The 110th Anniversary Of The 1914 Christmas Truce

In August 1914, many of the soldiers on frontline service had expected that after achieving a quick and decisive victory on the battlefield they would be home in time for Christmas. As autumn turned to winter, the exhausted German and Allied troops, realising the war would not be over any time soon, took cover from machine-gun bullets, artillery shells and flying shrapnel in makeshift ditches facing each other. These first temporary constructions were consolidated and linked together, becoming two permanent, interconnected defensive systems. The Western Front was formed. By December 1914, each side had its own fortified trench lines, snaking some 475 miles (760 km) from the coast of Belgium to the border of Switzerland. Belts of barbed wire covered the no-man’s-land between the opposing frontline trenches, making crossing between the two lethal.

By Christmas of 1914, the costly assaults, the static nature of trench warfare, the proximity of the enemy and the particularly cold and wet weather resulted in a degree of mutual respect between the British and German troops, who were all enduring terrible hardships on the Western Front. This regard, together with the arrival of a large number of Christmas gifts from home, created a degree of festive spirit and relaxed discipline. On 24 December 1914, an unexpected moment of humanity broke out in some parts of the Western Front. A series of spontaneous and unofficial ceasefires occurred along sections of the trench systems in Belgium and France. This abrupt, albeit temporary, halt in hostilities came to be known as the Christmas Truce of 1914, bringing a short respite from the terrible suffering of World War One. The truce embodied the irrepressible spirit of the soldiers fighting in appalling conditions, an event immortalised in their diaries, in letters to loved ones at home, and in photos. Christmas Eve brought cold but dry weather across the Western Front. Suddenly atop the German parapets appeared Christmas trees adorned with candles and paper lanterns, followed by the melody of Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht rising from the German trenches. Overcoming their initial bewilderment, the British troops applauded and cheered, shouting out for more. Soldiers on both sides began to sing in unison, trading carols in alternating languages to add to the atmosphere.

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As morning broke on 25 December and the fog lifted, the frozen ground of no-man’s-land sparkled with frost in the brilliant sunlight. On this perfect Christmas morning, something even more remarkable happened. According to some accounts, a German voice cut the silence, uttering: “You no shoot, we no shoot.” Soldiers on both sides lay down their weapons, climbed out of their respective trenches and started to walk into no-man’s-land, around the barbed wire and past the shell holes littered with frozen corpses. They headed cautiously toward the enemy in a sublime act of fraternisation, each soldier regarding it as a unique opportunity to satisfy their curiosity about an enemy they knew they had to defeat in order to save themselves. The Germans approached the British with Christmas trees in their hands, decorated with lit candles. When they met halfway, they shook hands, wished “Merry Christmas” to each other and exchanged gifts of chocolates, tobacco, beer, schnapps, and even champagne. Many had photos of their loved ones with them and showed these to one another. They also agreed to bury the corpses of the fallen that were lying in no-man’s-land. In some cases, not only did they help each other prepare graves, they also organised joint ceremonies.

Then a ball appeared from somewhere. And with this, one of the most iconic moments of World War One came about: a game of football (soccer) played between British and German troops; an act that even today fuels a fascination about the Christmas Truce of 1914. But did an impromptu football match really happen between the barbed-wire entanglements on that Christmas morning? Is there any truth in this fantastic legend that has captured the imagination of every generation since? There is certainly some evidence for these events in letters sent home by soldiers serving in this sector. But some still contend that football matches never happened, rather they were conjured up as a last gasp of the romantic nineteenth-century ideal of ‘gentlemanly’ soldiering, with gallant heroes who confronted their foes face to face. Such scepticism is understandable: no-man’s-land was a mess of churned-up earth, making it difficult to play on, and certainly no-one was going to allow enemy soldiers to go behind their own front line to play. But others assert that football matches and informal kickabouts did take place around Wulverghem, Frelinghien and St Yvon on the Belgium–France border at Christmas. But the question remains, why has football become such a large part of the legend of the Christmas Truce? Quite probably because the idea of a friendly football match played between bitter enemies who were prepared to kill each other with bayonets to decide the fate of Europe provides us with such absurd satire. At the same time, it humanises war; it embodies the way we imagine we might rebel and mock those leaders who had instigated the senseless slaughter but had never themselves experienced the horrors of the war. What can be stated for sure, however, is that by that time interest in football was already a commondenominator between British and German men. The game was played professionally by both, in Britain for the previous quarter of a century and in Germany from the 1890s. And so it was almost inevitable that men on both sides would discuss the game and contrive a ball from tin cans or straw-filled sandbags and take pleasure in kicking it about.

Just how widespread the truce was is hard to say. It was certainly not general, being very much limited to the British– German lines in the Flanders region. But even there many people continued to die during this period. According to military records, forty-one British soldiers were listed as killed in action on the Western Front on 25 December 1914. There is also no evidence to suggest that the truce extended to any part of the French lines, a fact that is quite understandable in the context of the war. On one hand, the French had just started their offensives in Artois and in Champagne; on the other hand, for the French, the Germans were barbarian invaders who were killing citizens and destroying towns and villages on French soil. Memories of the defeat of 1871 and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine were still far too vivid in the French collective memory to allow any kind of fraternization with the detested Germans. And let us not forget that while Christians in western Europe celebrate Christmas between 24 and 26 December according to the Gregorian calendar introduced by Pope Gregory in 1582, no similar truce occurred on the Eastern Front and in the Balkans, as for Orthodox Christians in Serbia and Russia the celebration of Christmas takes place on 7 January, in line with the Julian calendar. Notwithstanding, as 26 December dawned, men returned to their positions, and the fighting resumed along the Western Front.

Following the 1914 Christmas Truce, military headquarters on both sides took strong steps to ensure that no such ceasefire could happen again, believing that fraternisation with the enemy undermined fighting morale and eroded the will to kill. Such measures were hardly necessary. As the carnage continued, brutal developments on the battlefield changed the character of the war, and there were no more thoughts of peace and goodwill to one’s adversaries. By the Christmases of 1915 and 1916 and many millions of deaths later, the horrors of gas warfare, the sinking of Lusitania, the industrial scale of killing at Verdun and at the Somme helped to further demonise the Germans in Allies’ eyes. The guns of World War One were not to fall silent again until the signing of the armistice on 11 November 1918.

One hundred and ten years later, the spirit of the 1914 Christmas Truce is very much alive in the Belgian–French border towns around Ploegsteert. Every mid-December, British, French, German and local re-enactors convene, wearing their Great War uniforms, on a field with recreated trenches next to the Prowse Point Military Cemetery, on the side of the Chemin du Mont de la Hutte, in order to commemorate the historic event and play football.

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