When the guns fell silent: Christmastruce paused a terrible war
It was an extraordinary moment in history, when thousands of soldiers laid down their weapons for a few hours, or even days, to sing together and swap gifts with enemy units.
The French called it the Treve de Noel, the Germans the Weihnachtsfrieden, to the British it was the Christmas Truce.
Peaceful and sometimes friendly interactions between opposing forces was a regular feature in quiet sectors of the Western Front in the first few months of the war, giving soldiers the opportunity to exchange prisoners and collect their wounded or dead.
Many German soldiers had lived in London before the war, and would shout out requests in English for the latest football results or other news.
But on Christmas Eve 1914 a more extensive ceasefire began to develop, spreading along the Western Front.
It began when German soldiers placed candles on their trenches and on Christmas trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas carols.
The British responded by singing carols of their own. The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other.
By Christmas Day, 100,000 soldiers from the German, British and French armies were taking part in unofficial ceasefires.
Captain Robert Miles, of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, recalled in a letter published in his local paper: “We are having the most extraordinary Christmas Day imaginable.
A sort of unarranged and quite unauthorised but perfectly understood and scrupulously observed truce exists between us and our friends in front.
“The thing started last night – a bitterly cold night, with white frost – soon after dusk when the Germans started shouting ‘Merry Christmas, Englishmen’ to us.
“Of course our fellows shouted back and presently large numbers of both sides had left their trenches, unarmed, and met in the debatable, shot-riddled, no-man’s-land between the lines.”
He went on to say the two sides swapped cigarettes and chatted, adding: “Not a shot was fired all night.”
Many accounts from the time also mention football matches being played.
Alfred Anderson, of the Black Watch, who lived to be the last known surviving Scottish veteran of the war, was stationed in a farmhouse away from the front line, but vividly recalled the silence of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
He later said: “We all went outside the farm buildings and just stood, listening.
“All I’d heard for two months in the trenches was the hissing, cracking and whining of bullets in flight, machine gun fire and distant German voices.
“But there was a dead silence that morning, right across the land as far as you could see.
“We shouted ‘Merry Christmas’, even though nobody felt merry. The silence ended early in the afternoon and the killing started again.
“It was a short peace in a terrible war.”
In some sectors, the truce lasted through Christmas Night, and in some cases even until New Year’s Day.
The 1914 truce was not repeated in later years. Commanding officers gave orders specifically banning fraternisation, and the bitter losses of 1915 made both sides less likely to want to be friendly.