Perhaps the most poignant and moving sound of Christmas is the voice of children. We hear the wonder and delight in their merry voices, enjoying the wonders of snowfall or laughing over games. The sound of children singing at Christmas is angelic, whether in a humble church Christmas pageant or in a much more professional setting, such as the Vienna Boys Choir.

But what about when children sing of war?  What about when children experience war?

In 1915, Claude Debussy wrote a carol about children who had lost their homes to war.

Debussy (1862-1918) was one of the great French composers at the turn of the twentieth century.  He is known for his uniquely colorful harmonic style, often labeled as Impressionist, though he rejected the term.  Among his most famous works are La Mer and Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun). Unfortunately, the last years of his life were marked by a losing battle to cancer, and he passed away at the age of 55, while Paris was under siege by both German artillery and what became known as Spanish Influenza.

Debussy lived much of his adult life in Paris, including those final years when his beloved France was ravaged by war.  Recall that by the writing of this carol, World War I had been dragging along for a year and a half.  Most of that war was fought on French soil.  In August 1914, the German Army pounded its way through Belgium and then turned south into France, reaching just twenty miles from Paris.  The German Army’s wanton ravaging of the land and its people led to the historical moniker, “The Rape of Belgium.” By the end of 1914 a new, hideous form of warfare had emerged: industrially armed trench warfare.  For the next three years the majority of the war, between Germany and its Central Powers allies versus France and its allies, would be fought on French soil.  From poison gas to tanks, machine guns, and zeppelins, this was a hellish, devastating conflict, and much of it played out within just 100 miles of Paris.  Indeed, France itself lost as many as 1.7 million people, or 4.5 percent of its population, in the four years of war.

Debussy’s Christmas for Children Who No Longer Have a Home (trans. Stokes) is the tale of homeless children who sing with sadness and indignation.  You can listen to it here and the full text is below.

The children wail at their loss: “We have no houses any more!  The enemy has taken everything … even our little beds!”  We are reminded of how vulnerable children are.  French children from farms and villages and small cities across France had lost their homes, their schools, and even their parents in the battles: “Daddy’s at the war, and poor Mommy has died.”

 The German invasion had turned their entire lives upside down:

The enemy have taken everything,
everything, everything,
even our little beds!
They’ve burned the school and our teacher too.
They’ve burned the church and Mister Jesus
and the poor old man who couldn’t escape!

As we listen to, and read, these words, we are reminded of the devastation of war and that it hits the most vulnerable – children and the elderly – among us.  Debussy reminds us that it is not just French children, but also those of other countries invaded by the Central Powers: “Avenge the children of France! The little Belgians, the little Serbs, and also the little Poles! If we’ve forgotten any, forgive us.”

This simple carol reminds us that righteous indignation over injustice is entirely appropriate.  Consider the Psalms that call on God to remember the oppressed and bring justice on oppressors.

May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice!

May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor! (Ps. 7:2, 4)

Debussy’s children call for justice.  They ask God to punish the German army by restricting Christmas:  

Noël, little Noël, don’t visit them,
don’t visit them ever again,
punish them!  … No toys!

Christian just war thinking says that protection of the vulnerable and the punishment of wrong-doing is not simply ethical, it is the fundamental requirement of just statesman and is morally praiseworthy.  In the case of Germany after the war’s end, Berlin and its allies (Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and the constituent states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) did have to take a measure of responsibility for the war through reparations demanded by seven treaties that we collectively today call the Treaty of Versailles.

The prayer of the French children is for victory: “Give victory to the children of France!”  But, it is also a plea for the necessities of life, a plea that echoes our Lord’s Prayer: “Try to give us back our daily bread.”

Perhaps Debussy’s prayer of homeless children will remind us all to pray against aggression, from Russia’s murderous invasion of Ukraine to the sickening killing in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  It also reminds us to pray for all of the vulnerable men, women, and, especially, children that have lost “everything, everything” to the despoliation of war.

Christmas for Children Who No Longer Have a Home (Debussy, trans. Stokes) –

We’ve no houses any more!
The enemy have taken everything,
everything, everything,
even our little beds!
They’ve burned the school and our teacher too.
They’ve burned the church and Mister Jesus
and the poor old man who couldn’t escape!

We’ve no houses any more!
The enemy have taken everything,
everything, everything,
even our little beds!
Of course! Daddy’s at the war,
poor mother died!

Before seeing all this.
What are we to do?
Noël, little Noël, don’t visit them,
don’t visit them ever again,
punish them!

Avenge the children of France!
The little Belgians, the little Serbs,
and also the little Poles!
If we’ve forgotten any, forgive us.
Noël! Noël! And above all, no toys,
try to give us back our daily bread.

We’ve no houses any more!
The enemy have taken everything,
everything, everything,
even our little beds!
They’ve burned the school and our teacher too.
They’ve burned the church and Mister Jesus
and the poor old man who couldn’t escape!

Noël! Hear us, we no longer have our little clogs:
but give victory to the children of France!

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