterans Day is obviously the best. Forget Thanksgiving, which is based on a somewhat-fictionalized dinner party (there is no evidence they ate turkey). Veterans Day, on the other hand, is totally real. Allow me to tell you the heart-warming story of Veterans Day. On November 11th 101 years ago, Europe had been reduced to ruins after the most destructive war they had ever seen—World War I. On that day, the world leaders convened and signed a pact saying, “We are going to end this terrible war.” On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, they decided, everyone was going to stand at attention and observe a two-minute respectful silence. They were going to remember all the sacrifices made during World War 1, and afterwards they were going to stop fighting. It worked, and the event has been remembered ever since in parades, TV shows like Downton Abbey, and even novels.

On the topic of novels, I have a gripe. I am a novelist myself, and I find it ironic that hundreds of novels dramatize the violence of WWI, yet only a few show us the non-violence of WWI. It was a war where a soldier once sprinted into an enemy trench just to gift them a chocolate cake; it was a war where enemy soldiers disobeyed direct orders just to play soccer together; it was a war where opposing armies dropped their weapons for a month-long Christmas party.

So how come nobody tells these hidden stories?

Non-violence is even more subversive than the comforting narrative of good versus bad. Given the state of our world, we need these hopeful stories more than ever.

Hi. I’m Ryan Byrnes, author of the historical fiction novel Royal Beauty Bright, which I wrote in high school. That’s me doing some research below.

At a time when teens are expected to worry about prom, senior photos, and graduation, I visited the research library at the National World War I Museum and Memorial to pore through their archives. After reading some of the surprisingly hopeful stories of WWI, I felt deeply moved to pick up a pen and start working on a novel to spread the message. My initial outline for the novel is pictured below; if you squint close enough, you might seem some spoilers.

I read about nurses who served all soldiers regardless of their affiliation. I read about candy-makers who sent millions of chocolates the troops because it was the only trade they knew. I read about charity drives to encourage the adoption of French orphans who wandered the countryside barefoot. But the most bizarre topic I read about was the surprising amount of nonviolence in the war.

Yes, that’s right. During night patrols, when two soldiers from opposing armies would accidentally cross paths, they would pretend they couldn’t see each other and keep walking. Soldiers referred to this as a “live and let live” policy. Soldiers would also engage in “ritual” battles, where they would be ordered to attack but would purposely miss each other, instead aiming at the dirt. In some instances, British soldiers learned that their German enemies used to be their neighbors in London, and they chatted casually about sports, exchanging addresses so they could visit each other after the war. These episodes of nonviolence grew more frequent until coming to a head on Christmas Eve, 1914, when thousands of British and German soldiers lost the will to fight altogether.

Yes, that’s right. Soldiers on both sides, British, French, Russian, and German, essentially went on strike during Christmas 1914. They dropped their weapons and threw a giant party on the battlefield, where they exchanged gifts, drank, and played soccer. Normally this behavior would be punished, but when thousands of soldiers suddenly joined in, there were too many to punish.

By now, the site of the truce has returned to well-tended farmland surrounded by polite Flemish natives. In the fields, a monument of a German and a Brit shaking hands stands erected to the memory of the truce. When in the midst of conflict, people look back to this episode to justify their hope that peace can begin at any moment, with any person.

After completing my research, I spent my final two months of high school pounding away at the keyboard until I had drafted my novel, Royal Beauty Bright, which describes the truce through the eyes of a nurse, three refugee sisters, the owner of a candy store, and a man with autism. My publisher and I have worked very hard to tell the most vivid story we can about regular people trying to do good in an irregular time.

All author proceeds for this book will go to the Immigrant and Refugee Women’s Program, a nonprofit that teaches immigrants and refugees to read, write, and speak English. This book was meant to be a holiday gift to readers; I hope it is enjoyed! Thank you to the blog for hosting this guest post. Happy Holidays everyone!

You can view the book on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Royal-Beauty-Bright-Ryan-Byrnes/dp/1943075603

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