Imagine dying in a battle that occurred after the war ended but before the news reached the frontline.
this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
121 points (99.2% liked)
Showerthoughts
41350 readers
934 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I think about the battle of New Orleans during the war of 1812 a lot for that exact reason. The war was over for weeks and they had no idea. Over 300 people died and thousands of casualties for nothing. To make matters worse, it made Andrew Jackson popular
Imagine being isolated and not believing the news for months like the Spanish soldiers in the Philippines
There was one weird agreement. During WW1, the Pope declared that a Christmas ceasefire should happen. Obviously, the Pope has no such power in these matters and the diplomats around the world failed to turn the Popes wish into any real ceasefire.
But then, a bit of Christmas magic happened. It turns out that WW1 soldier conditions were so shit, that many soldiers wanted to go against orders and proceed with the Christmas ceasefire anyway (as an act of rebellion against their commanders).
Legend has it that soldiers picked Still Nacht (aka: Silent Night), it being one of the few bilingual Christmas Carols. If both sides in the trenches started to sing the song, you knew it was safe to partake in the ceasefire, allegedly with another confirmation of Oh Come All Ye Faithful (another Christmas carol).
This all proves one thing. It's not the leaders or diplomats that really matter per se with ceasefires. It's the soldiers at the bottom. If they refuse to shoot, then the ceasefire will happen. With orders, or (in the Christmas miracle...) sometimes AGAINST orders.
It's not a complete miracle, as some reports of fight / killing still happened during the Christmas Ceasefire. But there are reports of hundreds of thousands of French, British, and German soldiers exchanging Christmas gifts (coffee and other trinkets), playing soccer and more. So it largely was a success.
And the generals made sure it never happened again.
Sabaton did a song about that:
It's worse than that. Often things pick up significantly because that could be where the lines get drawn. The end of WWI was really bad right after they signed ths treaty but before hostilities ended.
"Let's go, boys! Big push before the finish!"
Last chance to pad those stats and get some sweet medals.
That and I also read reports that people don't want the hassle of bringing back the ammunition. So it's better to just blindly shoot them than you having to stack them on a train
Declaring it to have started in the past would be even more awkward as it would be immediately broken by people unaware that it existed.
All quiet on the western front. Tells the story of exactly this.
Came here to say this. The recent movie was a solid adaptation of the book too.
What no it wasn’t
Such is the end of All Quiet on the Western Front
Sadly though, there are situations where things go like: "Yeah it's ceasefire and all that, but we're going to KEEP SHOOTING anyway." Just search news articles for "ceasefire violated" and you'll see what I mean.
To some governments, ceasefire agreements seem to follow the opt-in logic. "Yeah, we've got this agreement, but it's opt-in, so feel free to carry on as usual."