History & favourites | moments in time: The Christmas Truce of 1914
Leading up to Christmas 1914, the first-holiday season since the start of the first world war, Pope Benedict XV called for a truce on both sides to celebrate Christmas. This was refused by warring countries however, along the western front there was some short-lived ceasefire and unofficial truces.
On Christmas Eve British and German soldiers sang Christmas carols to one another across enemy lines. On Christmas Day allied forces saw German soldiers leave their trenches and cross no man’s land, fearing this was a trap the allies were sceptical until they saw the Germans were unarmed. The two camps met at No Man’s Land, shook hands, collected their dead, exchanged gifts and there are even reports they played football. This was not the first time there was an unofficial truce but would be one of the lasts.
The Christmas truce happened relatively early in to the war and any attempts at a truce the next year was quashed by officers. Even if officers hadn’t intervened, the hostility between the allied and central powers had grown, too much blood was shed for friendly fraternisation, the old ways of war where chivalry was a custom was over. Europe had entered a new age of warfare.
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