Today's guest entry comes from a friend Claudio Ceolin. It's a great Advent and Christmas story about peace at a time of war. It reminded of me of the wise words from the poem by Thomas Hardy titled, "The Man He killed." This is the final stanza, "Yes; quaint and curious war is! / You shoot a fellow down / You'd treat if met where any bar is, / Or help to half-a-crown." "Silent Night" and the Christmas Truce of 1914 The First World War (1914-1918) was a horrific and unnecessary conflict in which approximately 10 million soldiers perished. But during the Christmas Truce of 1914 large numbers of British and German troops disobeyed orders, put aside their weapons and fraternized in no-man's land among the trenches. Smaller numbers of French and Belgian soldiers did the same. It began on Christmas Eve and was mostly initiated by German infantry lighting candles on small Christmas trees placed on their parapets and singing "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht" ("Silent Night"). Soon many troops from …